| 8th of February 2021 |
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| The launch of the SKA Observatory |
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The SKA Observatory (SKAO)
was launched last week following the first
meeting of the Observatory’s Council. The SKAO is the world’s second
intergovernmental organisation to be dedicated to astronomy.
The Council is composed of representatives from the Observatory’s
Member States -- currently Australia, Italy, the Netherlands,
Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom -- as well as Observer
countries aspiring to join SKAO. Among these are countries that took
part in the design phase of the SKA such as Canada, China, France,
Germany, India, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, and whose future
accession to SKAO is expected in the near future, once
their national processes have been completed. Representatives of
national bodies in Japan and South Korea complement the select list of
Observers in the SKAO Council.
At its first meeting, the SKAO Council approved policies and procedures that have been prepared in recent months – covering governance, funding, programmatic and HR matters, among others. These approvals are required to transfer staff and assets from the SKA Organisation to the Observatory and allow the latter to become a functioning entity. SKAO will begin recruitment in Australia and South Africa in the next few months, working alongside local partners CSIRO and SARAO to supervise construction, which is expected to last eight years, with early science opportunities starting in the mid 2020s. The image above is a night-time composite of the SKA combining all elements in South Africa and Australia. together with the MWA GLEAM view toward the centre of the Milky Way, in radio colour. (Image credit: SKAO, ICRAR, SARAO, & Natasha Hurley-Walker (Curtin/ICRAR) and the GLEAM Team.) |