The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope.

Scheduled to begin construction in 2017, thousands of linked radio wave receptors will be located in Australia and in Southern Africa.

Combining the signals from the antennas in each region will create a telescope with a collecting area equivalent to a dish with an area of about one square kilometre which will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe.

The Square Kilometre Array is a global science and engineering project led by the SKA Organisation, a not-for-profit company with its headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, UK.

SKA Organisation will lead the SKA system design and oversee the detailed design being undertaken within the globally distributed SKA work package consortia.

To accomplish this goal the SKA Office is employing highly qualified scientists and engineers, project managers and system engineers.

We are seeking outstanding individuals for the roles listed here. Benefits of employment include a generous company pension scheme, 30 days holiday per year plus UK public holidays and assistance in relocating to the UK.

Closing date for receipt of applications: 19th July 2013.

For further information about any of our vacancies and details of how to apply please visit the Jobs page.

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Co-hosted in Australia and South Africa, the SKA will be the world’s largest radio telescope. It is being funded by countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas as well as Australia and New Zealand.

“This is a gigantic international science project that will change the way astronomy is done world-wide, and it will be co-hosted here in Australia,” Minister for Science and Research Senator Don Farrell said. “These grants will help Australian organisations to win the opportunity to work with leading international players on the design of the SKA and, by doing so, demonstrate our world-class research and development capabilities.”

The grants are conditional upon the recipients being selected by the international SKA Organisation to undertake SKA work packages, worth around $114 million. An announcement of the successful tenderers will be made later this year.

By awarding these grants, the Government has secured more than $17.5 million in co-investment from the successful organisations.

Importantly, the funding will go beyond the recipients and support collaborative activity with other Australian companies – activity that will engage a breadth of industry from manufacturing to renewable energy.

Full details of the recipients and work-packages are available here.

Media release is available here.

About the SKA

The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. The total collecting area will be approximately one square kilometre giving 50 times the sensitivity, and 10 000 times the survey speed, of the best current-day telescopes. The SKA will be built in Southern Africa and in Australia. Thousands of receptors will extend to distances of 3 000 km from the central regions. The SKA will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth. Construction of phase one of the SKA is scheduled to start in 2016. The SKA Organisation, with its headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, UK, was established in December 2011 as a not-for-profit company in order to formalise relationships between the international partners and centralise the leadership of the project.

Members of the SKA Organisation as of May 2013:

• Australia: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
• Canada: National Research Council
• China: Ministry of Science and Technology
• Germany: Federal Ministry of Education and Research
• Italy: National Institute for Astrophysics
• Netherlands: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
• New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
• Republic of South Africa: National Research Foundation
• Sweden: Onsala Space Observatory
• United Kingdom: Science and Technology Facilities Council

Associate member:

• India: National Centre for Radio Astrophysics

SKA website: www.skatelescope.org

Media contacts for this release. Minister’s office: +61 2 6277 7580

Contact for SKA Australia:
Jerry Skinner, SKA Australia Communications Manager. Email: Jerry.Skinner@innovation.gov.au. Phone: +61 2 6213 6298

Contact for SKA Organisation:
William Garnier, SKA Chief Communications Officer. Email: w.garnier@skatelescope.org. Phone: +44 (0) 161 306 9613 and + 44 (9) 7814 908 932

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Proposals will be peer-reviewed by the e-MERLIN Time allocation Committee, following the procedures of the STFC Panel for Allocation of Telescope Time. Allocation will be made on the basis of scientific merit and technical feasibility alone. During this period approximately 50% of observing time is allocated to 12 large legacy projects and most of the remaining time will be allocated via PATT to standard proposals solicited prior to each observing semester.

e-MERLIN provides high resolution (40-150mas) and high sensitivity (~7-14 µJy in this Cycle-1) imaging at cm wavelengths as well as polarimetry, spectroscopy and astrometry. Cycle-1 observations will commence in September 2013, with some limitations in observing capabilities.

