From Big Bang to Big Data

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) when completed in 2024, with 3,000 individual ground-based dish antennas, will be the largest radio telescope ever created. The dishes will be linked to act as one giant telescope, an arrangement known as an interferometer, with an extremely fast computer systems. Image credit SKA

IBM and ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy today announced an initial 32.9 million Euro, five-year collaboration to research extremely fast computer systems for the international Square Kilometre Array.

Scientists estimate that the processing power required to operate the telescope will be equal to several millions of today’s fastest computers. Image credit SKA

The telescope will be used to explore evolving galaxies, dark matter and even the very origins of the universe, back more than 13 billion years. Image credit IBM