Contact 11

The SKAO’s Magazine

Issue 11 | September 2022

LET’S TALK ABOUT

FOCUS ON

EVENTS

Let’s talk about... solar physics

Software for telescopes surges ahead

Outreach events return in SKAO host countries

Contents

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FOREWORD

PATHFINDERS

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24 A truly global enterprise

Prof. Philip Diamond, SKAO Director-General

IN BRIEF

62 LocalimpactstudyofHERAshowsdirectbenetsofradio astronomy infrastructure

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SKA space science documentary airs in Australia

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Celebrating the history of radio astronomy at the UK’s Jodrell Bank

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Swiss celebrate SKAO membership at Davos

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SKAO features in special section of SPIE journal

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SARAO appoints next managing director

30 Strange slow-spinning neutron star discovered in ‘stellar graveyard’

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China publishes development report on participation in the SKA

31 The Dwingeloo Test Station: a major milestone towards LOFAR2.0

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Experts gather for exploratory workshop on SRC computing technology

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UK announces major funding for SKA Regional Centre strategy

27 Promising beginnings for Australia’s newest supercomputer 82 SKAprecursortelescopesdonsunglassestondbrightest ever pulsar 29 Astronomers detect galactic space laser

TEAM SKA 32 Simphiwe Madlanga – Coordinator: Science Engagement, SARAO

LET’S TALK ABOUT

EVENTS

10 Solar physics

36 New Eyes on the Universe: ngVLA and SKA conference

FEATURED IMAGE 14 Science communication in practice

SKAO CORNER 16 Prof. Philip Diamond reappointed to head up SKAO 17 New Science Data Challenge hones hunt for hydrogen 18 Two minutes with… Prof. Richard Schilizzi

63 RegistrationopenfornalESCAPEmeeting 73 MajorinternationaleventslltheSKAOcalendar 38 National Science Weeks engage thousands in South Africa and Australia

NEWS 40 SKAO in the news

40 Astronomy inspires bluedot festival-goers 81 ProgressonshowatrstSKAtelescopesstatusmeetings 19 Growth of SKAO teams in Australia and South Africa gathers pace 20 SKAO launches brand new website 21 SKA Science Working Groups highlight their research goals

FOCUS ON

JOBS 41 SKAO and partner jobs

Awards and honours 42 Celebrating our community

22 Software for telescopes surges ahead 2

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The flags of Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the SKA Observatory at half-mast on Friday 9 September following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

One can’t say that the world isn’t throwing some challenges in front of us all: we’ve had 2.5 years of a pandemic, which has still not fully receded;warsarestillaectingseveralcornersofourplanet over the last 9 months or so, the spectre of rapidly increasing energy costsandinationinsomepartsoftheworld.Climatechangeis rearingitsuglyhead,withdevastatingoodsinPakistan,mega in North America, and drought across China, Europe, East Africa and elsewhere.

This might seem to be too much but nevertheless of three of our SKAO family (Australia, Canada and the I look upon SKAO and our global partners as one UK) had passed away. As a mark of respect to our host small, bright spark amongst the gloom and doom country the UK, we have published a short statement we read in our newspapers, and a live exemplar on the SKAO website to express our condolences to ofcollectiveeortdrivenbyacommongoalanda the Royal family, and the citizens and governments of noblemission.DuetotheeortsoftheentireSKAO the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. sta,ourpartnersinCSIROandSARAOandinall As an anecdote, some of our readers will remember of the institutions amongst our member states, we that the Queen almost visited the SKAO HQ in early continue to surge ahead with more construction 2020. We have hosted many VIPs, senior government contracts signed, work proceeding, milestones gures,MPs,etc.overtimebutthiswouldhavebeen being achieved and real progress visible to all. As thersttimewewouldhavehostedaHeadofState indicated in Contact10, we are not immune from After countless meetings and careful and extensive what is happening in the wider world, but we are planning with a large number of stakeholders, we trying to anticipate issues as much as possible, and hostedanalscoutingvisitfromBuckinghamPala are working to overcome them as they arise with the literally days before the visit, ready for what would support of Council. We are on an inexorable path to have been a memorable event… until Covid struck, building the two largest radio telescopes in the world and the UK and SKAO entered into lockdown, three and we should all feel pride in what is being achieved. days before the planned visit. The commemorative As always, Contact brings stories to its readership that plaque was never used, it now sits in the Comms emphasise that progress, and I hope you read them storeroom for posterity. all.

At the time of writing this foreword, it was announced that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of State SEPTEMBER

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PROF. PHILIP DIAMOND, SKAO DIRECTOR-GENERAL C O N TA C T

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In brief

The show’s four presenters, Kat Ross, Dr Luke Davies, Donna Vanzetti, and Dan Paris, at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, Western Australia. Credit: ICRAR

SKA space science documentary airs in Australia

BY ICRAR & BEAM ME UP MEDIA

The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) recently partnered with Perth-based production company Beam Me Up Media on a documentary exploringthescienticeortsbehindestablishingtheSKA-Lowtelescopei The Hidden Universe – Discovering the Square Kilometre Array, which aired nationwide in Australia earlier this year, welcomes viewers down under to southern skies for an Aussie space adventure. The programme is hosted by four space crusaders, including two ICRAR researchers, whose love of the night sky brings them together on an outback cosmic adventure from the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth, through Western Australia’s pristine dark skies, to the remote Murchison region where the SKA-Low telescope is being built.

With unprecedented access to the CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, the documentary explains the SKA project using vibrant imagery, time-lapse astrophotography, clever science animations and an immersive original soundtrack.

The Hidden Universe also showcases Western Australia’s worldclass dark night skies and how astronomers are working across the region to help protect this pristine night sky asset.

The programme entwines modern astronomy with ancient Aboriginal astronomy, revealing a deeper connection to theglitteringstarsoverhead.Aroundacampre,local Aboriginal people share their ancient art of stargazing through a rich tapestry of dreamtime stories.

From the comfort of their living rooms, viewers can hitch a ride and traverse wild outback landscapes and mysterious regions of space, as the hidden Universe is revealed.

Viewers in Australia can watch The Hidden Universe on Seven Plus.

RIGHT: Kat Ross, presenting at the at the SKA-Low prototype station on site. Credit: ICRAR 4

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Celebrating the history of radio astronomy at the UK’s Jodrell Bank

BY DR HILARY KAY (THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER - UK SKA)

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Engagement (previously known as Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre), part of The University of Manchester, UK, has marked a new chapter in its mission to engage and inspire future generations, with the opening of its highly anticipated First Light Pavilion.

First Light opened its doors on 4 June 2022, welcoming visitors from across the UK and beyond to the site which not only played an important role in the birth of radio astronomy, but which will continue to do so for generations to come as the home of both the Jodrell Bank Observatory and SKAO Global Headquarters.

An architecturally stunning building designed by international rmHassell,FirstLightisagrass-topped76m-diameterdome which mirrors the shape and scale of Jodrell Bank’s landmark LovellTelescope,partoftheSKApathndere-MERLIN telescope array.

The story of Jodrell Bank is brought to life with innovative digital displays, projections, and archive material, in an exhibition created by leading designers Casson Mann which uses the actual panels from the original surface of the Lovell Telescope. With a state-of-the-art auditorium and curved projection screen, visitors are immersed in the awe-inspiring heritage of Jodrell Bank and the cutting-edge science being done at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics.

First Light at Jodrell Bank is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the UK Government (DCMS), The University of Manchester and a number of kind donors, including theWolfson,GareldWeston,DeniseCoates,andStavros Niarchos foundations.

RIGHT: The First Light Pavilion from the outside (top), and its indoor projection room (bottom). Credit: Jodrell Bank Centre for Engagement SEPTEMBER

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Swiss celebrate SKAO membership at Davos

BY ANIM VAN WYK (SKAO)

Switzerland marked its membership in the SKA Observatory at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May. The SKAO Council Chair, Dr Catherine Cesarsky, and DirectorGeneral, Prof. Philip Diamond, discussed the advantages that membership in the world’s largest and most ambitious radio astronomy collaboration holds. They were joined by others who played a crucial role in getting Switzerland on board, including Martina Hirayama, State Secretary of the State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation (SERI), Prof. Martin Vetterli, president of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and Prof. Jean-Paul Kneib, Swiss scienticdelegatetotheSKAOCouncil.

Switzerland became the SKAO’s eighth member after the country’s Federal Council approved its membership in December 2021. Their nod followed the Swiss Parliament’s decision to commit 33.6 million CHF (~€34 million) towards the construction of the SKA telescopes and their operation until 2030.

Swiss experts – from academic institutions, industry, and technical partners – will assist in delivering advanced receivers for dish antennas, precision timing, automation, and signal processing. The SKAO has already awarded a contract to Swiss company Cosylab to help build the software for its transformational telescopes.

In exchange, Switzerland will gain access to the vast trove of data (~710 PBytes/year) that will be generated by the SKAtelescopes.Thesescienticproductswillhelpadvanc fundamental research as outlined in a 2020 whitepaper by the Swiss astrophysics community. To make this possible, Switzerland plans to further contribute to the development of the European SKA Regional Centre (SRC).

The SRC’s Swiss branch will provide the data interface for the country’s scientists.

Since gaining membership, Switzerland’s involvement has been organised through a strong consortium of research institutions*, called SKACH, in part funded by SERI. Before that,EPFLledtheeortonbehalfoftheSwisscommunity, notably through EPFL’s membership in the SKA Organisation, precursor to the SKAO. * The SKACH consortium includes: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (FHNW), Universität Zürich (UZH), Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ), Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW), Universität Basel (UniBAS), Université de Genève (UniGE), Haute École spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale (HES-SO), Centro Svizzero di Calcolo Scientifico (CSCS).

BELOW: ”Switzerland joins the SKAO” event, hosted at the House of Switzerland in Davos during the World Economic Forum.

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SKAO features in special section of SPIE journal

BY SKAO

Initsrstissueofthe ,2 0 JournalofAstronomicalTelescopes,Instrument and Systems (JATIS) dedicated a special section to the SKA Observatory, featuring 26 papers from partners across the project. The journal is published

by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

With the SKAO established and its two telescopes in construction, the aim of this special section was to provide an upto-date overview of the SKA project and its plans for the future.

Guest editors of the section were the SKAO’s Dr Anna Bonaldi and Luca Stringhetti, Associate Prof. Stefan J. Wijnholds of ASTRON and Stellenbosch University, and Prof. Justin Jonas of SARAO and Rhodes University.

& WeinvitedcontributionsondierentengineeringaspectsoftheSKAdesign, saysDrBonaldi,&inparticular posingsignicanttechnologicalchallenges,suchaslarge-Nradiointerferometry[Nbeingthenumberofant resilience to radio frequency interference, high sensitivity, high system complexity, a harsh operating environment and largedatavolumes.

Among the papers are two reviews on the SKA-Low and SKA-Mid telescopes written by several SKAO colleagues asrst authors.TherearealsocontributionsfromSKAprecursorsandpathnders,whicharenotonlyactingastec demonstrators for components of the SKA, but are also pioneering some of its planned observations.

“As editors, we would like to thank all authors and referees that contributed to the special section, as well as all theresearchers,engineers,andprofessionalsaroundtheworldwhoaremakingtheSKAprojectareality,a Dr Bonaldi.

All the papers are available on the SPIE website.

SARAO appoints next managing director

BY NATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION (NRF)

Pontsho Maruping will be the new managing director of the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), partoftheNRF,witheectfrom1October20.She will succeed Dr Rob Adam, who’s been managing director since 2016.

Currently SARAO Deputy managing director: operations and business processes, Pontsho brings a wealth of leadership skills, strategic thinking, extensive stakeholder management experience and a passion for complex technology sectors.

She has also served as Chairperson of the South African SEPTEMBER

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CouncilforSpaceAairs,theCommitteeonEarthObservat Satellites, and the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, amongst others. Congratulations to Pontsho on this appointment!

