The Square Kilometre Array project has been all over the radio (and air) waves during the past few days, and KAREN is there.

The greatest bid yet

The New Zealand and Australian governments have joined forces to bid for the $3.1 billion SKA project, and KAREN will be there to support it. The SKA will comprise 5000 radio dishes in distant locations and linked by high-speed, supercommunications networks such as KAREN to form one giant radio telescope. Combined these dishes effectively comprise the world's biggest telescope, with the ability to observe celestial objects in distant galaxies and look back in time to the emergence of the universe. The scale of this project is incredible and will be one of the most ambitious science projects ever undertaken.

In the May issue of hyphen we announced Auckland University of Technology's radio astronomy site at Warkworth one of the winners of the MoRST Hardship fund. This fund, announced as part of Budget 2008, supports the connection of remote university and Crown research institute locations to KAREN. We are continuing to work with AUT on connectivity options.

Professor Sergei Gulyaev, from Auckland University of Technology, was one of the first New Zealand science leaders to be awarded funding through the KAREN Capabilty Build Fund. This funding enabled Sergei to participate as an equal partner in Trans-Tasman collaboration radio astronomy research - research that has paved the way to this recent development.

SKA in the news