Radioastronomie : à la découverte du projet SKA, une nouvelle façon de photographier l'univers

Le Square Kilometre Array (SKA) est le projet dun futur télescope géant radio. Il sera le plus grand télescope au monde, avec une surface collectrice effective de 1 km2. SKA va opérer aux fréquences radio entre 0.3 GHz et 30 GHz et sera installé dans une région désertique en Afrique du Sud ou bien en Australie. Les thématiques scientifiques privilégiées du SKA concerneront lévolution des grandes structures cosmologiques et du gaz lors des Ages Sombres de lUnivers, la formation et lévolution des galaxies, de la matière sombre et de lénergie sombre, lorigine et lévolution du magnétisme cosmique, lévolution des systèmes dexo-planètes et enfin les champs forts de gravité et les tests de la relativité générale grâce aux observations des objets compatcs tels que les pulsars et les trous noirs.

*** Voir site du projet : https://ska-france.oca.eu/fr/ska/le-projet

Au niveau de CentraleSupélec, 3 chercheurs sont impliqués au niveau du laboratoire L2S. Elles sont ici interviewées sur leur participation :

- Nicolas Gac, enseignant-chercheur qui travaille sur l'adéquation algorithme architecture pour relever le défi de traitement des données de taille radioastronomique.

- Nicolas Monnier est doctorant. Il est impliqué dans le développement et optimisation d'algorithmes pour supercalculateurs.

- Jérémy Besson est élève-ingénieur. Participe à la mise au point d'un algorithme qui cherche à séparer les flux de chaud et de froid du milieu interstellaire.


ENGLISH VERSION description below


The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is an international effort to build the worlds largest radio telescope, with eventually over a square kilometre (one million square metres) of collecting area. The scale of the SKA represents a huge leap forward in both engineering and research & development towards building and delivering a unique instrument, with the detailed design and preparation now well under way. As one of the largest scientific endeavours in history, the SKA will bring together a wealth of the worlds finest scientists, engineers and policy makers to bring the project to fruition.
Unprecedented Scale

The SKA will eventually use thousands of dishes and up to a million low-frequency antennas that will enable astronomers to monitor the sky in unprecedented detail and survey the entire sky much faster than any system currently in existence.

Its unique configuration will give the SKA unrivalled scope in observations, largely exceeding the image resolution quality of the Hubble Space Telescope.

It will also have the ability to image huge areas of sky in parallel a feat which no survey telescope has ever achieved on this scale with this level of sensitivity. With a range of other large telescopes in the optical and infra-red being built and launched into space over the coming decades, the SKA will perfectly augment, complement and lead the way in scientific discovery.
Co-hosting

Both South Africas Karoo region and Western Australias Murchison Shire were chosen as co-hosting locations for many scientific and technical reasons, from the atmospherics above the sites, through to the radio quietness, which comes from being some of the most remote locations on Earth.

South Africas Karoo will host the core of the high and mid frequency dishes, ultimately extending over the African continent. Australias Murchison Shire will host the low-frequency antennas.
A global effort

Whilst 14 member countries are the cornerstone of the SKA, around 100 organisations across about 20 countries are participating in the design and development of the SKA. World leading scientists and engineers are working on a system which will require two supercomputers each 25% more powerful than the best supercomputer in the world in 2019, and network technology that will see data flow at a rate 100,000 times faster than the projected global average broadband speed in 2022 (source: CISCO; November 2018).