"Radio-quiet" regions are hard to come by. These spots are so coveted by astronomers that NASA has even launched plans to put radio telescopes on the dark side of the Moon. However, Caltech has found a desolate patch of the Nevada desert for a radio telescope that promises to revolutionize space science: the Deep Synoptic Array (DSA).
Prototype dishes for Caltech’s DSA at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. Credit: Katie Jameson / Caltech / DSA Project
1,650 Dishes and Open Data
The DSA represents a vast field of 1,650 radio dishes spanning roughly 12 by 10 miles (20 by 16 kilometers). This network will survey the cosmos 100-times faster than any other known telescope in the world.
But perhaps most impressive of all, the DSA’s space science bounty will be completely free. "We want the whole world to also have access to the data just as quickly as we do," explained Caltech astronomer Katie Jameson, lead project manager for the DSA.
High Fidelity Cosmos
The universe is humming with intergalactic radio signals. Caltech's maximalist array will track down:
- Pulsars: Spinning magnetized dead stars pumping out a steady rhythm of radio waves.
- Black Holes: Electromagnetic "burps" of star-gobbling events.
- Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs): Some of the greatest unsolved cosmic enigmas.
The 100-Exabyte Problem
Beyond the sheer number of dishes, the DSA will sync with a supercomputer capable of synthesizing a flood of data into exceedingly crisp images in real time.
According to Caltech astronomy professor Gregg Hallinan, this real-time processing makes the project viable: "Without the radio camera, we would have to store 100 exabytes of data [100 billion gigabytes] to complete our survey. This would require 5 million hard drives in a multi-billion-dollar facility the size of multiple football fields."
"While all other radio telescopes combined have so far found about 20 million radio sources, the DSA will match that in the first day of operations. By the end of its initial survey, it will have discovered about 1 billion new radio sources," — Gregg Hallinan (Caltech).
Funded by Schmidt Sciences and Caltech at an estimated cost of nearly $200 million, the array is anticipated to be completed by 2029.
