page_title: Square Kilometre Array
section_title: Key projects
hierarchical_section_title: Square Kilometre Array / Key projects
caption_attribution_description: English: An aerial overview of the central region of the SKA with the three 5km diameter cores of Antennas, Dense Aperture Arrays and Sparse Aperture Arrays.
context_page_description: The Square Kilometre Array is an intergovernmental radio telescope project being planned to be built in Australia and South Africa. Conceived in the 1990s, and further developed and designed by the late-2010s, if built it will have a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometre sometime in the 2020s. It would operate over a wide range of frequencies and its size would make it 50 times more sensitive than any other radio instrument. It would require very high performance central computing engines and long-haul links with a capacity greater than the global Internet traffic as of 2013. Initial construction contracts are planned to begin in 2021. Scientific observations are not expected any earlier than 2027.
  With receiving stations extending out to a distance of at least 3,000 kilometres from a concentrated central core, it would exploit radio astronomy's ability to provide the highest resolution images in all astronomy. The SKA would be built in the southern hemisphere, with cores in South Africa and Australia, where the view of the Milky Way Galaxy is the best and radio interference at its least.
context_section_description: The capabilities of the SKA will be designed to address a wide range of questions in astrophysics, fundamental physics, cosmology and particle astrophysics as well as extending the range of the observable universe. A number of key science projects that have been selected for implementation via the SKA are listed below.
caption: Schematic of the SKA Central Region
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