The members of the organization responsible for the project SKA (Square Kilometer Array) have decided that this futuristic radio telescope will be built on two different sites in South Africa and Australia plus New Zealand.

The SKA project was conceived about two decades ago. Twenty different nations started collaborating in the creation of this array that will be used to investigate the evolution of galaxies, dark matter, the origins of the universe and perhaps also on possible signs of alien life.

According to the project, the SKA will combine the signals received by thousands of small antennas spread across a very large area. They will make up an array equivalent to a very huge telescope with a sensitivity and a resolution never seen before.

In November 2011 the SKA Organization was formed to manage the construction of the array, a non-profit independent organization. Currently, national scientific organizations from eight countries are part of the SKA Organizaion.

The choice of the area in which to build the SKA was complicated. The area shouldn’t be populated to keep the level of radio signals interference produced by humans to the minimum possible. At the same time, however, it’s important that the site can have a good connection with the rest of the world because the amount of data that the array will receive and have to communicate to the rest of the world will be enormous.

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Two candidates were identified for the construction of the SKA in South Africa and in Australia and New Zealand. Not surprisingly, in those sites two radiotelescopes are already bein built: the MeerKAT and the ASKAP (Australian SKA Pathfinder).

The discussion on the choice of sthe ite went on for one year and eventually the members of the SKA Organization decided to build the SKA on both sites, integrating the radio telescopes now under construction in a new big unified project.

According to the project, Phase 1 of the SKA project will be carried out between 2016 and 2019 with the creation of an operating array. After that there will be Phase 2, which will increase the sensitivity of the SKA and should be completed in 2024. The budget is about 1.5 billion Euros.

In order to build the SKA several technological advances will be required: for example, IBM will develop existing technologies or perhaps some new ones to build a next generation supercomputer powerful enough to handle the amount of data that the SKA will detect.

In the coming decades, the SKA could really give us fundamental answers on the main mysteries of the universe and at the same time lead to significant technological advances that could help a new phase of world economic growth.