Onsala Space Observatory provides scientists with equipment to study the Earth and the rest of the Universe. Facilities for radio astronomy are described here.
20 m telescope
25 m telescope
See separate page
ALMA Regional Centre
APEX
See separate page
Astro VLBI
See separate page
Computing infrastructure
See separate page
LOFAR
Odin
Proposals
See separate page
SALSA (2.3 m lab antenna)
See separate page
SEST
Photographer: SKAO
SKA
The international SKA Observatory (SKAO) was established in early 2021. Its two vast telescopes, located at remote sites in South Africa and Australia, will together become one of this century’s most important scientific facilities.
Onsala Space Observatory and Chalmers lead Swedish interests in the construction of the SKA Observatory's telescopes. Funding for Swedish participation in the construction project is secured thanks to support from the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova
The two SKA telescopes are made up of many individual antennas, each sensitive to invisible radio waves from space. In total, 197 dish antennas will be placed in South Africa, forming a telescope for shorter wavelengths. Over 130 000 smaller antennas will make up the other telescope, located in Australia, sensitive to longer wavelengths.
Both will be able to map radio waves from the cosmos with unprecedented sensitivity. The telescopes will investigate the mysteries of dark energy, dark matter, and cosmic magnetism, study how galaxies have evolved, test Einstein’s theories, and search for clues to the origins of life.
During the SKA's design phase, Chalmers was part of three consortia leading one of them (Wide Band Single Pixel Feeds), and participating in consortia developing parabolic antennas and phased-array feeds for the SKA. Within Chalmers, the SKA technical contributions are led by Onsala Space Observatory; the work also involves the departments of Microtechnology and Nanoscience and Electrical Engineering.
Links to more information about SKA:
SKAO: http://www.skao.int
Sweden's involvement in the SKAO: information at the SKAO https://www.skao.int/en/partners/prospective-members/186/sweden
SKA Science Case 2015 (proceedings from the "Advancing Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array" meeting in June 2014, published in June 2015): http://pos.sissa.it/cgi-bin/reader/conf.cgi?confid=215
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Take a look at the Email campaign archive.
Swedish Science Case for the SKA
The Swedish science case for SKA as submitted as part of the March 2019 infrastructure proposal to VR for the Swedish share of the construction and operation costs for SKA is given below.
