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High school students with stars in their eyes will next week have the opportunity to learn about the biggest ground-based astronomy project in the world: the $3 billion Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

More than 500 science students from around the State will get a privileged, behind-the-scenes introduction to the SKA project through the Out There! exhibition at The University of Western Australia from Monday 4 May to Friday 15 May.

The SKA radio telescope will be up to 50 times more sensitive than today's instruments, revolutionising our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Universe including the formation of our own sun after the big bang.

The Murchison region in WA is one of two short-listed sites to host the SKA, whose 4,000 dishes will be spread across 3,000km. The other site is in southern Africa. The SKA project's location will be decided in 2012.

The name of the exhibition, Out There!, refers to the WA outback as well as to outer space. The event is a collaboration between UWA's Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences, the new International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR - a partnership between UWA and Curtin University of Technology), the UWA Spice program (secondary teachers' enrichment program) and Scitech.

Out There! will feature an operational radio telescope, scale models of the SKA, a timeline ribbon highlighting what we can see now in space and how the SKA will enable astronomers to ‘look back in time' as well as Scitech's new portable Spacedome and a ‘World at Night' astrophotography show.

The public open day in UWA's Molecular and Chemical Sciences Building on Saturday 9 May will include a free public lecture by ICRAR Director and Premier's Fellow, UWA Professor Peter Quinn, Astronomy in the 21st Century with the Square Kilometre Array , at 12 noon.

Out There! will be launched by Barry House MLC at 10am on Monday May 4 in the Molecular and Chemical Sciences Building. Special guests include Nobel Laureate Professor Barry Marshall, WA Chief Scientist Professor Lyn Beazley and a group of Duncraig Senior High School science students.

For more information, contact Jenni Wallis, Marketing Manager, Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences on [email protected] .

Media references

Jenni Wallis (Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences) (+61 8) 6488 3263
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs) (+61 8) 6488 5563 / (+61 4) 32 637 716