Infopic for the SKAO project

SKAO

Square Kilometer Array Observatory


An international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope with eventually over a square kilometre (one million square metres) of collecting area

ROLE OF THE INSTITUTE FOR DATA SCIENCE


> Partner of the Swiss SKA Consortium

> Member of the SKAO Science and Engineering Advisory Committee

> Member of the European SKA Forum ESKAF

> Coordination of the Swiss SKA Regional Center SRC

> Software for the Swiss SKA Regional Center SRC

Project lead at I4DS: Prof. Dr. André Csillaghy

Partners: EPFL, national consortium, Koegl Space and other industrial partners, international organisation

Funding: SERI/SBFI

Start: 2022
Status: in development
Commissioning expected in 2028


Keywords: radio astronomy, data science, SKAO

SUMMARY

The Square Kilometer Array Observatory is the biggest among the new generation of large radio telescopes currently in development. It is part of an encompassing endeavour to study fundamental questions in cosmology, such as how the very first stars and galaxies have been formed just after the big bang, the nature of dark energy and the vast magnetic fields which permeate the cosmos, and even one of the greatest mysteries known to humankind: Are we alone in the Universe?

The new telescopes will deliver huge amounts of data. However, they will not come ready to use. They will be distributed from several regional centres throughout the globe. The Institute for Data Science coordinates the Swiss development process of the regional center near us.

We also work on the development of data pipelines, workflows and data analysis methodologies for the science data products as well as for the SKA Regional Centers. All of this happens long before the first data will be recieved.

PEOPLE @I4DS WORKING ON SKAO

Prof. Dr. André Csillaghy

Head Institute for Data Science

Simon Felix

Software Engineer

Lukas Gehrig

Software Engineer

Pascal Herzog

Software Engineer

Katja Lapadula

Project Finance Controller

Dr. Rohini Joshi

Project Lead SKACH

Prof. Dr. Martin Melchior

Vice Head Institute for Date Science

Andreas Wassmer

Software Engineer

PEOPLE @FHNW WHO WORKED ON SKAO BEFORE

  • Dr. Rohit Sharma
  • Christoph Vögele

STUDENT PARTICIPATION

– Simulating the light from Big Bang for the Square Kilometer Array

OPEN RESOURCES AND RESULTS

Presentation at the Swiss SKA Days 2021, Rohit Sharma

download pdf

Presentation at the Swiss SKA kick-off meeting 2021, Simon Felix

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Presentation at the Swiss SKA kick-off meeting 2021, Hanna Sathiapal

download pdf

IMAGES

An artist's impression of SKA at night

An artist’s impression of SKA at night. Credit: SKA

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope. It will consist of thousands of dishes and up to a million low-frequency antennas situated in South Africa and Australia, eventually covering over a square kilometer of collecting area.