The reporter learned today from the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that recently, the SKA International Large Radio Astronomy Observatory officially certified the my country Neutral Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Survey Experiment Tianlai Project as an SKA Pathfinder.

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is a next-generation giant radio telescope array currently under construction and is also a government Currently, 10 countries including China, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Australia are its official members. The SKA Pathfinder and Pioneer projects include multiple large-scale scientific installations related to SKA science and technology from around the world. Although the SKA telescope has already started construction, the latest research results related to Pathfinder can still provide SKA with new scientific exploration opportunities and test new detection technologies. In addition, these technologies can also be applied to larger astronomical telescope projects in the future.

The Tianlai radio interference array is located in Dahongliuxia Township, Barkol County, Hami City, Xinjiang, and is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Hosting the construction, its purpose is to test key technologies for dark energy radio detection. According to current astronomical observations, about 70% of our universe is mysterious dark energy, which causes the accelerated expansion of the universe.

The Teana project has now completed two configurations of array telescopes. One is called a cylindrical radio array, which has three cylindrical reflector antennas and 96 feeds installed. The other is called a dish radio array, which has 16 parabolic antennas with a diameter of 6 meters. These arrays can be used to test related detection technologies of the neutral hydrogen survey experiment and thus be applied to the International Large Radio Astronomy Observatory SKA project.

(CCTV reporter Shuai Junquan Chu Erjia)