Talk:Square Kilometre Array

SKA Design
need to add that it will use dielectric lenses to collect the signal.

Per the SKADS, measurements of the array configuration are innaccurate. Return to main website for design details.

The SKA Reference Design is now published, and is based around small (10-15m), plus aperture-array tiles for the lowest frequencies. There are no longer any plans to use dielectric lenses (February 2007). —Preceding unsigned comment added by DC Astro (talk • contribs)

Bold statement
"The SKA is a global collaboration of 20 countries which will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe by providing answers to fundamental questions about its origin and evolution."

Looks like advertising to me. To state this prediction as a fact is not encyclopedia-like. Such a prediction I think should only be included if several peer reviewed articles would proof that these results would be inevitable, and then some.

Will change to "The SKA is a global collaboration of 20 countries which may provide answers to fundamental questions about its origin and evolution."

This still needs citation I guess, maybe it can be removed altogether. ABMvandeBult (talk) 11:44, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Good call, in my opinion. --Pgallert (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

"SKA Science" sounds like advertising
The SKA science section sounds like advocacy for the array. E.g. "it will reveal the role of cosmic magnetism", "it will then be revealed whether Einstein was right", etc. Doesn't fit in an encyclopedia.128.135.100.102 (talk) 04:31, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * ✅ Changed "SKA Science" to "Key projects".

Doesn't fit in an encyclopedia ?
This article describes a huge world-wide project which still is in its planning stage. It's natural that statements about the goals and results are impossible to verify until the telescopes is in full operation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rainer Beck (talk • contribs) 19:57, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Re-assessed article importance to mid
Given the considerable scope and participation of this project, I have raised the article's importance to WP:Astronomy to mid. If the claims made by its designers prove to be true or if more independent sources emerge supporting their claims, I think we should raise the importance to high. --User:DiscipleOfKnowledge (talk) 03:00, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

skatelescope.org broken link, project is alive and well at the University of Manchester.
http://www.jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk/research/ska/ http://www.jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk/prepska/ http://www.skatelescope.ca/ http://www.ska-aavp.eu/ http://www.ska.ac.za/ http://www.ska.gov.au/ http://www.haystack.mit.edu/ast/arrays/ska/index.html

The info found at the above sites leads me to suspect that the press releases quoted are not all that grandiose. Probably will have to wait until 2024 to find out if it works as advertised. Meanwhile, we already have large scale radiotelescope observatories. The background at end of the movie, "Contact", was filmed at the Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico. It is easy to spot in maps.google.com between Socorro and the Arizona border. Then there's the Very Large Baseline Array, a virtual radio telescope from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands. http://www.nrao.edu/ The digital signal processing interferometry used to combine the signals from all of those telescopes already works. SKA is simply enlarging existing technology, just as the enormous level of detail gained between binoculars and the Hubbel Telescope.

Also note: http://www.lofar.org/ Hpfeil (talk) 20:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Any details available yet on how the dual site would be implemented?
Now that the decision has been made is there any technical detail available yet on how the Array will be shared? How would two such widely separated arrays be joined? Roger (talk) 16:14, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There are some details, but not many, and some of them appear to be a little contradictory. E.g. see . I'd expect that linking will be done using optical fibres, as with the EVN, but suspect that they will be largely independent. In particular the different frequency instruments will most likely be separate; I'm not sure what they'll do with the dishes (perhaps they'll phase up each region as can be done for joining into the EVN, see ). The next step in the process is to work out the implementation details (see the note in the penultimate paragraph of ). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:45, 25 May 2012 (UTC)


