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Switzerland joins the Square Kilometre Array Astronomical Observatory

Switzerland's application to the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, a project to build the world's largest radio telescope, has been approved. It thus becomes the first country to join the founding members of the intergovernmental organization.

This is a welcome decision for Swiss research. The Council of the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) has unanimously approved Switzerland's application for the construction of what will be the world's largest radio telescope, with more than one square kilometer (one million square metres) of collecting surface. In December 2021, the Federal Council had approved Switzerland's membership in the SKAO, following the parliament's decision to provide the necessary funding for membership and participation in the construction and operation of the SKA telescopes until 2030.

"It is with great pleasure that I welcome Switzerland to the SKAO, a very fitting way to begin 2022, building on the achievements of the past year, including the launch of the Observatory itself and the start of construction activities," said Dr. Catherine Cesarsky, Chair of the SKAO Council. "Swiss institutions have made valuable contributions throughout the design and preconstruction phases of the SKA, and Swiss expertise in science and astronomy research and development is globally recognized."

This membership brings the number of member countries of the Observatory to eight, with Switzerland joining Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and the UK.

The Swiss participation will be led by a consortium of research institutions including the AV¶ÌÊÓƵ and its science faculty, the Universities of Basel and Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich, the Universities of Western Switzerland, Northeastern Switzerland and Zurich Applied Sciences, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Center. The consortium is under the authority of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SEFRI).

The SKAO represents a huge engineering and R&D leap forward for the construction and delivery of a unique instrument, the detailed design and preparation of which is now well underway.

The SKAO will ultimately use thousands of dishes and up to one million low-frequency antennas that will allow astronomers to monitor the sky in unprecedented detail and study the entire sky much faster than any other system currently in existence. Its unique configuration will give the facility an unparalleled range in observations, far exceeding the image resolution quality of the Hubble Space Telescope. It will also have the ability to image large areas of the sky in parallel with unprecedented sensitivity.