Part of the Worlds Biggest radio Telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA)starts working today.
Its already the biggest, in the world, and will eventually span 4 continents when its finished, then its synthesized appeture
will be as big as a continent.
It was switched on today in Australia, at the moment it only has 36 movable dishes each 12meters in Diam:.
Eventually the Australian part of SKA will be increased to another 60 dishes, (to total 96, 12meter dishes).
Even now it is a very very fast and powerful telescope, and able to survey the skys and collect more information faster than any other telescope...even thought it is less than 10% completed, in world total.
From today it will be looking further out into Space, and probing the origins of stars and galaxies. As well as looking for Black Holes and detecting the Electronic signatures that other life forms may be using. According to the SKA Organisation, once completed, (by 2024) the SKA will be sensitive enough that it will be able to detect an Airport radar, or radio transmissions on a planet located 50 light years away.
When the rest of the Square Kilometer Array is built, added and finished in Africa, added in New Zealand plus America,
the World will have the most powerful fast supersensitive Telescope that will easily be able to not only make new scientific discoverys, but will certainly be able to find any signatures of extraterestrial life, what ever they may be.
I believe that Goverments will have to built a super-fast huge Computer to analyse all the information that the SKA will be
receiving.
For even now the Australian part of SKA is collecting the same information in 5 minutes,
that other Radio scopes (Atacama, New Mexico, Jodrell Bank. etc) have taken 10,000 hours to collect.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12891215http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/05/askap_radio_telescope_opens/
