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Visitors from the international science community attended the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Forum, held at the radio telescope station in Warkworth on February 14.
Among the 15 guests was Dr Willem Van Straten, a senior lecturer in physics at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), who has a particular research interest in gravitational waves and pulsars.
“One idea behind the SKA is to test Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity by looking at the relationship between a pulsar and a black hole,” Dr Van Straten says.
“Scientists have never found a pulsar in orbit of a black hole previously, but theoretically it can exist so that’s why we need a huge array of telescopes to increase our chances of finding this occurrence.”
There are currently 10 countries involved in the project, but The National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) director of industry relations, Gabriel Marquette, hopes to add France to this list.
Mr Marquette attended the forum and CNRS, which has a budget that is one-quarter of the total expenditure of civilian research in France, has put forward a proposal to its government that the country take part in the SKA.
“There are technological and economic benefits of being involved with research projects so we are trying to convince the government it’s worth investing in,” Mr Marquette says.
“I haven’t visited many radio telescope stations so far, but I’m impressed with the quality of equipment for data collection and transfer at this station.”
The French Government will make a final decision on participating in the SKA project in two years time.
Research and Education Advance Network NZ (REANNZ) chief engagement manager Douglas Harre also visited the station.
REANNZ has a heavy involvement with the SKA project in the form of data transportation.
“Scientists need to send huge data files between stations so our role is to provide a dedicated fibre network as public connections don’t have the capacity,” Mr Harre says.
“We already have a connection set up between the Warkworth station and AUT in Auckland, and we will facilitate the movement of data for the SKA project.”
New Zealand’s main contribution to the SKA project is likely to be management of data that is expected to be 10 times the internet traffic of 2013.
Other research goals include studying how galaxies are formed and searching for alien life forms.
The idea of the SKA originated in 1991 and the radio telescope system is expected to be fully operational in 2024.