 * After a bit of searching I found this:
 * "The majority of SKA dishes in Phase I will be built in South Africa, combined with MeerKAT. Further SKA dishes will be added to the ASKAP array in Australia. All the dishes and the mid frequency aperture arrays for Phase II of the SKA will be built in Southern Africa while the low frequency aperture array antennas for Phase I and II will be built in Australia. STFC.ac.uk - Location chosen for world's largest telescope"
 * Do you think we could use it in the article? Roger (talk) 11:13, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Possible COI
Someone added this template without any evidence for the claim. Whilst it's true that some of the prose used has been a little, shall we say, 'overexcited', is there any real evidence for a COI? It's certainly true that some of the work done is likely to be by people who are interested and excited by the project but, provided we remove uncited speculative statements, there does not seem to be any need for a COI warning. The only remaining data from the user suspected of a COI is a list of countries involved the data for which is well documented elsewhere. PRL42 (talk) 06:49, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * See User:Skatelescope's edits. He/she appears to be employed by an involved organisation. The COI tag does not mean the article is definitely biased - all it says is that at least one significant editor does/did have a COI. Roger (talk) 06:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Several points: Firstly, you removed a sentence from my comment above. You must not edit other user's comments on the talk page. Criticise, dispute, contradict, ridicule, by all means, but do not edit them. Secondly, there is no evidence whatsoever that the editor has a conflict of interest or that he is employed by the SKA organisation. It appears that he created an account in order to edit the SKA article but that does not mean he necessarily has a COI, simply that his interest in editing Wikipedia is limited to SKA. Thirdly, and the reason I reverted the addition of the COI tag, he is not a major contributor to the article. The only text that he added that remains is a list of countries participating in the project and that is a plain statement of fact backed up by references. Thus COI is not relevant here because the main purpose of the tag is to promote removal of contentious and unsupported text that might be informed by the COI. There is no such text here. PRL42 (talk) 08:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Fistly - I did not deliberately remove anything you posted. I did note that there was an edit conflict when I posted, maybe something got lost there.
 * Secondly - you are now saying that possible COI has been checked and resolved. I agree. What I do not agree with is the agressive confrontational tone with which you began this topic.
 * Thirdly - the COI template exists to simply warn readers that there may be COI content in the article. It does not positively say there definitely is any such content. It also does not "accuse" anyone of wrongdoing. So please wind in your horns and take a good look at WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. Roger (talk) 08:49, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * However it happened, you did remove the most salient point in the comment and then put back the unnecessary COI. It is your responsibility to ensure you do not interfere with other people's comments.
 * I am not now saying it. I said it quite clearly in the original comment. It's just that you deleted it. There was nothing in the least aggressive in the way I started the topic. If you saw anything aggressive or confrontational in the initial comment in this section you must be incredibly over-sensitive. I'd be intrigued to know what particular part of it rattled your cage.
 * You need to use a little intelligence before adding that tag. Every single article in Wikipedia might contain COI material. Before inserting or reinserting the tag you should check to ensure that there is something present which could be COI. PRL42 (talk) 09:10, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Shared, group or corporate (or even corporate-sounding) accounts are not allowed. End of. He should had just stuck to editing by IP, without registering. I was of course the person and user who put the tag on. I stand by that original decision, but equally, I am not going to put that back either. Factual or not, if he is in fact an employee, or otherwise paid, and he is putting a "positive spin" on things, that is simply not allowed. — KC9TV 10:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What I consider to be the false assumption here is that just because he chose a name associated with a topic does not even begin to suggest s/he has corporate involvement. Yes, when someone calls themselves ExonMan, it is likely that they are linked to Exon but this is a massive science project and it's more likely that in this case s/he picked the name simply because it s/he thought it was cool. Going a little deeper and looking at the edits involved, they were not typical of those that would be performed by someone trying to promote their employer. The remaining text added by the user is simply factual and referenced and even the changes he made that have been reverted only attempted to remove some information which s/he felt was unbalanced (although, it was correctly referenced so did not need to be removed). If people are going to indulge in knee-jerk reactions such as putting COI tags on articles in circumstances such as this, it would be very easy for anyone to sabotage an article simply by creating a name that might imply a disallowed connection and editing it. In this case, ask the following questions:
 * Is there any proof of a connection? (no) Or even any suggestion in the editing? (no)
 * Was the editor iin question a major contributor? (no)
 * Do any of his or her edits in the article appear to be POV, unnecessarily flattering, or contentious? (no)
 * Given all this, was a COI tag ever appropriate? PRL42 (talk) 10:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * A Post-script: — It was in fact the software used by Wikipedia which flagged up his edits, automatically, as being of a C.o.I.. (Special:contributions/Skatelescope.) — KC9TV 10:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * All the more reason why a human should have checked, carefully, whether the robot's suspicions were likely to be valid. PRL42 (talk) 10:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It doesn't really matter whether he is/was a major contributor or otherwise. C.o.I. is still C.o.I.. — KC9TV 10:48, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Try reading the text that the tag places on the page. Pay particular attention to the second word. "C.o.I. is still C.o.I." is a ridiculous justification for placing the tag inappropriately. It would imply that if "Joe Bloggs" made a single character spelling correction to the "Joe Bloggs" page it would warrant a "{COI}". PRL42 (talk) 11:03, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * If he didn't wished to be accused of having a C.o.I., then he shouldn't really making an accusation himself, such as this, at, should he? As a matter of fact, he was a major editor and contributor; only in a "negative" way, in the sense that he was deleting or attempting to otherwise remove, redact or blue-pencil critical words unfavourable to the project. No, he/you are not talking his/your way out of this! Now, you are speaking for him, and as far as the rules of Wikipedia is concerned, you and him can be treated as the same person; and speaking for a friend is not really allowed either (SOCKPUPPETRY; CANVASSING). This is Wikipedia, not the Old Bailey! Assumption of good faith or not, there is ultimately NO presumption of innocence as such. If the software, in the form of a so-called "Bot", flagged him up, then that is good enough for me, and probably for most, and the onus is really upon him instead to defend and to justify himself, and to prove otherwise; and "section-blanking" is always a "no-no" (the reason for your/his flagging-up). I would suggest anyway the COI. I could had taken this up further, but I am not, at least not for now. Yours, — KC9TV 05:10, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