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China publishes development report on participation in the SKA project

BY SKA CHINA OFFICE

TheSKAChinaOcehaspublisheda report on the development of China’s participation in the SKA Observatory, summarising the results of past work and outlining the direction for future work.

The report starts with an introduction on the Chinese government’s guiding principles for taking part in the project, which is followed by details of China’s participation in terms ofscienticresearch,engineering,technologyandtalent development. The report also lists policies and measures for ABOVE: The cover of the SKA China Office’s new report. implementation.

Another important part of the report elaborates on the 10 objectivesforscienticresearchforChinese.SKAscientists Two of these are key objectives and have already been supported by a dedicated national SKA programme in China, namely research on pulsars and the epoch of reionisation. The other eight objectives will be deployed over time.

Thereportidentiesthedevelopment of high-calibre, innovative international researchers as an important element to realiseChinasscienticobjectivesasa key member of the SKAO, and sets out planstomakespecialeortstogrow local science talent and to promote international exchanges.

TheSKAChinaOce,asthe management body of the dedicated national SKA programme, is based at the National Remote Sensing Centre of China, undertaking the daily work of inter-department coordination and organising China’s SKA participation.

RIGHT: China’s SKA science objectives are

also highlighted on the new SKAO website.

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Experts gather for exploratory workshop on SRC computing technology

BY DR DOMINGOS BARBOSA (INSTITUTO DE TELECOMUNICAÇÕES, PORTUGAL)

The SKA Regional Centres (SRCs) will store, process and provide access to the SKA telescopes’ data for astronomers around the globe, and work to establish this network of supercomputing centres is accelerating.

In March, the SRC Working Groups organised the two-day WorkshoponNativeCloudComputingandSoftwareDened Clusters at Instituto de Telecomunicações in Aveiro, Portugal.

ThisfollowedarstmeetingatINAFinBolognain201on HPC infrastructure.

The Aveiro workshop involved lively discussion and presentations that included views from academia, industry (including SMEs like StackHPC, ATLAR, Critical SW), global service providers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft Azure, equipment solution leaders like DDN, Dell, Nvidia and several others.

These meetings provide the technical background information to enable design decisions by the teams involved in the development of the SRC network around the globe. They enable discussion on the technical readiness of advanced solutions, technology roadmaps, and pave the ground for choosing the architecture features that are required for a federated SRC network.

NEW SRC PROTOTYPING WORK KICKS OFF Prototyping work for the SRC Network is now under way, with coordination from the SKAO bringing together around 50 experts based all over the world, workingtogetherinAgileteams.Thiseort,focused on prototyping the technologies needed to help SRCs work in federation, is being carried out under the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) as a new “Agile ReleaseTrain,whichenablespackagesofworktobe delivered, tested and delivered incrementally.

An update from the team will be featured in the next issue of Contact!

UK announces major funding for SKA Regional Centre strategy

BY DR HILARY KAY (THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER – UK SKA)

Recent progress towards developing the SKA Regional Centre Network was exempliedintheUKbythedevelopmentofastrategytodesign,deliveran support an SRC as part of the global network.

The UK Government, via the Science and Technology A key component of the strategy is to engage and consult Facilities Council (STFC), has created an Open Call, worth with scientists across the UK to ensure that the future UK SRC £7.2 million, to initiate delivery of the strategy over the next meets the needs of the community, building on and utilising three years. This will enable the UK science community to existing expertise and leadership. As a result, a series of be fully prepared for the early phases of SKA operations, workshops have been run to determine UK science priorities aswellasbenetingexistingscienceexploitationwith and interests, identify the resources, tools and training that SKApathndersandsupportthegrowthoftheUKradio will be required to deliver a UK SRC, and develop plans for astronomy community. public engagement activities to inspire the future generations of scientists and engineers.

“This allows the UK SKA community to create, in concert with its SKAO partners, both a cutting-edge research infrastructure and a vibrant research and innovation community, all driven andshapedbytheradioastrophysicsprogramme, says Jeremy Yates, the national PI of the UK SKA Regional Centre.

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Let’s talk about

Let’s talk about... solar physics

BY CASSANDRA CAVALLARO (SKAO)

Solar missions are very hot right now. In March, the ESANASA Solar Orbitermadeitsrstneary-bys,around48 million km from the Sun, inside the orbit of Mercury. Equipped with multiple imaging instruments, it is creating the closest images ever of the Sun’s surface.

ABOVE: The Sun as seen by the ESA-NASA Solar Orbiter in extreme ultraviolet light from a distance of roughly 75 million kilometres. It is the highest resolution Beforejumpingintothenerdetails, image of the Sun’s full disc and outer atmosphere, the letsbrieysliceintotheSunto corona, ever taken. Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/ EUI team; Data processing: E. Kraaikamp (ROB) understand its structure.

Only a few months earlier, NASA’s car-sized Parker Solar Probe ew through the Sun’s corona, its upper atmosphere,inanotherhistoricrst.

At the Sun’s core, the temperature is Subsequenty-byswilltakeParkereven around 15 million degrees Celsius. Here closer, ultimately getting to within 6.2 nuclear fusion is taking place: protons million km of the Sun’s surface, more travelling at great speed smash into than seven times closer than any other each other and fuse together, a process spacecraft has been before. which ultimately turns hydrogen into While these heat-defying space helium and releases energy in the form missions will bring a wealth of new of gamma ray radiation. information, they’ll be complemented by The energy is then transported from insights gleaned from radio astronomy thecoretotheSunssurface, & the observations, including those using the photosphere, through radiative and SKA telescopes. then convective transport.

One might imagine that there isn’t The photosphere is the luminous layer, much light that still needs shedding on and it is so bright that it outshines the the Sun, given its relative closeness to chromosphere above it, which can only Earth, but that is not the case. be seen as a red glow during solar “There are some topics which remain eclipses. Next is the thin transition mysteries in solar physics even if we region,andnallythetenuous have understood the basics of the solar corona, the Sun’s outermost phenomenaforseveraldecadesnow, atmosphere. Stretching around 8 million says Dr Nicole Vilmer, a solar physics km into space, the corona is a region specialist based at Paris Observatory, ofdiuseplasma(hotionisedgas)only and member of the SKAO’s Solar, seen during a total solar eclipse as a Heliospheric and Ionospheric Physics bright halo around the dark Moon, or Science Working Group. “To name a few: with specialised instruments. the generation of the solar magnetic The corona is of particular interest to eldandtheoriginofthemagnetic radio astronomers for a simple reason. cycle, the formation and acceleration of “The tenuous solar corona is completely the solar wind, and the production of transparent at optical and higher energeticparticles. frequencies, but the low radio frequency solar emission arises exactly from this THE SOLAR CYCLE magnetised and turbulent atmosphere The Sun has an 11-year cycle oftheSun,saysAssociateProf.Divya of activity, and at a certain Oberoi of India’s National Centre for pointthemagneticeldlines Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), co-chair ip,meaningnorthbecomes of the SKAO’s Solar, Heliospheric south and vice versa.

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and Ionospheric Physics Science Working Group.

Puzzlingly, despite being further away from the core than the photosphere, the corona is more than 200 times hotter. This is known as the “coronal heatingproblem.

“This is among the most enduring astrophysics puzzles of our times: how does the 5,800K photosphere sustain a millionKcoronaaboveit?Divyasays.

“We have known about this mystery for more than 70 years, and have some pretty good ideas about how it might come about, but as a global community wehavebeenstrugglingtondthe evidenceforthis.

UNDERSTANDING KELVIN Stellar temperature is measured in kelvin. Zero kelvin is absolute zero, or -273.15 degrees Celsius, the point at which particles stop moving. To convert a kelvin temperature to Celsius, simply subtract 273.15.

Scientists think the heat is coming from energyintheSunsmagneticelds, but the mechanism that transfers that energy to the corona and heats itupisunclear.Solarmagneticelds vary in strength, whereas the corona

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LEFT: A coronal mass ejection on Feb. 27, 2000 taken by SOHO Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (SOHO) C2 and C3 instruments. Credit: SOHO ESA & NASA.

is searingly hot all over, all the time.

This suggests that whatever is causing coronal heating must happen regularly all over the Sun, rather than intermittent expulsions of energy like dramatic solarares.

Onetheory,rstputforwardinthe late 1980s by the renowned American astrophysicist Prof. Eugene Parker (who died earlier this year, and for whom the Parker Solar Probe is named), is that socallednanoares & arebehindit.

not been feasible with traditional radio telescopes. This contrasts with general solar radio bursts which have been studied in great detail with the earlier and present generations of instrumentation.

&Magneticeldsarenowunderstoodto be the driver of mostsolar phenomena, Divya says. “They are however notoriously hard to measure and radio observations provide some of the most promising ways to estimate them. That’s becausethemagneticeldspermeating this turbulent region leave tiny imprints on these radio waves by changing their polarisationproperties.

Divya’s team has made promising progress on that front recently using theMurchisonWideeldArray(MWA), a low-frequency SKA precursor telescope located in Western Australia. They Radio astronomers can measure this detectedtinyashesofradiolight change in the received radio emissions coming from all over the Sun, even from and, in principle, estimate coronal “Prof. Parker proposed that the quiet & Sunareaswheremagneticelds magneticelds. corona is maintained at its million K are the weakest. This is considered temperature by a very large number “The Sun is not only a very interesting among the strongest evidence yet that of extremely small explosive releases objecttostudybyitself,Nicoleadds. nanoaresmightbebehindthecoronal ofenergyinthecoronananoares “It is also crucial to understand its heating mystery.

– too weak to be detected individually activitysinceitaectsourterrestr but which can collectively deposit The magnetism that is believed to drive environmentandmayaectour sucientenergytoheatthecorona, coronal heating is also the cause of technology through what we call space Divya explains. dramatic explosions. The twisting and weatheractivities. realignmentofmagneticeldlinescan &Eortstodetectthesignaturesof Ah, space weather. A slightly innocuous cause sudden bursts of electromagnetic nanoareshavefocusedonX-rayand term for something that can have radiationknownassolarares,and ultraviolet observations, but radio dramatic consequences. coronal mass ejections (CMEs) which observations are very promising TheSunsinuencepermeates comprise large amounts of energetic too.ThatsbecausewhileX-rayand through the Solar System via an plasmaandassociatedmagneticelds. ultraviolet observations are usually enormous bubble of plasma called dominated by thermal emissions, in the heliosphere. This has a vital the radio band we see signatures that protective role, shielding our cosmic UNDERSTANDING arise from non-thermal, coherent neighbourhood from the much stronger RADIO EMISSION emissionprocesses. radiation of interstellar space, a region Imagine a set of radio waves &Coherentemissionisconcentrated travelling through space. only NASA’s iconic Voyager probes have in a few frequencies, while incoherent, ventured into, recording the drastic The wave form is known thermal emission is spread out over a change in environment that lies beyond. asthephase. & large bandwidth.

The heliosphere is fed by the solar &Relativephaseisthe wind, a constant stream of plasma from “The coherent nature of radio emission dierencebetweentwowaves the corona. means that despite the low energy points in that up/down cycle. of the phenomenon which gives rise “The processes by which energetic &Coherentradioemission to them, the radio emissions can be particles are transported from means the frequency of the much brighter. While this has been acceleration regions in the low corona emission is all the same, and therelativephasedierencesto the heliosphere are still a subject known for a while, these observations ofradiosignaturesofnanoaresare between any two waves of of interest and are one of the key the emission is constant. very challenging and have simply questions to be addressed by NASA-

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“The SKA telescopes are uniquely suited for solar science and will enable us to make solar radio images of unprecedented quality.”

