Square Kilometre Array Worlds Largest Telescope

 The Square Kilometer Array Astronomical Observatory (SKAO) committee recently held a meeting. During the meeting, the council has approved the establishment of the world's largest radio telescope.

Highlights:

♦ The Square Kilometer Array Observatory is a new intergovernmental organization. It is dedicated to radio astronomy. Its headquarters are in the UK.

♦ Currently, the Square Kilometer Array Observatory is composed of organizations from ten countries, namely Canada, China, Australia, India, New Zealand, Italy, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

♦ Usually, Radio telescopes can be used to detect invisible gas, and it has the potential to reveal areas of space that may be covered by cosmic dust. In this respect, it is different from conventional optical telescopes.

♦ The square kilometre array is the largest radio telescope in the world. The telescope will be established in Africa and Australia.

♦ The installation of the telescope will take ten years. SKAO will be responsible for the operation, maintenance and construction of the telescope. Since, the discovery of radio signals in the 1930s, astronomers have been using radio telescopes. 

♦ They use it to detect radio waves emitted from different objects in the universe. However, after World War II, the field of radio astronomy developed.