ASKAP

CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope situated about 800 km north of Perth, in the Murchison region of Western Australia. ASKAP uses novel technology to achieve extremely high survey speed, making it one of the best instruments in the world for mapping the sky at radio wavelengths.

Recent scientific highlights

An Australian-led collaboration called the CRAFT (Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transients) survey has been working hard to uncover more about the nature of Fast Radio Burst (FRBs) by pinpointing their exact locations within their host galaxies, something that only ASKAP can do routinely due to its combination of a wide field of view plus excellent spatial resolution.

Using just the first half-dozen FRBs localised by ASKAP, the CRAFT team were able to show that the so-called “missing” baryonic matter does in fact exist in the form of hot, diffuse ionised plasma, located in the space between galaxies (Macquart et al. 2020, Nature, 581, 391).

Funding for ASKAP by CSIRO and the NCRIS Program (via AAL) ensures:  

• continued operation of ASKAP telescope for the benefit of astronomical research.
• continued researcher access to ASKAP with high level of availability and reliability.
• improved access for researchers to ASKAP data and software resources.
• sustaining flow of high impact science from ASKAP.
• maintaining and expanding Australian capability in radio astronomy technology