ASSOCIATE PROF. DIVYA OBEROI, NCRA

every time slice in the data. In many other areas of radio astronomy an average is used instead, because most objects aren’t as variable as the Sun on these scales, nor as bright – in fact it’s this brightness that enables scientists todivideuptheobservationssonel aseventhesenesliversofsolarsign outshine the noise that can obscure fainter sources. This technique is already paying dividends using other telescopes, and the SKA will be able to do it on a grander scale.

ESASolarOrbiter,saysNicole.&The not least because the Sun is enormous heliosphere is also the only place where and extremely active. remotesensingobservations[analysing The Sun’s apparent size in the sky (known electromagneticradiation]inawide asangular & size)isevenbiggerwhen rangegoingfromradiotoX-ray,canbe observing in radio than in visible light, combined with direct measurements, close to 1 degree across if observing in such as energetic particle measurements “The SKA telescopes are uniquely the lowest frequencies covered by the taken in space, to study plasma physics suited for solar science and will enable SKA-Low telescope, Divya explains. That’s processes in a natural plasma, rather us to make solar radio images of around double the size of the Moon in thanplasmacreatedinalaboratory. unprecedented quality. What makes the sky. the telescopes exceptional is the large When the Sun has a violent outburst, “It also has elaborate structures number of elements in the arrays, much like a CME, this can travel all the way to spanning a large range of angular scales, larger than any other earlier instrument.

Earth.Attheirmostharmless,theeects and the solar radio emission can be This ability to gather an unprecedentedly are seen as colourful and spectacular extremely variable, so the usual tricks of large amount of information about auroras that illuminate the northern observing a source for long durations or the solar radio emission will give the and southern skies at high latitudes. across wider bands to improve imaging SKAtelescopestheircuttingedge, But at the other extreme they can cause quality are simply not useful for the Sun. Divya says. electrical black outs, disrupt radio and To add further complications, multiple GPS communications and damage dierentemissionmechanismsoften As the Sun emits across such a wide satellites. One of the most famous part of the spectrum, SKA observations operate simultaneously on the Sun and examples occurred in March 1989, when in the radio band can also provide a emission strengths can easily vary by a huge coronal mass ejection led to a fuller picture when combined with those more than nine orders of magnitude 12-hour electricity blackout across the from other facilities, particularly those betweenthem. whole Canadian province of Quebec. in space.

This all demands a special approach not “Only a few of the CMEs are ‘geo“If the SKA provides regular solar usually used to observe other objects. To eectiveandcurrentlywehaveavery observations in a manner that can explain it, we need to get a bit technical. limited ability to reliably predict which be easily used by solar physicists (not Over to Divya. ones will impact us adversely. The most necessarily radio astronomers), it will “Some of the most interesting crucial parameter to measure for is provide complementary observations, information, both from space weather the direction and strength of the CME forexampleofares,whichcanbe and coronal heating perspectives, is magneticeld,Divyaexplains. combinedwithX-rayorextreme buried in the comparatively weaker ultraviolet observations provided “Currently our most reliable emissions or features. So to meet the by the Solar Orbiter or other solar measurements come from satellitescience needs, one requires images spaceprobes,Nicoleadds.&Theradio based instrumentation located about 1.5 withveryhighdelity(meaningno observations can also be combined with million km from Earth along the Suninformation is missing and no errors coronagraph observations on space Earth line, which gives us less than an have been introduced) and dynamic probes to explore the early development hour’s notice before the more energetic range (which improves the contrast ofCMEs. CMEs impact our environment. We are betweendierenttypesofemission working towards improving this by using Then, of course, there are the happening at the same time). If you have radio telescopes to measure how the breakthroughs that we cannot anticipate. these things, you can reliably detect magnetised plasma of CMEs changes and characterise faint emission features “We must not forget that every time the observed polarisation of background even in presence of those a million times wemakeobservationsnerthanhave radiation (a process called Faraday stronger. been possible with earlier generations rotation) while it is still halfway between of instrumentation we have always The method radio astronomers will the Sun and the Earth, which could useiscalled&highdelityanddynamic found unexpected discoveries and increase our advance warning time to phenomenon,Divyaadds.&Sowevery range spectropolarimetric snapshot aboutaday. much expect this trend to very much imaging.Quiteamouthful,butinsimple While radio telescopes can be powerful continue with the SKA telescopes terms it means making independent instruments for solar studies, this type of aswell. radio images of every tiny slice of the science faces some unique challenges, frequency channel being observed for 12

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A coronal mass ejection (CME) travelling at 900 miles per second in August 2012, which caused aurora to appear in our skies a few days later.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

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Featured image

Scecni noitca um ni ecaript

BY MATHIEU ISIDRO (SKAO)

In ulyJ the SKAO ostedh the ourthf editon of the Public Awensar of Rechsear Inesatrucf encofr ta the Obervatoys ’ Globa Headqurts ni the UK. Organised on behalf of The Associatn of Euopearvn-lL Recshear Inastfruec Faciltes, the PARI coenfr brings togehr acptriones involed in ecshar faciltes’ comuniats actives to discu the isue ythe face in their work.

Thes include who to build and enga with divers comunites, the oler played yb ecshar aisntfruec in scien a c pt ri e , e t c .

The vent has aditronly ben Euopearn in scope, but the SKAO’s fotprin acterd a globa audienc, includg onsgtr esprntaio omfr Auasltir and South Africa. In toal, some 142 particns (includg 60 in-perso) espnrtig 24 se hd a r o m f r a l m o s t v e r y c o n t i e .

Close to 60 talks ewr given vero the ethr days omfr emor than ethr zdeon goarnist, includg four invtegromal goarnist: the SKAO, the Euopearn Southern Observatoy (ESO), the Euopearn Molecuar Biolgy Labtory (EMBL), and CERN. The conefr focused ounadr alvers pilars of modern comuniat actives – public elatrions actpire, and the wider impact of ecshar aisntfruce in .society The vent was a ealr suce, and videopr an celxnt platform for ofepsrinal comuniats teams and scien comuniatrs to chaxnge best actpires and leson learnd in comuniatg the work of ecshar iasntfruec with their pe rs.

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SKAO Corner

Prof. Philip Diamond at the Urania Observatory in Zürich, Switzerland. Credit: Keystone/Severin Bigler

Prof. Philip Diamond reappointed to head up SKAO

BY ANIM VAN WYK (SKAO)

As construction of the SKA telescopes picks up steam,a rm andexperienced hand will continue steering the work.

The SKA Observatory Council has reappointed Prof. Philip Diamond as leader of the organisation. His new contract will run until 1 July 2025.

Council last year approved construction of the SKA telescopes, with SKAO teams rapidly growing in Australia and South Africa.

Prof. Diamond, who holds a PhD in radio astronomy from The “I am honoured that the SKAO Council have granted me University of Manchester, has been a staunch supporter of anotherterminoce,saysProf.Diamond.&Ibelieveitreects theSKAprojectsinceitwasrstbroachedintheearly190s. their comfort with the status and direction of the Observatory He joined the then SKA Organisation in October 2012. Before whichis,ofcourse,adirectresultofthestaofSKAOandour that, Prof. Diamond worked at radio astronomy facilities in partners,whoareallworkinghardtomakeitasuccess.

Sweden, Germany, the United States, and Australia – notching up over 300 journal articles.

Under Prof. Diamond’s leadership, international engineering consortia developed and delivered the SKA telescopes’ design, “My goal for the next few years is to ensure that construction several new countries joined up, and the project’s Global proceedsasplannedandthatweseerstlightorrst Headquarters was formally selected. The SKAO furthermore fringes as we radio astronomers call it – from SKA dishes and transitioned into an intergovernmental organisation and the antennasasrapidlyaspossible,hesays.

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New Science Data Challenge hones hunt for hydrogen

BY SKAO

Astronomers from around the world will start sifting for the hydrogen-21cm signal in an enormous mock dataset come October 2022.

TheSKAOsthirdScienceDataChallenge(SDC3)reectsthesplit the challenge into two independent parts: SKA project’s initial driver – to read the history of the Universe • Foregrounds (SDC3a) running until March 2023, and as written in the language of hydrogen. The goal of the • Inference (SDC3b), which will start shortly afterwards. series of challenges is to prepare scientists for the actual SKA Aspartofthe rstphase,teamswillneedtoaccurately telescopes’ data to come in a few years. subtract sources of foreground contamination from the The challenges are steadily growing in complexity and simulated hydrogen-21cm signal. The inference challenge participation. While SDC1 attracted nine teams, SDC2’s count will then focus on extracting key information about the early quadrupled to 40 teams and featured a dataset 300 times universefromthesignal.Thisincludesstudyingtherst larger – far too colossal for any ordinary computer to handle. galaxies and black holes.

The rsttwochallengestestedparticipants methodsto Once more, several international high-performance separate galaxies from noise. SDC3 will centre on simulated computing facilities around the world have generously observations from the future SKA-Low telescope. donated processing time to participants. For this reason, “Participating teams will be expected to extract the hydrogenteams will need to submit a brief proposal that outlines the 21cmsignalfromourdataset,SKAOpostdoctoralfellowDrapproach they plan to take when registering. This will help the Simon Purser explained. “This is no mean feat. Not only is SKAOtoeectivelyallocatesupercomputertime. the signal extremely faint, but it is heavily obscured by both Find the registration link and more information on the galacticandextragalacticsourcesofemission.

SDC3 website.

Due to the complexity of these observations, the SKAO has BELOW: A frequency snapshot from the dataset that will be used in the SKAO’s third Science Data Challenge. Areas of hydrogen absorption and emission are shown in dark and light, respectively.

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2 minutes with... Prof.

Richard Schilizzi In August, SKAO HQ welcomed former SKA Director Richard Schilizzi, Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at The University of Manchester and the lead author of a forthcoming book on the history of the project.

Welcome back to the HQ, Richard! Tell us about the meeting you’ve been holding.

I’ve been here for a writers’ week for the SKA history book. This covers the period from 1993 when the International Union of Radio Science created a Large Telescope Working Group, to 2012 when the telescope site decision was made, just after my tenure as director ended. We’re working towards submitting the book later this year for publication next year by Springer Nature as part of their series of books on Historical and Cultural Astronomy.

Progress on show at rstSKAtelescopes status meetings

BY SKAO TherstAnnualStatusUpdateMeetingsfortheSKA-Low and SKA-Mid telescopes were held in February and May 2022 respectively, providing an overview of progress for a broad target audience ranging from external stakeholders (such as the SKAO’s Science and Engineering Advisory committee) to the internal telescope teams. The meetings spanned two days each and were attended by up to 150 participants spread between the SKAO HQ Council Chamber and those connecting remotely via Zoom.

The meetings covered the period looking back to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and ahead to It’s a narrative of what happened and what went on behind the AA0the ( 5. rstdeploymentofMiddishesandLow scenestosetupdecisions,butalsoourreectionsonwhythings antennas planned to start in mid-2023) and beyond. happened. Many people know parts of the story, and those who Speakers were invited from across many of the key business have read draft chapters have said how much comes back to areas, in order to help to drive alignment among the them which they had forgotten. I often say human memory is a telescope teams and also contributing partners. Updates leaky storage device; it is amazing what people remember and and forecasts were provided by teams across the SKAO, don’t remember! including Science, the Telescope Delivery Teams, Operations, So it’s the first time all this history has been written down in the Product Delivery Teams, Software, assurance one place. procurement support and business enabling teams.

What’s the scope of the book?

Yes, and it really makes you realise just how complex the project “We will be holding these meetings annually to give isbecauseitsglobal.Thereweremanynationsinvolved,dierent everyone a clear view of where things stand for both SKA fundingcycles,dierentworkingcultures,andmanynational telescopesasweprogressthroughconstruction,says activities feeding into the overall picture. That’s what we try to SKA-Mid Senior Project Manager Ben Lewis. “There’s real draw together in the 500 pages of the book. I’ve always thought value to getting everyone in one room – whether real or there should be a volume two for the pre-construction and virtual – to ask questions, hash out any issues, and also to constructionphase,exploringthedierentproblemsthat came understand the great progress that’s being made, which up and how they were tackled. That would be a good project for issometimeshardertoseeforindividualsorteams.

