Maltese scientists have just finalised a prototype radio telescope that will form part of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world’s biggest scientific facility of the 21st century, which is being developed by researchers from 16 countries.

Scientists from the University of Malta’s Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy have invented a new kind of antenna, capable of observing large patches of the sky instantaneously.

“We are now working on trying to establish the antenna’s sensitivity to receiving signals from a very wide field of view, in the same way the field of view of a camera works.

“Initial results from the array are looking extremely promising,” ISSA director Kristian Zarb Adami said.

Patented in 2016 and funded with €200,000 from the Malta Council for Science and Technology, a representative array has been built on the university grounds, and Prof. Zarb Adami, together with researcher Eman Farhat, has been carrying out extensive tests to ensure the antenna array behaves suitably as a radio telescope.

It will shed light on how our universe began, how stars formed, how the galaxies came to be

Spread across Australia and South Africa, the SKA will, once completed in 2020, observe the universe with unprecedented resolution and clarity, shedding light on fundamental questions of how our universe began, how the first stars formed and how the galaxies came to be.

The SKA is in the process of building a radio telescope with over one million antennas connected in an array that can constantly observe the night sky. Each antenna produces data at a rate of approximately 1,000 times the current internet speed. This data is then shipped to a central processing facility with the power of 100 million home computers.

Prof. Zarb Adami said that though SKA had a budget of €650 million, it was constantly seeking to take advantage of newer, cheaper and better technology.

The prototype antenna inv-ented at ISSA is not only 10 times cheaper than the current antennas being proposed for the SKA, but it can be manufactured and deployed in the desert very easily – in the same way as one would roll out a carpet.

“If you’re wondering what the big fuss is about, keep in mind that as we approach the era of ‘the internet of things’, antennas are being put into every device – from a light bulb to a car parking space,” Prof. Zarb Adami said.

“One of the challenges that exists, however, is the different frequency standards, which means devices such as mobile phones usually end up having five or six different antennas. With the new antenna invented at ISSA, this will eventually no longer be the case – now you’ll have one antenna to rule them all.”

For those interested in finding out more about antenna array design for radio telescopes, ISSA is holding a half-day event on Thursday at the Maths and Physics building at the University of Malta, Room MP216, at 9am.

There will be a live demonstration of the drone method for calibrating these arrays.

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