Please see here and www.e-merlin.ac.uk/observe/call_cycle1.html for full information

Contact emerlin@jb.man.ac.uk if you have any queries

About e-MERLIN: e-MERLIN, the UK’s national radio astronomy facility, is operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory by The University of Manchester on behalf of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Its power lies in its combination of the sharpness of view afforded by telescope separations of up to 217km, and its ability to detect very faint signals resulting from the array’s high bandwidth optical fibre connections. By connecting seven large radio telescopes, stretching from Cambridge to Cheshire (including the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank), e-MERLIN is able to produce images with the same detail as the Hubble Space Telescope but at radio rather than visible wavelengths. The signals from the telescopes are brought to Jodrell Bank on a dedicated optical fibre network whose high bandwidth allows the detection of very faint sources of radio emission. At Jodrell Bank 210 Gb of data arrive from the seven telescopes each second. These signals are combined in the correlator, a specialised supercomputer which carries out one thousand million million operations per second. For the signals from each telescope to be accurately combined, they must be synchronised at the level of a few million millionths of a second. The application of these fibre technologies and signal synchronisation techniques have led to e-MERLIN being designated as a pathfinder for what is planned to be the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array.

About the SKA: The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. The total collecting area will be approximately one square kilometre giving 50 times the sensitivity, and 10 000 times the survey speed, of the best current-day telescopes. The SKA will be built in Southern Africa and in Australia. Thousands of receptors will extend to distances of 3 000 km from the central regions. The SKA will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth. Construction of phase one of the SKA is scheduled to start in 2016. The SKA Organisation, with its headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, UK, was established in December 2011 as a not-for-profit company in order to formalise relationships between the international partners and centralise the leadership of the project. Members of the SKA Organisation as of March 2013:

• Australia: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
• Canada: National Research Council
• China: Ministry of Science and Technology
• Germany: Federal Ministry of Education and Research
• Italy: National Institute for Astrophysics
• Netherlands: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
• New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
• Republic of South Africa: National Research Foundation
• Sweden: Onsala Space Observatory
• United Kingdom: Science and Technology Facilities Council

Associate member:

• India: National Centre for Radio Astrophysics

SKA website: www.skatelescope.org

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In front of an invited audience of local and global dignitaries, scientists and engineers, the UK Minister for Universities and Science the Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP recently opened the building which will be home to the team managing the construction, design and scientific output of this groundbreaking telescope.

The SKA Organisation headquarters, located near to, and with views of the iconic Lovell Telescope at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK, will be the central control hub for a global team who, over the next decade, will be building the SKA – the largest radio telescope ever seen on Earth.

UK Minister for Universities and Science the Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP unveiling the commemorative plaque for the SKA’s international headquarters opening ceremony. Credit: SKA

“The Square Kilometre Array is set to be one of the world’s most exciting international science projects, giving us new and unparalleled insights into the universe”, said the UK Minister for Universities and Science the Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP. “The fact that the UK has been chosen to host the project office is recognition of our leading expertise in science, engineering and design. It will give us a leading role in the development and operation of this groundbreaking telescope.”

“The opening of the SKA headquarters at Jodrell Bank means that the world’s largest radio telescope now has a home in the UK – a major milestone for this truly inspirational international science project to explore the origin and evolution of the Universe”, said John Womersley, CEO of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Chairman of the SKA Organisation.

The elegant and modern £3.34 million building, funded by the University of Manchester, is a state of the art facility which will eventually be home to upwards of 60 members of staff, including visiting scientists and engineers.

“The new Office of the SKA Organisation at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank is an ideal place for scientists and engineers to work together to plan the world’s largest radio telescope”, said Professor Stephen Watts, Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester. “It sits alongside world-leading radio astronomy facilities in the Lovell Telescope and e-MERLIN, itself a Pathfinder to the SKA. Together with the hugely successful Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, these offer a real opportunity to inspire people of all ages with this ambitious project to answer truly fundamental questions about the nature of the universe.”

Designed by architects Fielden Clegg Bradley and built by John Turner Construction Group, the building uses numerous environmentally friendly engineering solutions by Capita Symonds to ensure a minimal environmental impact. Natural lighting is provided by the huge glass facade, and the architectural teams have made important efforts to ensure that the ventilation, lighting and heating systems are as energy efficient as possible. Built in just over 6 months, the SKA Organisation office has been in use since November 2012, when the team moved from the Alan Turing Building at the University of Manchester.