[SKAODirector-General]PhilDiamondwhenheretires!

The next editions of the telescope update meetings will likely What do you think when you see how far the project has take place in Q2 2023. come now?

Itsafantasticachievement.Toseewhatstartedoallthose decades ago turn into the SKA Observatory, a treaty organisation BELOW: The SKA-Mid annual status meeting (pictured) in May followed like CERN, ESA and ESO, is just brilliant. And now of course the SKA-Low meeting in February. construction has started. The telescope design we foresaw a decade or more ago is pretty much what is being built.

We know it’s going to do amazing things; we can see that already happeningintheprecursorsandpathnders,andtheSKAis bigger and will do even more transformational work. We also know from history that a large fraction of what the telescope becomes known for is not written down in the science case – that’s the discovery of the unknown. * “The Square Kilometre Array: a Science Mega-Project in the Making, 1993-2012” by Richard Schilizzi, Ron Ekers, Phil Crosby, and Peter Dewdney will be published in 2023.

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Growth of SKAO teams in Australia and South Africa gathers pace

BY LETEBELE JONES AND LIZ WILLIAMS (SKAO)

TheSKAOteams&in-country arerapidlyexpanding,asconstructionactivit continue to escalate in both Australia and South Africa.

South Africa

preparing for the installation of electronics labs into the EOC, whichwillbeinstrumentalinearlyintegrationandver of SKA-Low telescope products, as well as a reverberation chamber for radio frequency interference (RFI) testing.

New employees are coming on board almost every month in South Africa; the 22 new hires so far this year include specialists in administration, assembly, integration and verication(AIV),IT,construction,communication,legal, Travel between SKAO sites resumes nanceandavarietyofengineeringportfolios.Pushing The relaxation of international travel restrictions across most towards the ultimate goal of ~140 employees in the South countries this year has allowed visits between SKAO sites Africaoces,progressissteadyandpositive. to increase.

TheoceinCapeTownisintheprocessofbeingestablished In May and June, SKAO Director-General Prof. Phillip andwillbereadyinOctober20,withstaoccupyinginterim Diamondtouredbothtelescopehostcountrieshisrst ocespaceuntilthen.ThiswillbethehomeoftheSKA-Mid trip to Australia or South Africa since before the COVID-19 teamforthenextveyears,untilapermanentbuildingis pandemic – providing a great opportunity to meet the teams constructed and occupied in 2027. in person as well as engaging with key partners in those Australia countries,includinggovernmentocials,diplomats,etc.In recent months, the teams in Australia and South Africa have InAustralia,23staarenowemployedacrossthePerth also hosted other SKAO senior leaders, SKA-Mid and SKA-Low interim Science Operations Centre (iSOC) and the Geraldton project teams, and have held high-level talks with government interim Engineering Operations Centre (iEOC). Many key roles representatives and executives from collaborating havebeenlled,includingallthoseinthe SKA-LowAustralia organisations as part of the formal establishment of our interexecutive team, with the heads of science operations, software governmental organisation in the telescope host countries. and computing, and engineering operations now in place.

The easing of travel restrictions has enabled colleagues based Both the iSOC and iEOC facilities have had furniture, branding in the telescope host countries to visit SKAO Global HQ in and signage installed. In Perth, the iSOC is co-located in the the UK, too. Although limited to business-critical missions, CSIRO building , with a permanent home to be developed these in-person meetings and planning sessions taking over the next few years. The EOC team has recently moved place across the SKAO sites are invaluable to further cement into their own building in Geraldton, which will be their base relationships and share knowledge between colleagues, and forthenextveyears,whileapermanentEOCisbuilt.The such interactions will continue to be vital as construction and sITF (system Integration Testing Facility) team is currently operations activities increase.

BELOW: Prof. Phil Diamond visiting the SKA-Low building in Australia.

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BELOW: Prof. Diamond meeting ambassadors to South Africa during his trip.

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SKAO launches a brand new website

BY JOSEPH DIAMOND (SKAO)

TheSKAObservatorysnewwebsitewasociallyunveiledbythechairofthe Council, Dr Catherine Cesarsky, at the Council’s mid-year meeting in July 2022.

The new SKAO website is the result of over a year of development capturing more than 100 people’s input.

Built by Dutch digital agency Betawerk, the website matches the visionary concept of the new SKAO brand as well as the Observatory’s ambition and status as an intergovernmental organisation.

&Weareveryexcitedaboutthenewwebsite!saidBetawerk director, Martijn Hermans. “We felt it was our mission to deliver an online platform which inspires and engages people worldwide. It was great to work with the tremendous dedicated SKAO team and we are thankful for the contribution wewereabletomaketothisextraordinaryendeavour.

The SKAO and Betawerk team emphasised accessibility to all, &DevelopingthenewSKAOwebsitehasbeennoeasyfeat, including catering to visitors with low bandwidth connections. saidJosephDiamond,communicationsandoutreachocer The new website only provides a taste of what is to come, and lead for the website project. “We had countless meetings though! Expect more functionality and content, including withmostpartsoftheobservatorytorenerequirements, animations, videos, and translations into 12 languages used in then developed and checked content, commissioned visuals, the SKAO’s member and prospective member countries. xedbugs,andliaisedwiththewiderSKAOnetworkto ensure that the website would cater to our members and BELOW: The brand new SKAO website was launched in July 2022. internationalaudience.

Betawerk received the website contract following a competitive international procurement process.

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Pulsars

Science Working Group

Solar and Heliosphe Science Working Group

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a global enterprise to build the largest scientific instrument on Earth, both in physical scale and in terms of the volume of data it will generate. Consisting of two telescope arrays located respectively in Australia and South Africa and managed from the SKA Organisation headquarters in the UK, the SKA promises to revolutionise our understanding of the universe. The science case for the SKA has the potential to appeal to users well beyond the radio astronomy community, spanning across a wide range of areas of physics, cosmology and astrophysics.

The Sun is a surprisingly hard radio source to study - it has structures spanning a large Science working groups (SWGs) and Focus Groups (FGs) covering all these areas have been set up emissions to furtherfrom evolve the mechanisms differs between them by many orders of magnit different SKA science case, providing a conduit for interaction between the SKA Organisation science team and very the rapidastronomical time and frequency scales. Radio observations of the Sun carry a treasure tr community. This banner provides a summary of the Pulsars Science Working Group. fields and coronal processes not accessible by any other means. The capabilities of the solar radio science.

The SKA Science Working Group on Fundamental Physics with Pulsars aims to ensure that the SKA will address some of the major unsolved problems of modern physics by tackling fundamental questions in ways that cannot be matched by any other experiment: • Is General Relativity the ultimate theory of gravitation and, if not, what theory will replace it?

• What is the equation of state of matter beyond nuclear densities?

• How do super-massive black hole binary systems merge?

Solar explosions and solar energetic particles

Much of the time, the Sun shines steadily, as is our usual experience with the visible Sun, but occasionally it is home to extremely energetic burst-like phenomenon. These explosions, called flares, take place in the atmosphere of the Sun, Corona, and are usually associated with expulsions Strong-field Tests of Gravity of large amounts of energetic plasma and accompanying magnetic field called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These The SKA will discover new pulsars in highly explosions are powered by the energy stored in the solar relativistic binary systems that will yield magnetic fields, and unleash a large range of exciting and unprecedented tests of gravity in the strong field dramatic phenomena seen as intense emissions spanning regime, including tests of fundamental principles all the way from X-rays to low radio frequencies. These such as the strong equivalence the influence to terrestrial neighbourhood CMEs principle, carry the solar existence of gravitational dipole or and canradiation have significant impacts on the Earth, which we now know as Space extra field components. The discoveries will Weather. likely

Space Weat

The CMEs are the carriers of Space to the Earth. Thei include benign an phenomenon like and southern ligh more serious one supply blackouts, damage, and disr radio communica Over the last deca the Sun-Earth con become a key issu research and is of societal relevance

include at least one pulsar in orbit around a black hole, providing the ultimate laboratory for exploring and studying the physics of black holes, their space-time metrics and the no-hair theorem.

Such observations would likely provide critical Coronal heating pointers toward a quantum theory of gravitation.

Artistic depiction of a pulsar in orbit around a black hole Image credit: SKA Organisation/Swinburne Astronomy Productions

The solar corona is at the temperature of a few million K, while the photosphere is only principles of thermodynamics has been known since early 1940s and is known as the c and imaging fidelity, the SKA will explore the role and efficacy of both the leading conte wave based heating mechanisms.

Dense Matter Equation of State Neutron stars provide unique laboratories to study the physics of matter at densities greater than that of atomic nuclei. The SKA will yield an order of magnitude increase in the number of neutron star mass determinations and high-energy observations can determine their radii. Valuable independent estimates of radii will also be determined by measuring moments of inertia of the most relativistic binary systems. Such constraints on the massradius relationship of neutron stars, especially those provided by the fastest spinning and highest mass pulsars, directly constrain the equation of state of cold dense matter. Furthermore, the SKA will improve our understanding of neutron superfluidity by enabling detailed study of rotational irregularities in a wide range of pulsars.

Turbulence and radio wave scattering

Coron

Though much of the radio emission from the active Sun is born deep inside the corona, it is heavily distorted and smeared as it propagates out of the very inhomogeneous and turbulent solar corona. On the one hand, it makes it challenging to disentangle the properties of the source of propagation effects, but on the other hand, it also provides a very useful probe of this otherwise very hard to study medium. SKA’s snapshot spectroscopic imaging capability will help us dis-entangle the propagation effects from intrinsic variations in the properties of radio sources.

Though it for the bu in the exc the only k quantitat drivers of very hard contribut

Image Credit: Nils Andersson

Image credit: Sijie Yu & Eduard Kontar, NASA/SDO, LOFAR, Glasgow University

Gravitational Waves By regularly observing an array of millisecond pulsars, the SKA will be transformed into an unique observatory for low-frequency (nanohertz) gravitational waves, such as the stochastic background generated by the cosmic merger history of supermassive black hole binary systems.

Depending on the strength of the stochastic background, the SKA may be able to characterize the shape of the strain spectrum and tell us about how supermassive black holes merge and galaxies evolve.

The SKA may also enable studies of cosmic structure imprinted on anisotropies in the background and unique tests of gravitational theories in the radiative regime by investigating the polarization states of gravitational waves.

Pulsar Timing Arrays complement Earth- and space-based detectors.

Image credit: Moore et al. Class. Quantum. Grav 32, 015014 (2015).

Designed for Pulsar Astrophysics

SKA and Solar and Heliospheric Science The SKA will provide the highest fidelity radio images of the Sun

To address all of the above questions requires significant increases in both the number of discovered and the withpulsars very high time and frequency resolution – exactly what is precision with which they are studied. Therefore, the SKA has been designed to undertake an ambitious survey neededpulsar to simultaneously track the details of solar emission across of unprecedented scale and to regularly observe an array of pulsars with unsurpassed fidelity. By exploiting the latest time, frequency and morphology. The SKA will be able to image the solarfor corona and the weak radio emission from the CMEs in advances in multiprocessor technologies, the SKA will achieve the enormous computational task oftenuous searching highly unprecedented detail and out to large distances in the heliosphere relativistic pulsars over a large volume of the Galaxy in real-time. The remaining technical challenges revolve around making remarkable semi-autonomous operation of the survey, including schedule optimization, differentiating the pulsar needles from new the contributions to Space Weather studies, potentially enabling overwhelming radio frequency interference haystack, and optimally searching orbital parameter space to produce prediction of Space Weather events. SKA precursor instruments are deeply engaged in pursuing solar and heliospheric phase-connected timing solutions for confirmed binary pulsar discoveries. physics to pave the way for SKA science.

www.skao.int

SKA Science Working Groups highlight their research goals

BY DR TYLER BOURKE (SKAO)

A new set of science banners has been produced to highlight the key goals of the SKA’s Science Working Groups (SWGs), complemented by stunning images and data fromrecentstudiesineacheld.

