In a dark Nevada valley, a new eye is opening on the cosmos. Before the decade is out, the Deep Synoptic Array (DSA)\u20141,650 20-foot diameter dish-shaped antennas spread over just more than 120 square miles of desert\u2014should begin soaking up radio waves from across the sky. The DSA will combine unprecedented sensitivity and power to try answering some of astronomers\u2019 biggest questions about how galaxies form and grow.<\/p>\n
The DSA just reached its final design milestone and will soon begin construction, with completion targeted for 2029. The project is led by the California Institute of Technology and bankrolled by Schmidt Sciences, a splashy new philanthropic venture<\/a> poised to shake the pillars of U.S astrophysics, where advances are often more sedate\u2014and government funding is the norm.<\/p>\n \u201cThe DSA is going to have, by far, the best combination of both sensitivity\u2014seeing far\u2014and sky coverage\u2014seeing wide,\u201d says Maura McLaughlin, an astronomer at West Virginia University, who is part of the telescope\u2019s Science Advisory Committee. \u201cIt’s a very different way of doing radio astronomy.\u201d<\/p>\n On supporting science journalism<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing<\/a>. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n That difference comes from how the DSA will combine signals from its many sensitivity-boosting dishes. Radio arrays typically must save the raw feeds from each antenna for subsequent processing, requiring enormous computational and data storage resources. Data from the DSA\u2019s combined 1,650 dishes, for instance, would churn out as much data as all U.S. Internet traffic. The project will avoid that deluge by instead combining and processing the signals in real time, automatically tossing out much of the raw data to rapidly produce crisp images.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s beautifully designed, and it\u2019s pioneering this new way to build telescopes,\u201d says astronomer Dan Werthimer, who is not directly involved with the DSA. \u201cIt\u2019s the future of radio astronomy.\u201d<\/p>\n This \u201cradio camera\u201d approach should allow the DSA to survey the sky 100 times faster than any other radio observatory and is built on a mix of state-of-the-art and mundane innovations. In addition to the most powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) on the planet\u2014NVIDIA\u2019s next-generation Vera Rubin GPUs\u2014the DSA will rely on thousands of modified household cake pans, purchased on the cheap from the bakeware-manufacturing company Fat Daddio<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy go and pay for some custom design when there\u2019s a company that\u2019s figured out how to make these things at very low cost?\u201d says Gregg Hallinan, an astronomer at Caltech and one of the DSA\u2019s principal investigators, who adds how \u201camazing\u201d a scientific collaborator Fat Daddio has been. \u201cThey\u2019re excited to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Several astrophysical mysteries sit in the radio band of wavelengths. For decades, observatories have recorded brief-but-bright flashes of radio waves\u2014fast radio bursts<\/a>, or FRBs\u2014whose origin on the sky astronomers have managed to pinpoint in only a handful<\/a> of cases. The DSA will observe and hopefully localize tens of thousands of FRBs. Hopefully, this will help determine whether they\u2019re sparked by an eruption from a single neutron star, or when two of these tiny but massive bodies collide.<\/p>\n The DSA will also carefully track rapidly spinning neutron stars called pulsars across the whole sky. Pulsars beam light outward as they spin, hitting us at regular intervals like a cosmic lighthouse. In 2023 a collaboration of radio astronomers reported<\/a> tiny deviations in the timing of these flashes from dozens of pulsars in the Milky Way. They think the effect might be due to giant gravitational waves<\/a>\u2014ripples in spacetime between the astral lighthouses and us. The DSA will help decide whether the signal is real, and what exotic cataclysm is causing it. This could be orbiting pairs of supermassive black holes, or even cosmic strings<\/a> or echoes from our universe\u2019s early period of rapid inflation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Beyond these big questions, the DSA will also trace the step-by-step formation of stars in young galaxies, and observe energetic outbursts from gluttonous black holes. Most excitingly for astronomy as a whole, it will also synergize with other observatories to rapidly hunt down radio counterparts for any conspicuous things going \u201cbump\u201d in the cosmic night. It might even find \u201ctechnosignatures<\/a>\u201d of advanced alien civilizations\u2014presuming they, too, are blasting radio waves out from their own planetary systems, just as we are with our homegrown technology.<\/p>\n \u201cDSA will really open up the sky in a ridiculous way,\u201d says Katie Jameson, the observatory\u2019s project manager.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most transformative observatories are not defined by a single science goal,\u201d says Arpita Roy, director of Schmidt Sciences\u2019 Astrophysics and Space Center. \u201cThey create entirely new ways of seeing the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/a>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts<\/a>, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters<\/a>, must-watch videos, challenging games<\/a>, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription<\/a>.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a dark Nevada valley, a new eye is opening on the cosmos. 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