LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Caltech researchers are preparing to build a radio telescope that will be the most sensitive ever constructed and survey the sky 100 times faster than any other radio telescope worldwide.

Schmidt Sciences has greenlit construction of the Deep Synoptic Array after the project completed its final design review. The milestone paves the way for construction to begin on the telescope, which is planned for a remote valley in Nevada.

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The array will consist of 1,650 radio dishes, each slightly more than 6 meters in diameter. The array will span an area of about 20 by 16 kilometers. The team plans to build the telescope by 2029, with science operations commencing soon after.

Survey capabilities

“The DSA will survey the entire visible sky several times in its first five years at unprecedented speeds,” said Gregg Hallinan, principal investigator of DSA, professor of astronomy at Caltech, and director of Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory. “While all other radio telescopes combined have so far found about 20 million radio sources, the DSA will match that in the first day of operations. By the end of its initial survey, it will have discovered about 1 billion new radio sources.”

The telescope will discover radio emission from millions of stars, galaxies, and other cosmic objects. It will address the mysteries of black holes, pulsars and fast radio bursts. It will also probe the physics of dark matter and gravity, and it will measure the structure and expansion of the universe.

“Radio astronomy is about to go from sketch to photograph,” said Vikram Ravi, the co-principal investigator of the DSA and a professor of astronomy at Caltech. “The DSA is looking at a far larger volume of the universe far more often than any other telescope.”

Real-time imaging

The DSA will be capable of making images in real time. The numerous radio dishes will feed into a supercomputer that creates images instantly. The images will be immediately accessible to the worldwide astronomical community.

“Without the radio camera, we would have to store 100 exabytes of data to complete our survey,” Hallinan said. “This would require 5 million hard drives in a multi-billion-dollar facility the size of multiple football fields. The radio camera solves this problem.”

The DSA’s radio camera will convert the raw data to images in real time with the help of an off-site supercomputer built from Graphics Processing Units built by Nvidia. The radio camera images will be given freely to the public with no proprietary period.

“We want the whole world to also have access to the data just as quickly as we do,” said Katie Jameson, the DSA lead project manager.

The DSA will have the ability to detect more than 100,000 intensely powerful flashes of radio light from fast radio bursts and to localize them to their home galaxies. The DSA will also reveal more than 20,000 new pulsars.

“The science that can be done is endless,” Hallinan said. “There will be enough discoveries to occupy every radio astronomer on the planet.”

The DSA is led by Caltech and funded by Schmidt Sciences. It is part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System. Two pathfinder projects that led to the DSA, the DSA-110 and the OVRO Long Wavelength Array, were funded by the National Science Foundation.

SANTA FE, N.M. – Santa Fe County and Edgewood approved a new agreement and ordinance that secures ongoing fire and EMS services for Edgewood residents.

According to a joint announcement from the Town of Edgewood and Santa Fe County on June 19, the two governments negotiated and adopted a new Joint Powers Agreement and ordinance to keep the Santa Fe County Fire Department serving the town.

County and town representatives drafted the agreement together. The town adopted the ordinance unanimously at a special meeting on June 16, putting an end to weeks of uncertainty.

Santa Fe County District 3 Commissioner Camilla Bustamante said, “I believe we are all relieved to know that the people of Edgewood will continue to have the fire and EMS services necessary to protect their homes, their families, and their community. This community deserves nothing less.”

The announcement said the ordinance takes effect five days after final publication. The statement also said no further action or approval is needed to guarantee continued fire suppression, fire prevention, and EMS services for Edgewood residents.

Both governments noted the agreement will continue indefinitely unless either side ends it with five years’ notice.

The beloved Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest returns for a series of events from June 19 to June 21.

In 1964, this event was founded by four locals to lift community spirits after a tsunami washed out the Elk Creek Bridge. Now, the event draws thousands of tourists and is recognized as the first and oldest sandcastle contest in Oregon.

Registration for the contest is available online through the Cannon Beach events site.

To start off the weekend, contestants can pickup their competition materials from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on June 19.

The same day, Bill Rose will provide a live sandcastle demonstration on the beach off Second Street from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Then, the kickoff celebration will take place at Steidel Community Hall from 5 to 7:30 p.m.

Competition day starts 8:30 a.m. on June 20 when the beach opens for parking. During the time of the contest, parking is allowed in every public parking lot, on the beach and the sides of the street.