At present there are 14 SWGs with over 1,000 members from Diamond in the SKAO Communications team. The refresh has 42 countries, covering all the major SKA science themes. provided an opportunity to include new images and text, as They are a valuable part of Team SKA, providing input into well as applying the SKAO’s new branding to the banners. areasofdesignandoperationsthatarelikelytoaectthe Visitors to SKAO Global HQ will spot them located around the Observatorysscienticcapabilityandproductivity. building, and they will also shortly be available to download To promote their scientic interests tothe broader community, from the individual SWG web pages on the new SKAO website. each SWG has a 2m-tall banner showcasing their plans for If you would like a digital copy in the meantime, send a using the SKA telescopes. These were originally produced request to comms@skao.int. in 2019, with the expert graphic design assistance of Joe SEPTEMBER

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Focus on

Software for telescopes surges ahead

BY ANIM VAN WYK (SKAO)

Awarding 41 contracts worth approximately €151.7 million, the SKA Observatory (SKAO) has leaped out of the blocks since the approval of construction just over a year ago.

singleorganicway,explainsNickRees, head of computing and software at the SKAO. The software leadership adopted a tailored version of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The framework is a setofworkowpatternswidelyused in industry.

Among others, the SKAO’s tender software project manager, Maurizio subcommittee most recently endorsed Miccolis. therstpartofthemanagementand This goal is to enable the SKAO In September 2018, the SKAO started integration of the SKA-Low telescope’s community to achieve transformational implementing SAFe processes with eldstations(81million)aswellasboth science.Thesoftwaresrstsignicant four development teams. Labelled PI0 telescopes’ synchronisation and timing trial awaits in 2024 when four telescope (Programme Increment Zero), more activity management (€1.5 million). dishes and six low-frequency antenna teams joined with each following PI, Major contracts for the manufacturing stations are due to come online. By including ones from other design of the SKA antennas and dishes should then, the software must demonstrate a consortia with software responsibilities. be awarded soon. basic ability to control the telescopes, Eventually, two Agile Release Trains – Software procurement received the bulk including the capacity to combine team-of-teams made up of three to of the contracts (23) and money (nearly signals from several antennas. nine people each – emerged: one for €100 million) committed so far. Under When construction concludes at the end Science Data Handling and Processing these contracts, at least 130 software of the decade, each telescope’s software (SDH&P) and the other for Observation, developers from nine countries are must process an average of 8 terabits of Monitoring, and Control (OMC). Later, a working to ensure the SKA telescopes data per second before distributing it to Services train was added. deliver world-class science. science users worldwide.

The Services train consists of enablers TheSKAOrecentlysigneditstwonal Populated by trains & planets that carry out activities in support of software contracts with India’s National the other trains’ work, such as setting Though the SKAO nalised its software Centre for Radio Astrophysics and Swiss up the software repository and testing procurement in a speedy nine months, company Cosylab. Their developers join system. Team Planet (an amalgamation the groundwork for it was laid years those from the Netherlands, Portugal, ofplatform & andnetwork) & isan ago.From2013-4,twodierent South Africa, Australia, Italy, China, enabler that provides the hardware, international consortia steered the and the United Kingdom working on platforms, as well as the networks that design of the SKA software as part of the project. connect them. the telescopes’ pre-construction phase.

“Concluding the contracting of all our The SAFe way of working is One consortium – consisting of software suppliers is a big moment, inherentlyexible. members from seven countries led by but at the same time, it is only an India – designed the Telescope Manager intermediatesteptotheultimate goal, “Three trains may not be our element.

The other consortium brought says the congurationforever,saysRees.&In together almost 40 institutions from SKAO’s future, we may transform them into two 11 countries to plan the Science Data trains, one dedicated to each telescope.

Processor, with the United Kingdom Currently, this is unnecessary as both in charge. telescopes require most of the software The consortia passed their critical design reviews in April 2018 and May 2019, respectively. The Observatory then started planning for construction by prototyping software development processes.

underdevelopment.

Working as trusted partners

Along with the SAFe methodology, relational contracts form the backbone of the SKAO’s software development.

The Observatory uses the fourth version “We realised that we didn’t want to of a suite of standard contracts called maintain the separate consortia but New Engineering Contracts 4, or NEC4. mergeeortstobuildthesoftwarein a aim to reduce the complexity and These

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time involved in managing contracts.

“By using the NEC4 suite, we set up contractsinamutuallybenecialway, rather than as a mere exchange of goodsandservicesbetweenparties, says Miccolis.

Software leadership found that combining an NEC4 framework contract and professional services short contract best suited the SKAO’s needsforexibility.Tofurtherensure the parties work as trusted partners, the Observatory follows the Vested methodology of relational contracting (see box) developed by academics in the United States.

How it works is that each contract includes a shared vision developed with all the suppliers. The agreement further stipulates the guiding principles (such as reciprocity and honesty), intended behaviours (inclusion and respect, for instance), high-level objectives, and the expected rules of engagement – but not the exact tasks or deliverables required.

Miccolis explains that the SKAO software engineering team could have spentyearsdeningwhatprecisely each supplier had to deliver. Instead, ‘HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP’ BETWEEN SKAO they contract skilled developers and AND SUPPLIERS IN THE MAKING ask them to use their expertise and Results from a recent survey reveal that SKAO’s approach to software creativity to help provide an even better contracting is bearing fruit. solution. However, the responsibility for deliveringthenalproductstayswith Academics from the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee the SKAO software engineering team. in Knoxville, USA, quizzed key personnel at the SKAO and its suppliers. They “What we ask for from suppliers is based the survey on the Vested methodology, endorsed by SKAO and its a set of experts, and then the SKAO softwaresuppliers,whichfocusesonveelementsthatindicatecompati steers this workforce to develop the and trust in a trading relationship: trust, innovation, communication, team softwareproductwehavetodeliver, orientation, and focus. says Miccolis.

The Vested faculty asked the SKAO and its suppliers to rank statements about “Skilled workers are motivated by theveelementsonascale.Participantsassessedthemselves wellastheir as stimulating work. You don’t need to counterparts.TheresultsshowedminordierencesintheSKAOsself-viewa police their work – on the contrary; you the partners’ perception of the SKAO and vice versa, signifying a promising level can leverage their skills and positive ofcompatibilityandtrust.Suchresultsare&indicativeofahealthyrel attitude. We don’t want working for Vested reported. the SKAO to be just a job, but a chance Open-endedquestionsinthesurveysnalsectionelicitedcommentssuc to do something fun, interesting, and challengingforanimportantproject.“The relationship we have with SKAO is much better than any other clientsupplierrelationshipwehadbefore.

Also read: Construction activities The results “show organisations such as ours can achieve a relational way of progress with further contracts and working,saidtheSKAOsprojectmanagerforsoftware,MaurizioMiccolis.&The site visits resultsareespeciallyencouraginggivenitwastherstassessmentand Credits: Characteristic of the SKAO’s Programme therelationshipisstillinitsearlydays.

Increment (PI) planning meetings, these doodles by software engineer Snehal Valame (pictured on the left) illustrate key SAFe concepts, such as the fruits of quality and onboarding teams on Agile Release Trains (top right and middle).

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The Observatory expects to repeat the survey once a year, said Miccolis. “We wanttokeepinvestinginthehealthoftherelationshipwithoursupp

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Pathnders

World map of SKA precursors and pathfinders

SKAO Partnership - includes SKAO Member States* and SKAO Observers (as *

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SKA precursor and pathfinder facilities are dotted around the world across the SKAO partnership and are proving to be a first-class testbed for our science community.

APERture Tile In Focus (APERTIF) – the Netherlands

Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) - Australia

Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) - Canada

Effelsberg 100m Radio Telescope Germany

enhanced Multi Element Remotely Linked Interferometer Network (e-MERLIN) United Kingdom

European VLBI Network (EVN) - Europe

Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) - China

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) - India

Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) – South Africa

Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) the Netherlands

MeerKAT – South Africa

Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) - Australia

NenuFAR - France

Parkes - Australia

VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA) - Japan

s of June 2022) *

African Partner Countries

*

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Local impact study of HERA shows direct benetsofradio astronomy infrastructure

BY MATHIEU ISIDRO (SKAO)

of the investment towards infrastructure was made to the Northern Cape, with materials sourced from local suppliers during construction of the infrastructure, demonstrating the value of hosting such infrastructure for local businesses.

Ataregionallevel,itwasfoundthatCarnarvonbenete most from the investment. In terms of employment, over the course of seven years, the construction of HERA created employment for 24 individuals who were mostly recruited from the town.

& TheimpactstudyshowshowSouthAfricacanbenet from smaller scale, co-hosted instrumentation through The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory business development to the employment it can create for (SARAO) has released a local impact study looking at people living in some of the most impoverished and rural thebenetsforlocalcommunitiesstemmingfrom geographicalareasinthecountry, explainedDrBonitade the hosting of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Swardt, SARAO Programme Manager: Strategic Partnerships Array (HERA)* – an SKA precursor facility – in for Human Capital Development (HCD) and author of the country. the report.

On a national level, the impact study found growing participation of South African researchers in the HERA collaboration,mainlyasaresultofcontinuousnancial support towards further education. This support led to increased participation of researchers based at local The aim of the HERA impact study undertaken by SARAO universities in the collaboration, ensuring South Africa’s wastounderstandthedirectinvestmentandbenetsofcorepresentation in world-class research conducted with hosted radio astronomy infrastructure to the local economy this instrument. in South Africa, at both the national and provincial level. *HERA is an array of 350 antennas situated next to the MeerKAT Thereports ndingsindicatethatSouthAfricareceived radio telescope in the Northern Cape province. It is a US-led substantial direct foreign investment for construction of the project that forms part of a large international collaboration infrastructure to the sum of more than R41.5 million (€2.4m) representative of institutions from Europe, South Africa, the UK for the period 2013-2021, comprising R38 million from the and US. The goal of HERA is to observe how the first structures US and R3.5 million from the UK. South Africa contributed formed in the very early stages of the Universe, as the first stars over R32 million to HERA and associated activities in that and galaxies lit up space. The instrument is now undergoing period, including human capital development in the form of commissioning and validation of its data. postgraduate scholarships and postdoctoral fellowships. Most Construction of HERA began in 2015, with the full array reaching completion in 2021. SARAO managed the construction of the infrastructure in close collaboration with US institutions.

BELOW: Part of the team of local artisans from the town of Carnarvon who helped build the HERA telescope, situated next to MeerKAT in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Credit: Scott Dynes.

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Promising beginnings for Australia’s newest supercomputer

BY KARINA NUNEZ (PAWSEY SUPERCOMPUTING CENTRE)

Australia’s newest supercomputer, Setonix, has produced a highly detailed image ofasupernovaremnantimmediatelyafterthecomputingsystemsrstst made available to researchers.

Data used to create the image was collected with the ASKAP radio telescope, an SKA precursor owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO, on Wajarri Yamatji Country in Western Australia. That data was then transferred to the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Perth, whereSetonixislocated,viahigh-speedopticalbre.

“Processing data from ASKAP’s astronomy surveys is a great way to stress-test the Setonix system and see what is possible,DrElahisaid.

While Setonix is ramping up to full operations, so is ASKAP, which is currently wrapping up a series of pilot surveys and will soon undertake even larger and deeper surveys of the sky.

