What should we look for?
/ More Hot TopicsHow are galaxies formed?
With our eye, we can only see so far into space. With an optical telescope, we can see even further. With the SKA, we’ll be able to study galaxies further away than we’ve ever seen before. What we know about the Universe so far is that it appears to get a bit bigger every single day. By mapping the Universe further away from home, we hope to figure why and how it’s growing.
What happened after the big bang?
Our understanding of the start of time goes something like this:
- The Big Bang. The Universe suddenly bursts into being and seems to be getting bigger and bigger.
- ???
- About one billion years later: the first galaxies were formed.
It’s that bit in the middle – right after the Big Bang and before the first galaxies, about a billion years later - that we know very little about. We’re hoping the SKA will help us see how the Universe gradually lit up as its stars and galaxies formed and then evolved.
Was Einstein right?
Nearly a hundred years ago, Einstein presented his Theory of Relativity, explaining how the Universe works. “Theory” doesn’t mean Einstein just guessed at how the Universe works–far from it! But it does mean that, although so far it has stood up to all our testing, it can also be changed if we ever learn something new. With the SKA, we can test Einstein’s theory in new ways to see if it holds up or if new physics is needed.
Why are there giant magnetic fields in space?
It’s long been known that there’s a magnetic field around the Sun, the Earth and many other planets. It’s like the field that keeps magnets stuck to the fridge door, only on a much, much bigger scale. While we understand some of what the Earth’s magnetic field does, we don’t really have a theory about how it was created and why it seems to change over time. With the SKA, we want to map examples of magnetic fields from all sorts of galaxies, so we can hopefully figure out why they’re there.
One thing we’re certain of: as the world’s biggest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will let us see more of the Universe than has ever been seen before.
It seems humans have always wondered “What’s up there?”
Traditionally:
Australia’s Indigenous people have numerous stories about what you can see in our night skies and how they came into being.
A Century Ago:
Just over a hundred years ago, one of the most popular films of the day, “A Trip to the Moon” showed an imaginary vision of what it’d be like to visit our nearest neighbour.
Today:
Now that technology lets us see more clearly (and even visit) places we used to just wonder about, we have a pretty good understanding of our place in the Universe.
Tomorrow:
We want to understand the Universe itself. Here’s five things in particular we hope to learn more about once we’ve built the SKA:
(Move your mouse over each for details.)
That’s what we’re hoping for. To be honest though, by the time the SKA is built and fully operational in 2020, it might be you running the place. So, what sorts of things would you want to know about? What do you think we should look for?
What else is out there?
Long ago, we thought there might be creatures living on the Moon. We got there, and saw that there weren’t. Then we thought they might be on Mars, but telescopes and the Mars rovers have proved that wrong too. Without sending rovers and rockets to every Moon and planet in the Universe, the SKA will let us see what’s out there more clearly than ever before. Life on other planets? A new type of galaxy? Planets being formed? We’re not sure what we’ll find out there, but we’re sure it’ll be something we’ve never seen before!