2. What is it?
The Meerkat project is a ‘tester’ for the proper
project called SKA (Square Kilometre Array). The
people building the sensitive radio telescope for
the ‘tester’ are hoping to do a good job, then
maybe build the 64 SKA radio telescopes too.
This project is taking place in Karoo in Africa and
Australia.
What is it?
3. Who is doing it?
There are about 100 engineers, scientists and radio
astronomers designing and building South Africa's 64-
dish radio telescope - MeerKAT. There are multiple
professional scientists from all around the world,
helping with this project. One of which is Thomas
Bennett.
Who’s doing it?
Many different countries are working together to build
- and pay for - the SKA. At least 13 countries and close
to 100 organisations are already involved, and more
are joining the project.
4. Who is Funding it?
The people creating this project are lucky
enough to have multiple countries all around
the world helping fund them. The whole project
is going to cost R20 billion. The government for
lots of countries are willing to pay
Who’s Funding it?
5. Fun Facts
• The data collected by the SKA in a 24-hour
period, would take nearly two million years to play
back on an iPod.
• The SKA will generate enough raw data every day to
fill 15 million 64 GB iPods.
• The SKA central computer will have the processing
power of about one hundred million PCs.
• The SKA will use enough optical fibre to wrap twice
around the Earth.
• The SKA will be so sensitive that it will be able to
detect an airport radar on a planet 50 light years
away.