The SKA Organisation Headquarters, at Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester, UK, and the Lovell Telescope in the background. Credit: SKA, R. Millenaar (ASTRON/SKA)

“This wonderful new office, which offers our team stunning views of the Jodrell Bank site, including the famous Lovell Telescope, will we hope inspire everyone who works here, and will provide our guests and visiting scientists a truly unique scientific facility to conduct their research and work”, said SKA Director General Philip Diamond. “The limited environmental impact and energy efficiency goals we set with the construction of the project office, are also in line with our long term aims for the entire SKA project.”

The Square Kilometre Array is a radio telescope which will be built in the remote and radio quiet deserts of Australia and Southern Africa. These seemingly harsh locations have been carefully chosen for their remoteness from any possible man made radio interference. The SKA will comprise thousands of radio telescopes, which will be located in these two desert locations, and will also have dishes and antennas spread over thousands of kilometres to create a single giant telescope.

When the faint radio waves, coming from the very edges of our Universe reach the array of radio telescopes, the signals are then combined, using powerful supercomputers which will create a virtual telescope with a total collecting area of one square kilometre. That’s one million square metres, or the equivalent of 140 football fields. This will make the SKA more than 50 times more sensitive than any existing radio telescope on Earth, surpassing even the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The SKA telescope will be attempting to unravel the most profound mysteries of humanity and will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe. It will investigate how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and will even search for life beyond Earth. And scientists believe that the SKA’s unparalleled sensitivity and ability to image such huge portions of the sky at up to 10,000 times to the speed of current survey telescopes will produce detailed information and provide answers to many more fundamental questions about mysteries which are baffling scientists today.

The project is led by the SKA Organisation, a not-for-profit company, which includes multiple countries around the world including Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and the UK. With India also as an associate member, the SKA Organisation is expected to embrace more countries over the coming years. With such a formidable scale, international collaboration is fundamental to this gigantic 21st Century project.

Construction of the SKA is due to begin in 2016 using a phased development approach. This means that scientific output will come even before the project completes and is fully operational in 2024, by which time several thousand combined radio telescopes will be collecting and processing data equivalent to 100 times today’s global internet traffic.

However, even before the SKA comes online, a series of demonstrator telescopes and systems known as pathfinders and precursors, are already operational or under development across the world, paving the way for the kinds of technology which the SKA will need to pioneer to make the huge data available to scientists. These pathfinder and precursor telescopes, in place in Australia, South Africa, across Europe and in America are providing the SKA scientists with vital information relating to the science and technology that will be created and required to make the SKA work at its optimal performance capability.

With so much being learnt from the pathfinders and precursor telescopes, the SKA project is now entering a hugely exciting phase. Research organisations around the world along with leading industrial partners have recently being invited to collaborate and submit proposals on the R&D and design of the telescopes and instrumentation which will become the heart of this epic endeavour. This first round of proposals are expected to be evaluated and assessed at the new SKA offices in July of this year.

“We are now firmly on the journey to create one of the most iconic scientific instruments of the 21st Century!”, said Phil Diamond.

From left to right: John Womersley, CEO, STFC (also Chairman of the SKA Organisation); Dame Nancy Rothwell, President & Vice-Chancellor, The University of Manchester; The Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP, UK Minister for Universities and Science ; Philip Diamond, Director General, SKA Organisation. Credit: SKA

Notes for editors:
• Key dates in the History of the SKA
From 2008 to 2011 inclusive the SKA Project Development Office (SPDO) and staff were based at the University of Manchester on the main campus. The SPDO Director was Prof. Richard Schilizzi.

2 April 2011: UK Consortium including Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester, and the Science and Technology Facilities Research Council (STFC) win bid to house the SKA HQ at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory.

14 December 2011: SKA Organisation is formed as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.

18 January 2012: First face-to-face meeting of the SKA Organisation Board.

18 April 2012: Ground Breaking Ceremony at JBO for the SKA HQ Building.

25 May 2012: Dual site (Australia and South Africa) agreement for the SKA Telescope made by the SKA Organisation.

5 September 2012: Prof. Philip Diamond appointed Director-General of SKA Organisation.

5 November 2012: SKA Organisation moves into the SKA HQ Building at JBO

• About the SKA
The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. The total collecting area will be approximately one square kilometre giving 50 times the sensitivity, and 10 000 times the survey speed, of the best current-day telescopes. The SKA will be built in Southern Africa and in Australia. Thousands of receptors will extend to distances of 3 000 km from the central regions. The SKA will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth. Construction of phase one of the SKA is scheduled to start in 2016. The SKA Organisation, with its headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, UK, was established in December 2011 as a not-for-profit company in order to formalise relationships between the international partners and centralise the leadership of the project.

