The International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia -- is working with the Canadian Astronomical Data Centre (CADC) to possibly build the systems that will work with the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope venture.
More: Amazing telescopes produce hot space images
Currently under development by an international consortium with site selection expected this year, the SKA telescope will be massive. Depending on who wins the bid to build it, the telescope will generally include 3,000 dish-shaped antennae and other hybrid receiving technologies dishes spread over a collecting area of about 3,000 kilometers, making it 50--100 times more sensitive than today's best radio telescopes and cover the frequencies 0.15 to 30 GHz (2 m to 1 cm wavelength).
The $2 billion SKA project will generate one exabyte -- more than 15 million iPods -- of raw data a day which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to store using currently available technology, ICAR stated. Once the site if the project is selected -- either South Africa or Australia and New Zealand - construction is expected to begin in 2016.
"We're not just facing challenges in storing all that data but processing it into something useful," said ICRAR's head of computing, Professor Andreas Wicenec in a statement. Wicenec said ICAR is looking to determine which parts of the SKA computing system would be most costly to build and operate. "Even powering a computer big enough to manage the huge task needs to be researched and developed."
More: Hot space projects produce cool cosmic discoveries
In essence, what we are seeing is the evolution of telescopes away from the concrete and steel that forms the antennas and into the world of supercomputing, said Professor Brian Boyle of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, SKA director in a report by ABC Science. "The supercomputer is as much a part of the telescope as is the antenna. "All that data is transported from the SKA at speeds of 400 terabits per second across the continent - that's about ten times greater than global internet traffic today. Then it's processed by a super computer capable of doing one million, million, million operations per second - about one hundred times faster than the world's fastest super computer today," Boyle said.
SKA ultimately aims to search remote solar systems and learn more learn more about the origin of the universe, nearly 14 billion years ago. Among other things, the SKA be able to see as far back as the birth of galaxies - before the first stars such as our sun formed - and detect objects even fainter and more distant than those picked up by NASA's orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, experts said.
Follow Michael Cooney on Twitter: nwwlayer8 and on Facebook
Layer 8 Extra
Check out these other hot stories:
NASA: You know you're a Geek if....
Space junk funk: The anniversary of the Cosmos/Iridium satellite crash
Wringing out $79B worth of IT: Feds debate system duplication
IRS unearths Dirty Dozen tax scams of 2012
US could save $4.4B by dumping paper $1 bill for coin
When's the best time for your caffeine fix? There's an app for that
Company swaps mortgage payment help in exchange for wacky house paintjob
Let the games begin: NASA political budget pong opens at $17.7 billion
NASA unplugs last mainframe
"Virginia is made for drones?"