Caltech To Build World's Most Sensitive Radio Telescope
Caltech is developing the Deep Synoptic Array (DSA), a massive radio telescope project in Nevada funded by Schmidt Sciences. The array will feature 1,650 dishes and is expected to be the most sensitive radio telescope in the world upon completion in 2029.
Why it matters
The DSA will revolutionize radio astronomy by surveying the sky 100 times faster than existing technology, enabling new discoveries about the cosmos.
Our cosmos is awash with radio waves, originating from fierce jets blasting out of distant black holes, blinking dead stars closer to home, and many other exotic objects. To observe radio waves-which possess wavelengths hundreds of thousands of times longer than visible light-astronomers use two types of telescopes: huge single dishes, such as the giant FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) in China, and arrays of many dishes, such as the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Very Large Array in New Mexico, whose sprawling 27 dishes were famously featured in the movie Contact.
The article is a technical report on a scientific infrastructure project with no political bias.
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