Members of the SKA Organisation as of March 2013:

• Australia: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
• Canada: National Research Council
• China: Ministry of Science and Technology
• Germany: Federal Ministry of Education and Research
• Italy: National Institute for Astrophysics
• Netherlands: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
• New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
• Republic of South Africa: National Research Foundation
• Sweden: Onsala Space Observatory
• United Kingdom: Science and Technology Facilities Council

Associate member:

• India: National Centre for Radio Astrophysics SKA website: www.skatelescope.org

Contacts:
William Garnier
Chief Communications Officer, SKA Organisation
Email: w.garnier@skatelescope.org
Phone: +44 (0) 161 306 9613
Mobile: +44 (0) 7814 908 932

Sally Catmull
Press Officer, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills
Email: sally.catmull@bis.gsi.gov.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7215 6577
Mobile: +44 (0) 7775 007 120

Aeron Haworth
Media Relations, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
The University of Manchester
Email: Aeron.Haworth@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8387
Mob: +44 (0) 7717 881563

Jake Gilmore
Media Manager, Science and Technology Facilities Council
Email: jake.gilmore@stfc.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1793 44 2092
Mobile: +44 (0) 7970 99 4586

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Meeting of the Board of Directors of the SKA Organisation

SKA Headquarters, Jodrell Bank Observatory, GB

18-19 April 2013

The Directors of the SKA Organisation met at SKA HQ on 18-19 April for the 9th meeting of the Board of Directors.

During the Board meeting, Mrs Linda Rawlings named the main meeting room at SKA HQ as the “Professor Steve Rawlings SKA Board Room” in honour of her late husband. Steve was an inspirational driving force during earlier years of the SKA project and he helped define the key scientific objectives of the project.

Election of officers of the SKA Organisation was held and the following appointments were made for a term of two years: John Womersley, UK (Chair), Jonathan Kings, NZ (Vice-Chair) and Colin Greenwood (Company Secretary). In addition, Michael Garrett, NL, was appointed scientific representative to the Executive Committee of the board. Patricia Vogel, NL, stepped down as outgoing Vice Chair and was thanked for her contributions in that capacity since incorporation of the Company in December 2011.

Dr Simon Berry presented an outline of a share-based funding model for SKA-1 on behalf of the SKA board’s Funding Task Force (FTF). The board approved a number of funding principles and agreed that an appropriate funding model based on science capacity is needed for setting a starting point for funding negotiations.

Dr Jason Spyromilio provided an update on the process of the Request for Proposals (RfP) to engage in detailed design of the SKA; the RfP was released on 11 March 2013 and closes on 10 June 2013. Prof Philip Diamond reported that VAT clearance has been received from HMRC for funds received by UK work package contributors from the UK Member (STFC). This means that no substantive change is needed in the Company’s IP policy and this will be submitted for approval by the Board once outstanding feedback has been received.

Professor Peter Dewdney provided a presentation on the baseline design for SKA-1, which is the starting point for the final design. Dr Spyromilio stated that changes to the baseline design will be informed to a great extent by a series of science assessment workshops during 2013. Dr Joseph Lazio described the first science assessment workshop, held at SKA HQ on 26-28 March 2013; it was attended by 18 leading experts from 10 countries and focussed on the field of Cosmic Dawn – Epoch of Reionisation. Future science assessment workshops will cover continuum observations (9-11 Sep. 2013), “low redshift” hydrogen (23-25 Sep. 2013), and pulsars (date tbc). Additional workshops on Fast Transients and Cosmology are also planned.

Dr Douglas Bock presented a paper on behalf of the Operations Working Group (OWG) on the principles of concepts of operation. This sparked lively and useful debate and the interaction between the work of the OWG and the FTF in areas like observing time policy was noted.

Drs Corrado Perna and Philip Crosby moderated a procurement workshop during the Board meeting. The aim of the workshop was to ensure a common understanding of procurement issues and risks, and to identify a set of procurement principles for SKA-1.

Prof Diamond proposed a revised SKA timeline, which includes a design schedule for completing Critical Design Review by 2016. It was agreed that the SKA Office should continue to develop the revised timeline to take account of feedback from consortia during the RfP and, if possible, incorporate staged deployment of SKA-1 into the plans.