Within24hoursofaccessingtherststageofPawseysnew Setonix will be used to process the data collected by ASKAP. Setonix system, CSIRO’s ASKAP science data processing team Dr Wasim Raja, a researcher on CSIRO’s ASKAP team, said began integrating their processing pipeline into the new the supernova remnant’s dataset was selected to test the system. processing software on Setonix, given the challenges involved Setonix (named after the quokka - Setonix brachyurus - a in imaging such a complex object. beloved small marsupial native to Western Australia) is the key “Setonix’s large, shared memory will allow us to use more of part of a AU$70 million capital upgrade of the Pawsey Centre. our software features and further enhance the quality of our The new supercomputer is being installed in two stages. The images. This means we will be able to unearth more from the rststageisunderway,andthesecondstageisexpected ASKAP todata,DrRajasaid. be completed later this year.

When fully operational, Setonix will be up to 30 times more Dr Pascal Elahi, Pawsey’s supercomputing applications powerful than Pawsey’s earlier Galaxy and Magnus systems specialist,saiddeployingthisrstphaseofSetonixhas combined. This will allow for more processing of the vast increased the computing power of the Pawsey Centre by 45%. amounts of data coming in from many projects, and more science will be achieved in a fraction of the time.

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SKA precursor telescopes don sunglassestondbrightesteverp

BY RACHEL RAYNER (CSIRO)

An international research team has used a new observation technique to discover the brightest extragalacticpulsarknown,anditcouldevenbethemostluminousoneeverfound.T have been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star – a remnant of a found a never-before-seen pulsar that is 10 times brighter dead star - that emits two beams of circularly polarised radio than any other detected outside our galaxy. light.Asthebeamsashacrossspacetheycreateaunique Collecting circularly polarised light is a highly specialised timing and polarisation signature. Around 3,000 pulsars have capability, which only a few of the world’s telescopes have been detected inside our galaxy, while those in neighbouring the capacity to achieve. ASKAP and MeerKAT’s sophisticated galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic engineering enables them to observe light that is linear Cloud, only number around 30. This may be because they or circularly polarised. By looking for light that is circularly have fewer pulsars, being smaller dwarf galaxies compared polarised, pulsars outside the standard timing range can be to our own, but most pulsars would also be too faint for our found. The collaboration capitalised on the telescopes’ unique telescopes to detect at that distance (around 200,000 light capabilities, namely ASKAP’s high survey speed and MeerKAT’s years away). high resolution. ASKAP can scan large swathes of sky in this Traditionalmethodsofndingpulsarslookfortheickering mode and then researchers, noticing anything unusual, can time signature in telescope data but can miss those that are set MeerKAT to have a closer look. too fast or too slow.

Withthisteameort,newdiscoveriesarebeingmade.Befor The research team instead applied a new method of seeking now, the bright spot in the radio data was overlooked as a out pulsars to CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope. By using the distant galaxy. astronomicalversionofsunglasses & tocapturelightthatis CSIRO acknowledges the Wajarri Yamatji as the traditional polarised, they spotted an intriguing light source in the Large owners of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site Magellanic Cloud. Follow-up observations by SARAO’s MeerKAT where ASKAP is located. telescopeinSouthAfricaconrmedthatresearchershad

BELOW: A section of the Large Magellanic Cloud, captured under normal conditions by SARAO’s MeerKAT radio telescope. It is detecting all radio light, and the pulsar looks like just another source of radio light. Credit: Yuanming Wang

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BELOW: The polarised light from a section of the Large Magellanic Cloud, as captured by SARAO’s MeerKAT radio telescope. In this field, MeerKAT was looking for sources that produced light that is circularly polarised.

Very few objects in the sky produce this type of polarised light – pulsars being one of them. Credit: Yuanming Wang

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Nkalakatha’s host galaxy as viewed from Perth, Western Australia. It’s ~5 billion light years away and invisible to the naked eye, between Archernar and Aldebaran. Credit: ICRAR

Astronomers detect galactic space laser

BY ICRAR

Apowerfulradio-wavelaser,calledamegamaser, & hasbeenobservedbythe MeerKAT telescope in South Africa.

Therecord-breakingndisthemostdistantmegamaserThe ofits team is using MeerKAT to observe narrow regions of the kindeverdetected,ataboutvebillionlight-yearsfrom sky extremely Earth. deeply and will measure atomic hydrogen in The light from the megamaser has travelled 58 thousand galaxies from the distant past to now. The combination of billion billion (58 followed by 21 zeros) kilometres to Earth. studying hydroxyl masers and hydrogen will help astronomers better understand how the Universe has evolved over time.

The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers led by Dr Marcin Glowacki, who previously “We have follow-up observations of the megamaser planned worked at the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive andhopetomakemanymorediscoveries,DrGlowackisaid.

Astronomy and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. The paper has been accepted for publication in The BELOW: Artist’s impression of a hydroxyl maser. Inside a galaxy Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available as a preprint. merger are hydroxyl molecules, composed of one atom of hydrogen Dr Glowacki, who is now based at the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia, said megamasers are usually created when two galaxies violently collide in the Universe.

and one atom of oxygen. When one molecule absorbs a photon at 18cm wavelength, it emits two photons of the same wavelength. When molecular gas is very dense, typically when two galaxies merge, this emission gets very bright and can be detected by radio telescopes such as the MeerKAT. Credit: IDIA/LADUMA using data from NASA/StSci/SKAO/ MolView

“When galaxies collide, the gas they contain becomes extremely dense and can trigger concentrated beams of light toshootout,hesaid.&Thisisthersthydroxylmegamaserof its kind to be observed by MeerKAT and the most distant seen by any telescope to date. It’s impressive that, with just a single night of observations, we’ve already found a record-breaking megamaser.Itshowsjusthowgoodthetelescopeis.

Therecord-breakingobjectwasnamed&Nkalakatha [pronouncedng-kuh-la-kuh-tah]anisiZuluwordmeaning &bigboss.

Dr Glowacki said the megamaser was detected on the rstnightofasurveyinvolvingmorethan3,0hoursof observations by the MeerKAT telescope.

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Strange slow-spinning neutron star discovered in ‘stellar graveyard’

BY DR HILARY KAY AND BEN ROBINSON (THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER)

An international team of scientists, led by members of the European Research Councilfunded MeerTRAP group at The University of Manchester in the UK, has discovered an unusual, very slow-spinning neutron star using South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope.

The star, named PSR J0901-4046, is rotating once every 76 seconds and is unexpectedly emitting radio pulses.

radio emission was only detected for a tiny fraction (0.5%) of its rotation period and therefore detecting similar sources will be observationally challenging.

Neutron stars (also known as pulsars) are extremely dense remnants of the supernova explosion of a massive star. They Dr Manisha Caleb, formerly from The University of Manchester produce beams of radio waves that sweep across the sky as and now at the University of Sydney, Australia, who led the theyspin,producingregularasheslikecosmiclighthouses. research said: “It is likely there are many more of these very However,slowrotationalongwithastrongmagneticeld, slowly spinning sources in the galaxy which has important like that seen with PSR J0901-4046, is thought to inhibit implications for how neutron stars are born and age. The radio emission, casting uncertainty on the exact nature of majority of pulsar surveys do not search for periods this long the object. and so we have no idea how many of these sources there mightbe.

Whilst the radio energy produced by PSR J0901-4046 is characteristic of a pulsar, the chaotic structure within For now, the exact mechanisms behind the radio emission the pulses and their polarisation is similar to that seen in from PSR J0901-4046 remain a mystery. But with the magnetars, and the spin rate is more consistent with that of a unprecedented sensitivity of the next generation of radio white dwarf. One possibility, the team suggests, is that it may telescopes like the SKA, coupled with the innovative belong to a new class of ultra-long period neutron stars. techniques like those employed by scientists in the MeerTRAP team, previously unseen new classes of radio transients will be PSRJ0901-46wasrstdiscoveredserendipitouslywhena uncovered, advancing our understanding of the relationship single pulse was detected by the MeerTRAP instrument, which between neutron stars, ultra-long period magnetars and fast was piggybacking on observations by the ThunderKAT project. radio bursts.

Combining data from both projects enabled the teams to accurately locate the position of the neutron star, allowing for The paper, “Discovery of a radio-emitting neutron star more detailed and sensitive follow-up observations. withanultra-longspinperiodof76s,ispublishedin Nature Astronomy.

The high sensitivity of MeerKAT observations, along with MeerTRAP’s ability to detect transients in real time and the simultaneous imaging from the ThunderKAT team, combined BELOW: Artist impression of the 76s pulsar (in magenta) compared to other to make the discovery possible. In the case of PSR J0901-4046, more rapidly spinning sources. Credit: Danielle Futselaar (artsource.nl)

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ABOVE: Compilation of pictures of the DTS Opening event on the ASTRON premises on 10 May 2022. The speakers (from top left to bottom right) are ASTRON director Prof. Jessica Dempsey; LOFAR2.0 Station Development Project Manager Arno Schoenmakers; and LOFAR2.0 Project Scientist Prof. Jason Hessels. Photos courtesy of Adriaan Renting and Mark Ruiter (ASTRON).

The Dwingeloo Test Station: a major milestone towards LOFAR2.0

BY PROF. JASON HESSELS (ASTRON)

A major upgrade to the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is now a step closer following the opening of the new Dwingeloo Test Station (DTS) in the Netherlands, which will test prototype software and hardware for LOFAR2.0.

LOFAR is a pan-European radio telescope that links tens of thousands of antennas across 10 partner countries, an enormous geographical span which allows it to make remarkably sharp images. The low-band antennas (LBA) and high-band antennas (HBA) provide a powerful view of the lowest radio frequencies visible from Earth: from 10240 MHz. At the time of construction, the available computational power meant that it was only possible to use either the LBA or HBA antennas at any given time.

With LOFAR2.0, it will be possible to use all the LOFAR antennas at once andtoexpandtheeld-of-viewofthe stations. This is made possible by an order-of-magnitude increase in the computing power at the LOFAR stations, as well as a new central computational &brain,theCOBALT2.0correlatorand beam-former. Furthermore, a new White-Rabbit-based clock distribution system is being installed such that there SEPTEMBER

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are no timing delays between the 38 [showingtheycanoperateasanarray], DutchLOFARstations.[WhiteRabbitisas well as multi-day stability tests with a technology that provides extremely all LBA and HBA antennas observing accurate (nanosecond level of accuracy) simultaneously. This progress means timing over the network. It can be used therstfullLOFAR2.0stationisontrack to provide timing to the antennas so for delivery by early 2023. that data from each receptor can be These enhancements are being accurately timestamped. It is also being implemented from 2021-2024, and usedbytheSKAOforitstelescopes.] together will provide a step function in On 10 May, the Dwingeloo Test Station LOFARsoverallscienticcapabilities.It was ceremoniously opened. Located will remain a unique and world-leading next to ASTRON, it is testing the entire telescope, also accessing the largely LOFAR2.0 signal chain: from the unexplored spectral window below antennas, through the new receiver 50 MHz. boards and Uniboard-squared-based Early LOFAR2.0 science observations processing, all the way to the correlator areplannedtobeginin205,aording and beam-former. This is a crucial step ultra-wide-band, ultra-deep, ultra-highin the development process because resolution observations. Among the it allows the prototype electronics, manyscienticgoalsforLOFAR2.0,such rmwareandsoftwaretobetested observations can track the history of before being rolled out to a full LOFAR star formation and galaxy evolution over station and then the entire array. cosmic time, as well as identify starThe team has already achieved the planet interactions in our own galaxy. &rstfringesbetweentestantennas

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Team SKA

Simphiwe Madlanga

Coordinator: Science Engagement, SARAO In July 2022, science communicators from around the globe came together both in-person and online for the Public Awareness of Research Infrastructures (PARI) conference, hosted by the SKAO. Among them was Simphiwe Madlanga from South Africa, Coordinator for Science Engagement at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).

Selected as one of the “Top 200 Young South Africansin2018bytheMail&Guardiannewspaper,Simphiwehasdevotedhis careertoexplainingastronomyanditsbenetstocommunitiesacrosshishomecountry.CurrentlyinLondonona UK government Chevening Scholarship, researching the societal impact of the SKA project in South Africa, Simphiwe spoke to us aboutlifelonglearning,inspiringyoungpeoplethroughscience,andthevaluehendsintakinglongwalks.

