The SKAO, or Square Kilometre Array Observatory, will allow scientists to peer through time into the universe’s distant past. Its telescope arrays in South Africa and Australia, along with its HQ at Jodrell Bank in the UK, have been designed to capture a picture of the universe as the first galaxies formed, the so-called ‘epoch of reionization’, when the cosmos was just 200 million to 400 million years old. 

That 200-million-year interval is a mere blink in astronomical time. To see it, the observatory will need to stare through more than 13 billion years’ worth of background noise. Rosie Bolton is head of data operations at the observatory. When the observatory is up and running, its two telescopes will be generating data at a rate of eight terabytes a second. Rosie will be developing and delivering the systems that can process that tsunami of data, turning it into useful science.

In this episode, Rosie talks to Jon Baston-Pitt about the challenges of building an observatory and managing the data it produces across three continents. We learn about the collaboration and computational power needed to make the project work, and the scope for international scientists and citizens to make use of its insights.

Host

Jon Baston-Pitt, Fugro

Guest

Rosie Bolton, Head of Data Operations, SKAO