A number of standing committees were established, including the Science and Engineering Committee (SEAC), Strategy and Business Development Committee (StratCom) and Finance Committee. The SEAC will advise the Director-General and the Board on matters related to scientific and technical issues. The StratCom will oversee a range of strategic activities, such as development of a Project Agreement, which will set out the basic principles and goals of the SKA Project. The Finance Committee provides guidance to the Board and the Director General on financial matters.

Prof Diamond stressed that membership of the SEAC and StratCom comprises leading international experts irrespective of national affiliations, but he invited directors to nominate candidates to ensure full geographic representation. Dr Greg Fahlman nominated Maria Karlsson (Finance Officer, Chalmers University, Sweden) as Vice-Chair of the Finance Committee.

Prof Diamond proposed that the Design Consortia Evaluation Panel be chaired by Dr Spyromilio and comprise 3 members from the SKA Board and 3 members from the SEAC, and be supported by Mr Kobus Cloete, SKA Project Manager. He invited the Board to submit their nominations for the Evaluation Panel.

Dr Michiel van Haarlem provided an update on progress developing SKA Hosting Agreements since the last Board meeting.

Dr Ian Corbett provided an update on development of the draft SKA project agreement and reviewed options for future structure and governance of the SKA project; he proposed an inter-governmental agreement as the optimum solution but he noted that a “hybrid” structure, i.e. a legal entity with an overarching inter-governmental agreement, would be quicker to establish. Ms Miriam Roelofs reviewed governance studies undertaken during the preparatory phase of the SKA project and proposed the next steps for establishing future SKA governance, including transferring ownership of the process to the StratCom.

Progress reports were provided by invited guests on SKA-related activities in France, South Korea and Japan. Dr Tony Beasley, Director of NRAO, reported on recent radio astronomy activities in the USA. It was also reported that India is expected to apply for full SKA membership within the next few months.

Finally, the Board endorsed a plan to trademark the SKA brand in all Member countries, plus the EU, USA, Japan and Republic of Korea.

The next Board meeting will be held at SKA HQ around 25 July 2013 (venue and date tbc). An engineering meeting, open to all personnel from SKA Work Package Consortia, SKA committees and workgroups, will be held at SKA HQ on 7-11 October 2013. It is intended to hold a major SKA science meeting in 2014Q2.

John Womersley
Chair, Board of Directors
SKA Organisation
30 April 2013

SKA Board of Directors in front of the Lovell Telescope, Jodrell Bank Observatory. 19 April 2013. Credit: SKA, W. Garnier (SKA)

About the SKA

The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. The total collecting area will be approximately one square kilometre giving 50 times the sensitivity, and 10 000 times the survey speed, of the best current-day telescopes.  The SKA will be built in Southern Africa and in Australia.  Thousands of receptors will extend to distances of up to 3 000 km from the central regions.  The SKA will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth.  The target construction cost is €1,500 million and construction of Phase one of the SKA is scheduled to start in 2016.  The SKA Organisation, with its headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, UK, was established in December 2011 as a not-for-profit company in order to formalise relationships between the international partners and centralise the leadership of the project.

For more information contact:

William Garnier
Chief Communications Officer,
SKA Organisation, UK

Tel: +44(0)161 306 9613
Email: w.garnier@skatelescope.org

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“Today we are honouring individuals who walked the extra mile to improve the lot of humanity and have contributed in elevating our country to great heights among other nations,” President Jacob Zuma said.

The Order of Mapungubwe is South Africa’s highest honour awarded to South African citizens for excellence and exceptional achievement. Dr Fanaroff was recognised for his contribution to astronomy and dedication in raising South Africa’s international stature as a world-class research destination, particularly in securing the African share of the SKA Project.

Since the announcement that South Africa and Africa will co-host the iconic Square Kilometre Array was made on 25 May 2012, Dr Fanaroff and South Africa’s SKA team have received several rewards. Fanaroff has always stressed the huge contribution of his incredibly hard-working and loyal team, and insists that the credit for the successful bid cannot be claimed by one person.