Congratulations on your Chevening Scholarship, Simphiwe! What made you want to apply for it?

In the midst of the COVID-19 hard lockdown in my home country, South Africa, while unable to even be outdoors except to buy groceries at certain nationally designated hours, I

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developed this burning urge to travel the world and elevate my learning and overall value proposition. I was completely unaccustomed to being stuck in one place for that long, because my job entails travelling all across South Africa regularly being in schools, universities and other places of public engagement around science.

Something stirred within me and asked the question; “What can you do that will change everything and surpass all the circumstancesyounowndyourselfin?

I applied to three universities in the United Kingdom and simultaneously applied to the Chevening Award. I had no idea when lockdown would end or

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if travel to another country would even be possible, but as part of my life goal I had no doubt that this was the best next step in my life. Lo and behold, I was awarded the scholarship; only 1,633 were awarded from more than 64,000 applicants, and I was one of the 50 from South Africa.

Your postgraduate studies are focused on the impact of the SKA project – tell us more.

Iwanttoexploreinveryspecicways what the SKA project means for South Africa in the context of the many other country-wide facets that are prevalent. The relevant modules in my postgraduate programme include Innovation and the Knowledge Economy and Management of Emerging Technologies. I hope that through this academic journey I may be an active participant in unlocking the added meaning and value of the SKA to my home country.

role models helped me to be where around us (the Universe in our context, Iamtoday.Growingupindierent of course). I have always been drawn households,dierenttownsandcities to the outside world, and going to the enhanced my social awareness and I countryside every holiday break meant learned much from these exemplary wecouldplayinopeneldstoour men, in terms of education, discipline, hearts’ content. ambition and being an upstanding I developed a fascination with how citizen, among many other things. things work, why they are the way Igrewupreadingmanydierentbooks they are and that led to my love of in both English and my home language geography in school. Natural processes isiXhosa.Iwasaninquisitive,boisterous were my favourite aspect about and daring young person so I got to geography; the cycles, interplays experience many things and learn and interconnectedness of natural throughrst-handexperience.Mylife phenomena. I enjoyed it so much that I growing up is aptly summed up by the would read my school textbook ahead of the class; even going into material that was not yet taught in the year I was studying. So yes, I have loved science ever since I can remember, and perhaps even beforeI&knew thatitwasscience.

That enjoyment of the outdoors led you to study geology at university. When did you decide that science communication and engagement was the route you wanted to take for a career?

Rewinding to your early life, what was your childhood like?

AfterInishedmybachelor degreeIhappenedtondcontract employment at the National Science and Technology Forum I was born in a small town (NSTF) wherein we worked with called Mount Frere, in one schools to support chemistry and of the rural provinces in physics education and practical South Africa. The village demonstrations. This is where my where my parents grew science communication journey up and which I call home began, through the learner is eNjijini location. I was and teacher workshops that we fortunate that my father’s ran. It only became a conscious family valued education and career path when I realised that the opportunities it brought geologicaleldworkoroilandgas ABOVE: Simphiwe is a keen walker – seen here at the famous Seven in life; this was in no small exploration were not really for me in Sisters chalk cliffs on England’s south coast. part due to my grandfather the long-term. I thereafter applied who was a school teacher for a position at Hartebeesthoek Radio words of Albert Einstein when he said and relatively well accomplished in the Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) as a &Playisthehighestformofresearch, community. Once I reached school Science Communicator. and O. Fred Donaldson, a specialist age, I was taken under the wing of and in this area, who is credited with the raised by a well-educated uncle of mine Your academic achievements are words “Children learn as they play. in a nearby small city called Umtata. extensive! Could you give us an Most importantly, in play children learn I spent much of my formative years overview and tell us what drives you howtolearn.IwoulddaresaythatI to keep learning? there and just when I was about to be am living proof that what these two a teenager, I relocated to be under my Iamformallyqualiedasageologist, gentlemen said is indeed true. biologicalfatherscareinadierent and registered as a Professional town (the active role both these men Did you love science as a youngster?

Natural Scientist (Earth Science) under played in my upbringing means they are the South African Council for Natural Thesimplestdenitionofsciencethat I bothdeemedmyfathers).Thedierent ScienticProfessions(SACNASP). know is that it is the study of the world experiences and exposure to many SEPTEMBER

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M Y G R E AT E S T J OY I S W H E N I A M A B L E TO H E L P T H E P U B L I C U N D E R S TA N D T H AT A S T R O N O M Y I S T H E O L D E S T S C I E N C E A N D T H AT A L L O F U S A R E PA R T I C I PA N T S I N I T. Ipossessotherqualicationsin science communication, management development and project management.

It was not part of my original plan to study as much as I have done and indeed continue to do. After I completed my undergraduate studies I thought I was done with school. It took only a few years in the workplace for me to realise that the essence of life is to grow and to become better; and in my opinion continuous learning is the best tool for that. I now identify as a lifelong learner. The philosopher Mortimer Adler captured this eloquently with the words: “The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continuegrowingaslongaswelive.

Let’s focus on the SKA project now – what interests you about it and how did you become involved?

I am intrigued by the ambitiousness of the entire project! The whole process from ideation; conceptual framework and real-world implementation in such a phased way over such a long time period yet still keeping true to the overarching goal. This fascinates me and resonates with me.

It seems I became a part of the SKA project by default; I spent six years at HartRAO and then migrated to SKA South Africa around the time when both entities coalesced to become SARAO around four years ago.

Working in outreach, are there moments when it is really brought home to you how important science communication and engagement is for a big project like the SKA? Every time I go to under-resourced, under-served schools and participate inthedemysticationofscience and astronomy in particular. Every timeIwitnessthepenny& drop moments wherein both learners and teachers truly realise how astronomy infrastructure actually works and the phenomenal discoveries that have been made including the technological advancements that have come from such research at varying scales.

My greatest joy is when I am able to help the public understand that astronomy is the oldest science and that all of us are participants in it, in some way. Sharing with them the concept that

what they see with their own eyes on a dark starry night or feel on their skin on a lovely sunny day is just some of the types of light or radiation that exist out there; and that radio astronomy instruments detect the type/s that our bodies are not designed to detect.

Theaha & momentsthatfollowsucha revelation are priceless for me.

Science and engineering are often seen as not very diverse or inclusive. What is your experience of this, and how do you feel it could be improved?

The work I have been doing for the past 10 years in science communication and engagement has brought about a heightened sense of awareness of diversity and inclusion. I work in communities where there is an absence of role models, among many other scarcities. When one enters school classrooms, there are usually good levels of enthusiasm from most of the learners toward science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. During lessons and practical activities, all genders seem to either be fascinated by the concepts or show a general keenness to learn more.

I believe that something happens through secondary schooling and tertiary education levels that either especially alienates or discourages girls and young women leading to less of them following these streams further, which is really unfortunate. What is seen in the workplaces is an outcome of a pipeline that may have not served all people the same way. I am uncertain how much of it can be attributed to adverse socialisation and how much to systematic inadequacies.

At a township school in South Africa; helping a student to reach the top of the board during a practical science demonstration during a class.

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This of course then extends to aspects ofvalidrepresentationofdierent population groups at various levels intheeldofpracticeandinthe leadership of organisations. I am aware

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that there are initiatives that are being Seat in Edinburgh, Scotland, and have advancedbutmuchstilldenitelyneeds also walked the Seven Sisters trail to be done to improve the situation. between Seaford and Eastbourne on England’s south coast, all 22 kilometres Impact beyond science is a key of it on a nice sunny day. driver for the SKAO, through human capacity development for example.

Has there been a highlight of your How do you see the SKA project time in the UK so far? contributing to this?

I have had the privilege of experiencing Greatworkisbeingdoneondierent a number of momentous occasions, fronts, including encouraging young but the one that stands out is attending students to embrace STEM studies, Evensong’s service at Westminster hiring science teachers, equipping local Abbeybyinvitationoftheoceofthe school classrooms with computers or South African High Commissioner to other material, and providing artisan the UK, Her Excellency O. Tambo. On training, among several other initiatives.

28 April 2022, a day after South Africa’s I can give a snapshot from my time Freedom Day celebrations, a service within Research Capacity Development was held with special mention of our (RCD) at SARAO, which provides support country and the people of South Africa. and help to develop university students, The High Commissioner was also given from undergraduate study right to a chance to deliver a reading and it was post-doctoral level. Further support altogether a very touching moment. is given through various workshops In 10 years’ time where do you to help students understand SARAO see yourself? Do you like to set and the SKA better while getting the such plans, or just see where life opportunity to visit the research sites takes you? and interface with the experts in person I would say that I am a person who and within context. believes in life goals and mine are quite AnothersignicantrolethatRCD overarching; to study until my last day, plays is funding of research groups teach in whatever capacity I am able in universities so that researchers to and to lead in pioneering projects may work with bright students, to – which of course by nature transcend develop a new cadre of postgraduate theveor10yearplanconversation. students toward strengthening the I see myself attaining a Doctorate overall research fraternity in radio qualication,supervisingpostgraduate astronomy prospectively. students, serving in advisory boards Moving away from work, what and executive roles, and being a true ABOVE: Attending the 2022 Chevening Summit do you like to do in your free global citizen among many other roles at the ExCel Centre in London in March 2022. time to unwind after all that in the future. studying and working?

IrmlybelievethatIama I love to walk, I average 40 kilometres multipotentialite and am equal to the aweek.Igettoreectandthink challenges that come with various about my life, taking lessons from inclinations and ambitious pursuits. past experiences and treating any It is not easy and it may not be for event or situation as a case-study to everyone,butthosewhormlybelieve draw value from even in retrospect. it will achieve it. The broadcaster and I also use that time to do scenario author Earl Nightingale captured it best, planning though some people may in my opinion, when he said: “Success is TEAM SKA say I tend to overthink things. On the defined as the progressive realisation of a In each issue of Contact, we’ll lighter side though, I like to take in worthy goal. get to know one of the many the sights as I walk and I enjoy taking All photos courtesy of Simphiwe talented people contributing to pictures of buildings, nature and in the SKA project, hearing about Madlanga. particular clouds. I prefer walking in their work, how they got here thecountrysideasarstprize,butIam and their advice for the next happy to walk in the city too wherever generation.Youcanndmore walkways are available. In my time in the prolesonour website.

UK I have already hiked up to Arthur’s

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Events

New Eyes on the Universe: ngVLA and SKA conference

BY DR TYLER BOURKE (SKAO) AND DR ERIC MURPHY (NRAO)

Save the date for a landmark radio astronomy science meeting designed to highlight the complementarity and synergies between the two premier radio astronomy instruments of the 21st century: the SKA telescopes and the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA).

To be held in Vancouver, Canada, at the Pan Pacic HotelPlenary talks will feature the highest-priority science for the week of 30 April 2023, this meeting will review, discuss, these facilities, striving to determine where new sci and extend the cutting-edge science opportunities enabled understanding is most likely to result from access to both by the unprecedented SKA-ngVLA coverage across three observatories. Contributed talks will focus on topics that decades of radio frequency (50 MHz to 116 GHz). highlight each facility’s strengths. Please mark the dates in your calendar and stay tuned for further announcements!

RegistrationopenfornalESCAPE meeting

BY DR LUIGI COLUCCI (ESCAPE)

The ESCAPE project, which is a European Commission-funded project running since 2019, is completing its work after three highly productive years.

Its nal event, ESCAPE to the Future, will be held between 25 and 26 October at the Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels.

