www.ska.edu.au

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) isn’t like a typical backyard optical telescope. It doesn’t use lenses or mirrors and it will even work in the middle of a sunny day or when the sky is full of clouds.

The difference is that unlike optical telescopes like you’ve probably seen before, the SKA is a radio telescope. Radio telescopes detect different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) to optical telescopes.

Much like bats can detect their prey without actually “seeing” it, a radio telescope can detect the presence of stars and galaxies without “seeing” them, because it tunes into the sky like a big radio dial!