Full release issued by SKA South Africa Project Office available here

Official release from the Department of Science and Technology

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The new image, taken by the e-MERLIN radio telescope array operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, also shows regions of surprisingly hot gas in the star’s outer atmosphere and a cooler arc of gas weighing almost as much as the Earth. e-MERLIN has been designated as a pathfinder for what is planned to be the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

The constellation of Orion is visible to the left of the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank. Betelgeuse is the star at the top left of Orion. The inset shows the new e-MERLIN image of Betelgeuse. Credit: University of Manchester, Anthony Holloway.

Betelgeuse is easily visible to the unaided eye as the bright, red star on the shoulder of Orion the Hunter. The star itself is huge – 1,000 times larger than our Sun – but at a distance of about 650 light years it still appears as a tiny dot in the sky, so special techniques combining telescopes in arrays are required to see details of the star and the region around it.

The new e-MERLIN image of Betelgeuse – published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows its atmosphere extends out to five times the size of the visual surface of the star. It reveals two hot spots within the outer atmosphere and a faint arc of cool gas even farther out beyond the radio surface of the star.

The hot spots are separated by roughly half the visual diameter of the star and have a temperature of about 4,000-5,000 Kelvin, much higher than the average temperature of the radio surface of the star (about 1,200 Kelvin) and even higher than the visual surface (3,600 Kelvin). The arc of cool gas lies almost 7.4 billion kilometres away from the star – about the same distance as the farthest Pluto gets from the Sun. It is estimated to have a mass almost two thirds that of the Earth and a temperature of about 150 Kelvin.

Lead author Dr Anita Richards, from The University of Manchester, said that it was not yet clear why the hot spots are so hot. She said: “One possibility is that shock waves, caused either by the star pulsating or by convection in its outer layers, are compressing and heating the gas. Another is that the outer atmosphere is patchy and we are seeing through to hotter regions within. The arc of cool gas is thought to be the result of a period of increased mass loss from the star at some point in the last century but its relationship to structures like the hot spots, which lie much closer in, within the star’s outer atmosphere, is unknown.”

The new e-MERLIN radio image of Betelgeuse. The image is 1 arcsecond on a side, north is up and east is to the left. The observed frequency is 5.5-6.0 GHz (around 5.2cm wavelength). The image shows details on scales ranging from 60 to 180 milliarcseconds. The colours represent brightness ranging from red at the faintest to white at the brightest. Overlaid as a black circle is the visual size of the star (diameter 45 milliarcseconds). Credit: University of Manchester.

The mechanism by which supergiant stars like Betelgeuse lose matter into space is not well understood despite its key role in the lifecycle of matter, enriching the interstellar material from which future stars and planets will form. Detailed high-resolution studies of the regions around massive stars like the ones presented here are essential to improving our understanding.

Dr Richards, who is based in Manchester’s School of Physics and Astronomy, added: “Betelgeuse produces a wind equivalent to losing the mass of the Earth every three years, enriched with the chemicals that will go into the next generation of star and planet formation. The full detail of how these cool, evolved stars launch their winds is one of the remaining big questions in stellar astronomy.

“This is the first direct image showing hot spots so far from the centre of the star. We are continuing radio and microwave observations to help decide which mechanisms are most important in driving the stellar wind and producing these hot spots. This won’t just tell us how the elements that form the building blocks of life are being returned to space, it will also help determine how long it is before Betelgeuse explodes as a supernova.”

Future observations planned with e-MERLIN and other arrays, including ALMA and VLA, will test whether the hotspots vary in concert due to pulsation, or show more complex variability due to convection. If it is possible to measure a rotation speed this will identify in which layer of the star they originate.

Release available on The University of Manchester and the Jodrell Bank Observatory websites

Notes for editors

About e-MERLIN: e-MERLIN, the UK’s national radio astronomy facility, is operated from the Jodrell Bank Observatory by The University of Manchester on behalf of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Its power lies in its combination of the sharpness of view afforded by telescope separations of up to 217km, and its ability to detect very faint signals resulting from the array’s high bandwidth optical fibre connections. By connecting seven large radio telescopes, stretching from Cambridge to Cheshire (including the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank), e-MERLIN is able to produce images with the same detail as the Hubble Space Telescope but at radio rather than visible wavelengths. The signals from the telescopes are brought to Jodrell Bank on a dedicated optical fibre network whose high bandwidth allows the detection of very faint sources of radio emission. At Jodrell Bank 210 Gb of data arrive from the seven telescopes each second. These signals are combined in the correlator, a specialised supercomputer which carries out one thousand million million operations per second. For the signals from each telescope to be accurately combined, they must be synchronised at the level of a few million millionths of a second. The application of these fibre technologies and signal synchronisation techniques have led to e-MERLIN being designated as a pathfinder for what is planned to be the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array.

