Work starts on world’s largest radio telescope

04 Nov 2013 Work starts this week on the next phase of development for what will soon be the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope - the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Project. The latest stage of the project will see the UK taking a major role in contributing to the overall final design of the world's largest radio telescope. The SKA will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe by detecting radio waves with unprecedented sensitivity and image fidelity, helping answer key questions in astrophysics and astronomy, such as the role of dark energy and dark matter in our Universe, and possibly even one of mankind's biggest questions: are we alone? SKA will consist of thousands of dishes and literally millions of linked radio wave receptors located in Australia and in Southern Africa and their combined signals will create a telescope with a collecting area equivalent to a dish of about one square kilometre. SKA is now entering the detailed-design phase, in which detailed design work and concept selection will take place. During 2013 the SKA Organisation, which manages the global project from its offices at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, invited proposals from research organisations and industry partners for the design stage. As with other global research projects of this magnitude, such as the development of the Large Hadron Collider, the SKA has been broken down into various modules called 'work packages'. Each of these will be managed by a consortium of international experts.