Development of the SKA Observatory is already underway, and once ready, its sites will face a major issue. This issue pertains to how to store the large amounts of data they collect from observing our Universe. Relying on global data centres will help resolve this issue.

Details On The SKA Observatory

The SKA Observatory is a global radio telescope project that has two sites, one in Western Australia and the other in South Africa. With both sites in the Southern Hemisphere, the observatory will benefit from the clear views of our Milky Way Galaxy attainable from this part of the world.

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On the site in Western Australia, there are over 131,000 Christmas-tree-shaped antennas. On the site in South Africa, there are 200 large dish antennas.

The antennas in both regions gather data from their observations of space. Each year, the SKA Observatory will generate approximately 600 petabytes of data. These data will consist of faint radio signals, pulsar signals, and fast radio bursts, just to mention a few.

The data that each of this observatory’s sites gathers will serve as the foundation for various research. There will be a need to store the data that the SKA Observatory gathers daily.

The first set of data from the SKA Observatory will be available in 2027, ahead of the start of major operations, which will kick off in 2029. Once in use, the observatory will serve as a key tool for astronomy.

How Will The SKA Observatory Store Its Data

In 2024, Canada became a part of the SKA Observatory research project. To support this project, Canada commenced the development of a data centre on its soil to help store data collected by the observatory.

This data centre, being developed in Canada, is a part of the SKA Regional Centres (SRCs). Canada’s SRC, known as CanSRC, will serve as the sole SRC in North America storing data collected by the SKA Observatory.

We might also get to see similar SRCs around the world catering for the needs of the SKA Observatory once it is fully operational. These SRCs will help make data readily available for astronomy research.