About the SKA: The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. The total collecting area will be approximately one square kilometre giving 50 times the sensitivity, and 10 000 times the survey speed, of the best current-day telescopes. The SKA will be built in Southern Africa and in Australia. Thousands of receptors will extend to distances of 3 000 km from the central regions. The SKA will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth. Construction of phase one of the SKA is scheduled to start in 2016. The SKA Organisation, with its headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, UK, was established in December 2011 as a not-for-profit company in order to formalise relationships between the international partners and centralise the leadership of the project. Members of the SKA Organisation as of March 2013:

• Australia: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
• Canada: National Research Council
• China: Ministry of Science and Technology
• Germany: Federal Ministry of Education and Research
• Italy: National Institute for Astrophysics
• Netherlands: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
• New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
• Republic of South Africa: National Research Foundation
• Sweden: Onsala Space Observatory
• United Kingdom: Science and Technology Facilities Council

Associate member:

• India: National Centre for Radio Astrophysics

SKA website: www.skatelescope.org

For more information about this release:

Aeron Haworth, Media Relations
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
The University of Manchester
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8387
Mob: +44 (0) 7717 881563
Email: aeron.haworth@manchester.ac.uk

For more information about the SKA:

William Garnier, Chief Communications Officer
SKA Organisation
Tel: +44 (0) 161 306 9613
Mob: + 44 (9) 7814 908 932
E-mail: w.garnier@skatelescope.org

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“I am pleased to announce that, after an exhaustive international search, Dr Robert Braun has been appointed as the SKA Science Director. He will take up his new role on 13th June, 2013.

Dr Robert Braun has been appointed as the SKA Science Director. He will take up his new role on 13th June, 2013.

Robert comes to us from his position as Chief Scientist of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science. Before CSIRO he worked at ASTRON for 18 years, for the last 4 of which he held the position of Head of the Scientific Staff. In the mid to late 80s he was based at NRAO in Socorro. Robert is one of the world’s experts on interferometry, with deep knowledge of the techniques required to push telescopes to their limit. He has been engaged in SKA activities since its inception in the early 90s; indeed Robert, working with Russ Taylor, edited the first SKA science case in 1999. Robert’s research career has focused on the interstellar and circum-galactic medium of our own galaxy and its nearby and more distant cousins. He is an expert in the study of neutral hydrogen, but also studies the physics of such objects through radio continuum and infrared. Robert is a highly-cited researcher with more than 100 refereed publications.

I would like to extend my profound thanks to Joe Lazio, who has been an excellent SKA Project Scientist, and more recently Acting SKA Science Director. Joe has led and coordinated the scientific side of the SKA for several years; he has been the face of SKA at many meetings has recently overhauled the SKA Science Working Group, and has initiated the new Science Assessment Workshops, which are testing the ability of the SKA baseline design to deliver the science. I look forward to continue working with Joe in the future.”

More on Robert Braun’s webpage

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Date: 5-7 June 2013
Place: Sakata-Hirata Hall (Science South Building), Nagoya University,
Japan
Organizer: SKA-Japan Consortium
Contact: skajp_nagoya2013@ta.phys.nagoya-u.ac.jp

The SKA Organisation has been informed of an SKA East Asian Science Workshop to be held in Nagoya in June 2013. A similar Asian workshop was already held in 2011 as a kick-off discussion to have efficient collaborations among East-Asian countries both in scientific and engineering sides.The aim of the 2013 workshop is to put together the scientific efforts in various fields of astrophysics from East-Asia as well as other countries.

Plenary review talks, oral and poster presentations are planned. Significant time for a deep scientific discussion for each field of astrophysics will also be considered.

Young researchers including PhD students are particularly encouraged to attend the workshop.

