Cabinet approves Rs 1,250 cr as India’s contribution for world’s largest radio telescope project

The gigantic radio telescope network will operate simultaneously from two remote, radio-quiet locations in western Australia near Perth and in South Africa near Cape Town.

New Delhi: India will contribute Rs 1,250 crore in building the world’s largest radio-telescope project that will straddle over two continents while looking at the sky to transform the human understanding of the universe – from its origin to how life came into being.

The Union Cabinet has approved the money as India’s contribution to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project for constructing the gigantic radio telescopes that will operate simultaneously from two remote, radio-quiet locations in western Australia near Perth and in South Africa near Cape Town.

Using cutting-edge technology, including some of the fastest supercomputers in the world, the game-changing project will make it possible to study the universe in exquisite detail, revealing the inner workings of galaxies, providing a better understanding of the black holes and tracking gravitational waves among a whole host of ambitious science investigations.

More than 10 nations, including India, will participate in the mega-science project to build the state-of-the-art instrument.

In a brief press statement, the Department of Atomic Energy said the government approved India’s participation in the SKA international mega science project at a cost of Rs 1,250 crore.

The approval comes nearly two years after SKA Observatory signed a cooperation agreement with the National Centre for Radio Astronomy, Pune on behalf of the DAE, taking India a step closer to become a full member of the global consortium.

Indian radio astronomers led by scientists from NCRA and Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru were part of the SKA project from the early stages of planning, design and execution.

Veteran astronomer Govind Swarup, the first director of the NCRA, was one of the pioneers who proposed the concept of a SKA type observatory in the early 1990s.

Scientists say India’s main contribution in the mega-project will be in developing the software to run the telescope at two different sites and linking them with the headquarters at the Jodrell Bank observatory in the UK.

“India is positioned to supervise the development of the software required to monitor and control the SKA telescopes. This software will issue all the commands necessary to execute astronomical observations – akin to the human body’s neural system. Indian software engineers will also help manage the overall development of SKA software. All this will be executed with significant contributions from and benefits to the software industry in India,” the SKA Observatory said last year.

Nearly 20 Indian institutes are part of an Indian SKA network that are actively involved with the programme.

The telescopes will cover two different frequency ranges, and are named to reflect this. SKA-Mid, an array of 197 traditional dish antennas, is being built in South Africa while SKA-Low, an array of 131,072 smaller tree-like antennas, is being built in Western Australia. At both sites, construction began last year.

The arrays will both be spread across large distances, with the most distant antennas being separated by 150 km in South Africa, and 65 km in Australia.

Taken together, the two sites will represent a massive field of antenna with a total signal collecting area of one square kilometre and hence, the name Square Kilometre Array.