Join guest seminar speaker Evan Keane, Trinity College Dublin, as he gives his talk on
SKA Ireland
The Square Kilometre Array is a scientific mega project, the next generation radio astronomy observatory. It is currently under construction in two remotes sites - one in the Karoo in South Africa and one in the Murchison in Western Australia.
I will overview the scientific goals of the SKA Observatory and show recent highlights from its ongoing construction. SKA-Low (the Australian component), with 4 stations of the eventual 512 now complete has already well surpassed the performance of the Irish LOFAR station and next year will surpass the LOFAR core, before continuing to make order-of-magnitude strides in capabilities.
I will also describe SKA Ireland, a group consisting of members from 17 institutions on the island, which advocates for Ireland to join the SKA project. I will give the views of the group and look forward to hearing the views of the community in Maynooth.