SOC:
Tzu-Ching CHANG
Hiroyuki HIRASHITA (Co-chair)
Hiroshi IMAI
Hirotaka ITO
Osamu KAMEYA
Nozomu KAWAKATSU
Jongsoo KIM
Hiroyuki NAKANISHI
Bo PENG
Keitaro TAKAHASHI (Co-chair)
Tsutomu T. TAKEUCHI (Chair)

LOC:
Shinsuke ASABA
Kiyotomo ICHIKI
Daichi KASHINO
Atsuko T. KAWAKITA
Kohei KUMAZAKI
Shohei SAGA
Toyokazu SEKIGUCHI
Yuki SHIBUSAWA
Hayato SHIMABUKURO
Tomoko L. SUZUKI
Tsutomu T. TAKEUCHI (Chair)
Yoshitaka TAKEUCHI
Mikito YAMAMOTO

Invited Speakers:
Minh Huynh (University of Western Australia: Deputy international SKA project
scientist): Summary of the current status of the SKA.
Matt Jarvis (University of Oxford/University of the Western Cape): The AGN session.
Ye Xu (Purple Mountain Observatory): The astrometry session.
Tzu-Ching Chiang (ASIAA): The cosmology and high-z session.
Kyungjin Ahn (Chosun University): The cosmology and high-z session.
Takuya Akahori(Sydney University): The cosmic magnetism session.
Adam Deller (ASTRON: TBC): The pulsar session.

Registration here

21 Apr. 2013: Abstract submission deadline

15 May 2013: Registration deadline
N.B. People who need a visa are encouraged to submit their registration form before 15 Apr. 2013.

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“The SKA is an iconic and global science project and we are excited to be able to assist local industry and institutions with appropriate skills in participation in the initial design phase” said Dr Jasper Horrell, General Manager: Science Computing and Innovation at SKA SA. “This involvement should serve to strengthen the global competitiveness of local organisations in high tech domains, focused on the SKA, but extending beyond radio astronomy”.

Expressions of Interest are invited from registered South African organisations wishing to participate as partners in the SKA South Africa response to the Request for Proposal for the Pre-Construction Phase of the SKA project. Financial assistance for local organisations is being targeted in the areas of Dishes, Central Signal Processor (correlator/beamformer), Science Data Processor and Signal & Data Transport and Synchronisation & Timing. Instructions for registering interest and pre-qualification application forms for financial assistance are available from public.ska.ac.za/industry. Organisations must respond before 17h00 on 22 April 2013 (SAST).

SKA South Africa will facilitate the introduction of programme partners into the appropriate work package consortia.

The International Square Kilometre Array Organisation (SKAO) issued a Request for Proposals (RfP) during March 2013 for participation in the SKA Pre-Construction Phase (until 2016). Formal responses are due by 10 June 2013. Details of the RfP call are available here.

For more information on the bid process and work package areas: Organisations fitting participation criteria are encouraged to attend the SKA South Africa Information Day to be hosted at 13h30 on the 12th April 2013 at the SKA SA Johannesburg and Cape Town offices, linked via telecon, for further discussions and information dissemination on the bid process, work package areas and the associated financial assistance programme. In order to attend the Information Day, please RSVP by 3 pm on Tuesday 9th April to industry@ska.ac.za and note that places may be limited.

About the SKA
The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. The total collecting area will be approximately one square kilometre giving 50 times the sensitivity, and 10 000 times the survey speed, of the best current-day telescopes. The SKA will be built in Southern Africa and in Australia. Thousands of receptors will extend to distances of 3 000 km from the central regions. The SKA will address fundamental unanswered questions about our Universe including how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, the role of magnetism in the cosmos, the nature of gravity, and the search for life beyond Earth. Construction of phase one of the SKA is scheduled to start in 2016. The SKA Organisation, with its headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, UK, was established in December 2011 as a not-for-profit company in order to formalise relationships between the international partners and centralise the leadership of the project.

Members of the SKA Organisation as of March 2013:

• Australia: Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
• Canada: National Research Council
• China: Ministry of Science and Technology
• Germany: Federal Ministry of Education and Research
• Italy: National Institute for Astrophysics
• Netherlands: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
• New Zealand: Ministry of Economic Development
• Republic of South Africa: National Research Foundation
• Sweden: Onsala Space Observatory
• United Kingdom: Science and Technology Facilities Council

Associate member:

• India: National Centre for Radio Astrophysics

SKA website: www.skatelescope.org

Media contact for this release:
Carla Sharpe, Business Development Manager. Office number: 021 506 7300. Email: carla@ska.ac.za

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