World’s largest telescope to be built in Calgary
Posted Jun 29, 2011 2:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Scientists at the University of Calgary may soon have the ability to tell if there’s life on other planets, provided their telescope becomes a reality.
A team of local researchers are taking the lead on an international project, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a project that would be the world’s largest radio telescope.
The tool would be so powerful that it would be able to detect an airport radar on a planet 50 light years away.
Canadian lead researcher Dr. Russ Taylor says reaction has been positive from the scientific community.
“We’ve been working together on this project now for ten years to try and get the resources together to build it,” he says.
“We’re giving ourselves four years to finish the design and work with industry on the design and we plan to roll out the first bits of it in 2016,” says Taylor.
The total building cost of the telescope would be an unprecedented $2-billion.
Researchers from the twenty countries involved in building the project plan to meet in Banff next week to discuss the next stage in the preconstruction phase.
According to the University of Calgary, radio telescopes can see much more than optical telescopes.
It also has to be built far from major metropolitan centres to avoid any interference from radio, TV, radar and other radio devices.
