ASKAP Science
ASKAP's wide field-of-view, large spectral bandwidth, fast survey speed, excellent u-v coverage, southern hemisphere location and radio quiet site will make it an unprecedented synoptic telescope. These unique features will allow ASKAP to make substantial advances in key areas of SKA science, including:
- Galaxy formation and gas evolution in the nearby Universe through extragalactic HI surveys
- Evolution, formation and population of galaxies across cosmic time via high resolution, confusion limited, continuum surveys
- Characterisation of the radio transient sky through detection and monitoring (including VLBI) of transient and variable sources, and
- Evolution of magnetic fields in galaxies over cosmic time through polarization surveys.
ASKAP Survey Science Projects
During ASKAP’s first five years of operation at least 75% of its time will be used for large Survey Science Projects, each needing more than 1,500 hours to complete and all designed to make use of the telescope’s unique capabilities.In September 2009 CSIRO announced that ten major science projects, representing 363 investigators from 131 institutions, had been selected to use ASKAP. An international panel of astronomers, chaired by SKA Project Scientist Joe Lazio, advised the ATNF Director on the selection of projects based on their scientific merit and operational feasibility. Of the ten projects’ authors, 33% were from Australia and New Zealand, 30% from North America, 28% from Europe, and 9% from elsewhere in the world.
The ten ASKAP Survey Science Projects are:
- Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU)
- Widefield ASKAP L-Band Legacy All-Sky Blind Survey (WALLABY)
- The First Large Absorption Survey in HI (FLASH)
- An ASKAP Survey for Variables and Slow Transients (VAST)
- The Galactic ASKAP Spectral Line Survey (GASKAP)
- Polarization Sky Survey of the Universe's Magnetism (POSSUM)
- The Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transients survey (CRAFT)
- Deep Investigations of Neutral Gas Origins (DINGO)
- The High Resolution Components of ASKAP: Meeting the Long Baseline Specifications for the SKA (VLBI)
- Compact Objects with ASKAP: Surveys and Timing (COAST).
Further Information
- ASKAP Science Update newsletter
- Information for users of ASKAP
- Journal paper 'Science with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder', Johnston et al. (2007) Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia 24(4) 174–188
- Journal paper 'Science with ASKAP', Johnston et al. (2008) Experimental Astronomy 22(3) 151–271