A video regarding the proposed Square Kilometer Array radio telescope scheduled for construction in 2011 and initial operations in 2014.

Source- http://www.skatelescope.org/index.htm

more info- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_K...

Due for completion in 2020, this radio telescope will greatly expand our view of the universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

This Trailer has been produced by Scitech, in Perth Western Australia and Questacon, the National Science Centre in Canberra with funding from the Australian Government, through the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

IBM aims to build a low-power exascale cluster in five years


IBM will develop an exascale supercomputing cluster as part of a five year project with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON).

IBM has announced it entered a €33m research project with ASTRON to build a low-power exascale supercomputer cluster that will sift through data collected by the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA is expected to produce exabytes of data every day peering back through time to find the origin of the universe, which until recently many hacks believed to be at the bottom of a beer glass.

Ton Engbersen of IBM Research in Zurich said, If you take the current global daily Internet traffic and multiply it by two, you are in the range of the data set that the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope will be collecting every day. This is Big Data Analytics to the extreme. With DOME we will embark on one of the most data intensive science projects ever planned, which will eventually have much broader applications beyond radio astronomy research.

The SKA itself isn't expected to come online until 2024, but building an exascale supercomputer cluster isn't a turnkey research project either. Although IBM bandied around data storage numbers the real challenge is not storage but power efficiency.


More. . .

Square Kilometer Array Decision Could Come Friday


A decision on where to site the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, either South Africa or Australia and New Zealand, could be made on Friday.

Scientists hope the telescope will help answer fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of the universe, and whether it contains life beyond our planet.


Here is a look at the radio telescope:

WHAT DOES IT DO?

-The SKA will drive technology development particularly in information and communication technology. Spin-off innovations in this area will benefit other systems that process large volumes of data from geographically dispersed sources.

-The energy requirements of the SKA also present an opportunity to accelerate technology development in scalable renewable energy generation, distribution, storage and demand reduction.

QUICK FACTS:

* The telescope will be 50 times more sensitive and 10,000 times faster than any other telescope on the planet, according to the international consortium funding the $2 billion project.

* The Britain-based consortium behind the project includes Canada, China, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom as well as Australia and South Africa.

* The SKA central computer will have the processing power of about one hundred million PCs.


More. . .