broken link to Reference #2, The SKA brochure
Link to SKA brochure in Reference 2 is broken: This is the correct link: http://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/SKA-Brochure_July_2012_web.pdf Also there is a notice in the SKA website that they will update their site, so this link may become invalid again soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Misaeljoelvera (talk • contribs) 04:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Blacklisted Links Found on the Main Page
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The article claims, but does not support its claim, of "Extreme tests of general relativity"
Article should explain what tests of general relativity will be done, different from tests already done or planned, what about the new tests will be "extreme," what results are predicted, and how receipt of results confirming or (especially) differing from the expected might trigger a re-thinking of general relativity, and how. Any practical implications would be especially interesting to include.

c.f.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity

External links modified
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Protostars and habitable zones?
This is from the SKA website, but it doesn't seem to make sense. Maybe somebody conflated two studies? A protostar may have something resembling a protoplanet not that's an exoplanet not likely to have life on it. Kortoso (talk) 22:14, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Removed non-notable book
I removed this edit adding a link to a self-published book which I believe cannot be said to be notable. It was added by a single-purpose user promoting the author's books. Haakon (talk) 19:54, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Blind on north
Too bad such a huge project will see only a fraction of the sky. Being both sites below 23 deg S, there is no chance to monitor the northern part. Very strange they have not been placed near the equator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.141.172.127 (talk) 01:33, 17 December 2018 (UTC)


 * They had to pick some part of the celestial sphere to begin to study using this new/innovative interferometry technique. I guess the folks who pay, get to choose the salient requirements and design decisions, and right now, that is looking like a bunch of governments which include the most populous nation states on the globe.  So they choose.


 * Our purpose, on this Talk page, is to discuss how to improve the article that covers this notable topics. If you've got something along those lines, feel free to weigh in.  Cheers.  N2e (talk) 02:46, 26 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Note that mentions site requirements. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:53, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

SKA or SKAO
Other sites use the SKAO acronym, which is the correct one? 135.0.44.102 (talk) 18:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The article says "On 12 March 2019, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) consortium was founded in Rome by seven initial member countries", and SKAO redirects here at the moment. SKA seems to be used with reference to this particular project. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 22:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Exactly. SKAO is the organization, SKA is the project. (usually referred to the observation sites in AUS ad South Africa); same as ESO is the organization in Garching, while the observatory(es) are in Chile. As Laterthanyouthink said and as the ESO page says, there's no reason to create a new page (for now) only for the organization.-- Windino [ Rec ]  13:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

SKAMPI first light
The Register has an interesting article on "first light" on SKAMPI, one of the prototype systems for the SKA. According to this, SKAMPI is a single-dish test system for SKA-Mid, and this source calls it the "SKA-MPIfR telescope", with MPIfR apparently being an intialism for the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie). This seems significant enough to mention it on Wikipedia. Which article should this go in? &mdash; The Anome (talk) 08:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)