ESCAPE has brought together communities from several major research infrastructures in astronomy, The nal meeting will see ESCAPE members share their astro-particle and high-energy physics to develop results and achievements, present ESCAPE services and technologies to improve the way these great experiments discuss future challenges after the project ends. can coordinate, make available and process their vast The event is open to all and free of charge. Registration amounts of scientic data. The work has covered a range of is open until 24 September and attendance is welcome in areas including citizen science, data management, scientic person or through remote connection; please note in-person analysis, software curation and sharing, and making use of attendance is limited to 150 people, so early registration the virtual observatory standards to improve data ndability is advised. and interoperability.

Register here.

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Majorinternationaleventsl SKAO calendar After countless event cancellations in recent years due to the pandemic, 2022 has seen the return of international conferences.

The SKAO has been well represented at some of the biggest both in person and virtually, with many presentations and a brand new booth enabling the team to reconnect with the wider community and make new contacts for the future. Among them (clockwise from top left)): the European Astronomical Society meeting in Valencia, Spain, in June; SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation in Montreal, Canada, in July; the 65th Session of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS); the launch of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris; and the IAU General Assembly in Busan, South Korea, in August.

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National Science Weeks engage thousands in South Africa and Australia

BY ANTON BINNEMAN (SARAO) AND CSIRO/ICRAR ON BEHALF OF SKA TEAM AUSTRALIA

Credit: SARAO

In August, South Africa and Australia held their National Science Weeks, a major opportunity to engage with and inspire communities across both SKA telescope host countries.

South Africa’s National Science Week, which ran from 1-6 ICRAR hosted “From eyes to glass to aluminium: a history of August, is an annual celebration of the role and value of astronomy,apublictalkattendedby160curiousminds.The science and technology in people’s daily lives, led by the team also visited local schools and an event at WA Museum Department of Science and Innovation (DSI). This year the Boola Bardip to showcase the SKA and astronomy. theme was “Celebrating the role of basic sciences in the Leaders from ASKAP research and operations jumped online modernworld,inlinewiththeUN-declaredInternationalYear for a recap of the great year had by CSIRO’s SKA precursor of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development which was telescope.Sixty-vepeoplejoinedintohearaboutASKAP launched in July, of which the SKAO is a partner. astronomy, operations and management, as well as looking to The National Research Foundation (NRF) and SARAO organised the future with the SKA project. a roadshow in the Northern Cape province focusing on the Finally, ICRAR astronomer Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker teamed SKAO footprint in the area. The SARAO Science Engagement up with artist Becksi to create “galactic blooms , a T-shirt team visited the towns of Williston, Vanwyksvlei, Brandvlei and design crossing the MWA GLEAM survey radio sky with Carnarvon, reaching more than 4,000 people through school wildowersoftheMurchisonregion.ItwasvotedAustralia visits. Alongside talks on astronomy and radio astronomy, and favourite science T-shirt during National Science Week, and activities that highlighted careers and opportunities provided readers in Australia and New Zealand can order their own! by the NRF-SARAO and the SKAO, learners were engaged with Protsaredonatedtoorganisationssupportingdivers activities including a rocket launching competition and nightinclusion in STEM. time sky viewing through telescopes.

Australia’s National Science Week took place from 13 to 21 August, with strong involvement by researchers involved intheSKAproject.Itkickedoearlywithaneventinthe Murchison on Wajarri country, close to CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. Students from the Pia Wadjarri Remote Community School joined CSIRO and the Australian SKAOceteamtolaunchwaterrocketstowardstheMoon, with the generous loan of some ICRAR equipment.

Celebrating the SKA project, two special observing events took place in remote Western Australian towns Cue and Mingenew, the latter with guest speaker Dr Jimi Green (SKA-Low Head of Science Operations), with two more events to follow with SKALow guests in October.

ABOVE: ICRAR-Curtin’s Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker models the ‘galactic blooms’ T-shirt Credit: Jun Tian, ICRAR-Curtin PhD student 38

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A collage of photos of all the various activites that took place for the National Science Weeks in both Australia and South Africa.

Credits: SARAO & ICRAR-Curtin

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News

SKAO in the news The Astroholic Explains Iranian Students’ News Agency SKA: The Future Of Radio Astronomy [Listen]Whatdothe Iran’s participation in the world’s most ambitious radio SKAtelescopesanddragonieshaveincommon?Bothobtain telescope[InPersian]DrFatemehTabatabaeifromthe abetterpicturebyusingcompoundeyes. & SKAOscientist Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences in Iran Dr Anna Bonaldi used this analogy to explain the principle elaborates on a paper she co-authored, intended to guide the of interferometry.

SKA engineering team on how to better detect emissions from distant galaxies.

The Conversation HowvisionaryscientistBernieFanaroputAfricanastronomy IT Web on the map – For the 50th episode of their podcast Cosmic Mega science SKA project reaches 10-year mark – On Africa Savannah, astronomers Daniel Cunnama and Jacinta Delhaize Day (25 May), South Africa’s higher education, science and interviewedDrBernieFanaro,whowasprojectdirector innovation for minister Dr Blade Nzimande highlighted the South Africa’s bid to host the SKA telescope. benetstothecountryowingfromhostingtheSKA-Mid telescope.

Space Australia SetonixandASKAPreuptoimageancientstellarexplosion The Australia Today Marvelatthewideeld-of-viewoftheASKAPtelescope Australia and India space collaboration to strengthen in intherstimagegeneratedbyAustraliaspowerful coming years, says Dr Yashwant Gupta – Featuring a video Setonix supercomputer. It revealed the remnant of a interview with Prof. Yashwant Gupta, director of the National supernova explosion.

Centre for Radio Astrophysics in India, who discusses India andAustraliaseortstobuildtheSKAtelescopes.

Astronomy inspires bluedot festival-goers

BY JOSEPH DIAMOND (SKAO)

After a two-year break due to the pandemic, it was fantastic to have the bluedot festival back on the SKAO’s doorstep at the end of July.

Bluedot is an award-winning festival of discovery set against the backdrop of the iconic Lovell Telescope. It combines a truly stellar line-up of music with a rich programme of live science experiments, expert talks and immersive artworks.

During the four-day festival, the SKAO had its own stand staed by volunteers from the Observatory and partner organisations who used the weekend to talk to and inspire festival-goers of all ages.

Our very own Dr Shari Breen, head of science operations, gave an expert talk (&Unveiling our galaxy, the Milky Way) to a full crowd in the aptly named Mission Control tent.

Thank you to Shari and all our volunteers for making the SKAO’s involvement at bluedot a success!

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ABOVE: Aerial image of the Jodrell Bank site when Bluedot is taking place. Credit: Jodrell Bank/Bluedot

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Jobs

SKAO jobs

With the start of construction of the SKA telescopes, we continue to recruit HQ-basedstaacrossanumberofareas.Wearenowalsorecruitingrolesbas in Australia and South Africa. Some of those roles are employed through our partners CSIRO and SARAO. Make sure to register on our recruitment website to receive alerts.

Telescope Configuration Manager

Control Software Engineer

Engineer – Technical Writer

TheTelescopeConguration Manager is a key member of the SKAO Assurance Group and will be responsible for the CongurationManagement activities on the Radio Telescopes being constructed in South Africa and Australia.

The Control Software Engineer will ensure that the Control Systems for the two SKA telescopes are developed to the highest standards, providing their technical skills to all software development teams involved in the realisation of the controls software.

The Technical Writer will be part of the SKA Operations Group where they will restructure and develop data modules and work packages, and ensure that nancial,qualityandtimeframe objectives are met.

Deadline: 14/09/2022

Deadline: 22/09/2022

Deadline: 16/09/2022

APPLY HERE

APPLY HERE

APPLY HERE

Senior Domain Engineer The Senior Domain Engineer will provide engineering support and leadership, both intheirspecicdiscipline and across the entire SKAMid Telescope. Working in collaboration with the SKAO System Scientists, the Senior Domain Engineer will be responsible for the performance of the SKA-Mid Telescope.

Deadline: 22/09/2022

Standards Engineer The Standards Engineer will be responsible for the identicationanddenition (where necessary) of standards and oversee their implementation for the dierentcontractsintheSKA project to ensure the products and services comply with the SKAO, statutory and regulatory requirements.

Deadline: 28/09/2022 APPLY HERE

APPLY HERE

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Celebrating our community: awards and honours In this section we celebrate success and recognise colleagues, partners and members of the community who have received prestigious grants, awards and honours. Congratulations to all of them from the SKAO! If you’ve heard of a relevant award for a member of Team SKA, contact us at magazine@skao.int.

Prof. Naomi McClure-Griffiths, chair of the SKAO’s Science and Engineering Advisory Committee, and Prof. Matthew Bailes, a member of the SKAO’s Pulsars Science Working Group, were made fellows of the Australian Science Academy for their outstanding contributions to science.

Dr Bernie Fanaroff, former managing director of SKA South Africa (now SARAO) has been elected into the membership of the prestigious American Philosophical Society. Election to the society honours extraordinary accomplishmentsinallelds.

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Prof. Françoise Combes, co-chair of the SKAO’s Extragalactic Spectral Line Science Working Group, was awarded the 2022 Karl G. Jansky Lectureship

by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory(NRAO),honouringhersignicantcontributionstotheeldsof galaxy evolution, the interstellar medium, dark matter, and radio astronomy.

Dr Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia, a member the SKAO’s HI Galaxy Science Science Working Group, was awarded Spain’s Ada Byron prize which recognises the achievements of women in technology.

Dr John Ilee, a member of the UK SKA Science Committee and the SKAO’s Cradle of Life Science Working Group, has been awarded an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship to work on ‘Unlocking the organic chemistry of planet formation’. He will develop models of proto-planetary disks, which will be used to interpret data from the SKA, JWST and ALMA.

Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, co-chair of the SKAO’s Extragalactic Continuum Science Working Group, was awarded the Australian Astronomical Society’s AnneGreenPrizeforasignicantadvancementbyamid-careerscientist.

The ASKAP telescope team – representing more than 100 engineers and researchers – received the Peter McGregor Prize 2022 for innovation in astronomical instrumentation.

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CONTACT – THE SKAO’s MAGAZINE Published by the SKAO Communications team.

EDITOR: William Garnier william.garnier@skao.int EDITORIAL TEAM: Mathieu Isidro, Cassandra Cavallaro, Anim van Wyk magazine@skao.int DESIGN: Joe Diamond, based on an original design

by Carbon Creative We welcome your contributions to Contact!

Find out how to submit ideas here.

All images in Contact are courtesy of SKAO unless otherwise indicated.

ABOUT THE SKAO The SKAO, formally known as the SKA Observatory, is an intergovernmental organisation composed of Member StatesfromvecontinentsandheadquarteredintheUK.Its mission is to build and operate cutting-edge radio telescopes to transform our understanding of the Universe, and deliverbenetstosocietythroughglobalcollaborationand innovation. Its two telescopes, each composed of hundreds of dishes and thousands of antennas, will be constructed in South Africa and Australia and be the two most advanced radio telescopes on Earth. A later expansion is envisioned in both countries and other African partner countries.

Together with other state-of-the-art research facilities, the SKAO’s telescopes will explore the unknown frontiers of science and deepen our understanding of key processes, including the formation and evolution of galaxies, fundamental physics in extreme environments and the origins of life. Through the development of innovative technologies and its contribution to addressing societal challenges, the SKAO will play its part to address the United Nations’ SustainableDevelopmentGoalsanddeliversignicant benetsacrossitsmembershipandbeyond.

The SKAO recognises and acknowledges the Indigenous peoples and cultures that have traditionally lived on the lands on which the SKAO facilities are located.

FRONT COVER: This issue’s cover celebrates the return of outreach activities in the SKAO host countries, with SKA-related activities featuring strongly during National Science Weeks in Australia and South Africa, and at the major bluedot festival hosted next door to the SKAO HQ site in the UK.

HYPERLINKS: Contact is produced primarily as a digital magazine. If you are reading a print copy, use the QR code to read this and other issues of Contact online and access the hyperlinks.