開始建造世界上最大的望遠鏡 - 並開始尋找外星生命等

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Construction of the world’s biggest telescope to begin – and start hunting for alien life and more

The Independent - Andrew Griffin

Tue, December 6, 2022 at 2:05 a.m.

Construction has begun on the world’s biggest observatory, the start of an effort to uncover some of the universe’s deepest secrets.

The SKA observatory is made up of two telescope sites, in South Africa and Australia, with a headquarters in the UK. Across those sites will sit almost 200 dishes as well as 130,000 dipole antennas, like little Christmas trees scattered across the desert.

Together, that equipment will work to make a giant telescope, effectively able to measure across hundreds of thousands of square metres. It will be the biggest science facility in the Earth.

The vast size of the telescope will mean that it will produce eight terabits of data each second – illuminating the cosmos but also providing a challenge for the researchers tasked with making the most of it.

Scientists hope to use that unprecedented technology to look back to the beginnings of the universe and of life, as well as helping to answer the question of whether there might be alien beings elsewhere in the universe.

The idea to make one observatory out of two telescopes was settled on 10 years ago. The two telescopes are known as SKA-Mid and SKA-Low, and the distance between them allows the observatory to pick up signals more sensitively than ever before, since they can act as one telescope and pick up a variety of different frequencies.

Construction began with ceremonies on Monday at the remote sites in South Africa and Australia. The first part is expected to finish in 2028, though data should start coming from the telescope before then.

Some of the building will happen on the site of the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa. That telescope has already been used by astronomers to find new information on a variety of objects in the universe – including publishing the most detailed image of our own galaxy, and has found that there are huge structures towering up and underneath our Milky Way.

Other telescopes in South Africa and Australia will be integrated into the final version of the SKA, or Square Kilometre Array.

Work on the SKA began in the early 1990s, when scientists suggested that it would be useful to look right back into the beginnings of the universe, or the Cosmic Dawn. Work on it has brought together a range of different countries from across the world.

Translation

世界上最大的天文台已經開始建設，這是揭開宇宙最深處秘密的努力的開始。

SKA 天文台由位於南非和澳大利亞的兩個望遠鏡站點組成，總部位於英國。 在這些站點上將放置近 200 個碟形天線和 130,000 個偶極子天線，就像散落在沙漠中的小聖誕樹。

這些設備將共同構成一個巨大的望遠鏡，能夠有效地測量數十萬平方米的面積。 它將成為地球上最大的科學設施。

望遠鏡的巨大尺寸意味著它每秒將產生 8 太比特的數據 - 提供宇宙的新信息，但也為負責充分利用它的研究人員帶來了挑戰。

科學家們希望利用這項前所未有的技術來回顧宇宙和生命的起源，並幫助回答宇宙其他地方是否可能存在外星生命的問題。

用兩台望遠鏡建造一個天文台的想法是在 10 年前敲定的。 這兩個望遠鏡被稱為 SKA-Mid 和 SKA-Low，它們之間的距離使天文台能夠比以往任何時候都更靈敏地接收信號，因為它們可以用作為单一個望遠鏡並接收各種不同的頻率。

週一在南非和澳大利亞的偏遠地點舉行了施工儀式。 第一部分預計將於 2028 年完成，不過應該在此之前望遠鏡已開始接取數據。

部分建築將建在南非的 MeerKAT 望遠鏡所在地。 天文學家已經使用該望遠鏡尋找有關宇宙中各種物體的新信息 - 包括發布我們銀河系最詳細的圖像，並發現在我們銀河系的上方和下方有巨大的結構。

南非和澳大利亞的其他望遠鏡將歸納到 SKA 或被稱為 ‘平方千米陣’的最終體制中。

SKA 的工作始於 1990 年代初期，當時科學家們建議直接回顧宇宙的起源或 “宇宙黎明” 會很有用。 它的工作匯集了來自世界各地的一系列不同國家。

       So, the world’s biggest observatory, the SKA observatory has started construction. The whole system will have almost 200 dishes as well as 130,000 dipole antennas. Probably we will know more about our own galaxy and the Milky Way eventually.

Notes:

1. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) (平方千米陣) is an intergovernmental international radio telescope project built in Australia (low-frequency) and South Africa (mid-frequency). The combining infrastructure, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), and headquarters, are located at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom. The SKA cores are being built in the southern hemisphere, where the view of the Milky Way galaxy is the best and radio interference is the least. (Wikipedia)

2. In radio and telecommunications a dipole antenna or doublet (偶極子天線) is the simplest and most widely used class of antenna. A dipole antenna commonly consists of two identical conductive elements such as metal wires or rods. The driving current from the transmitter is applied, or for receiving antennas the output signal to the receiver is taken, between the two halves of the antenna. A common example of a dipole is the "rabbit ears" television antenna found on broadcast television sets. (Wikipedia)