back to article Square-kilometre radio telescope wins millions in UK funding

UK science minister David Willetts has announced £11m of funding to help the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) process the expected deluge of data it will produce. Handling the expected 915-petabyte daily data firehose from the entire SKA radio telescope will require advances in practically every computing discipline: the data will …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    915PB a day?

    But, it's Goostrey, rural...

    They'll have to sign a petition to get fibre broadband from BT in

    1. tony2heads

      Re: 915PB a day?

      Jodrell Bank has had 1Gbps data streaming for eVLBI for the last 10 years through research networks

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 915PB a day?

        Yeah, ummm, Tony? It might have been a weak joke but perhaps in some of the spare time on the array, they could hunt for your sense of humour?

    2. Lionel Baden

      Re: 915PB a day?

      Its ok,

      They can just use 5G :)

  2. Tom Womack

    I'm not sure you've made entirely clear the connection between Jodrell Bank, which is an astronomy centre in Manchester, and the ESS, which is a solid-state-physics facility to be built in Lund, Sweden.

    1. david bates

      Joderall Bank, which is WHERE?

      The people of Wilmslow and Knutsford - both MUCH closer to Manchester might have something to say about that.

      1. speedbird007

        Jodrell Bank is where?

        You are both wrong -

        Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre

        The University of Manchester

        Macclesfield

        Cheshire

        SK11 9DL

        Sat nav: SK11 9DW

        But yes, Jodrell and Goostrey go together like peaches and cream

    2. myob

      It's a lot more than solid state physics

      As Sir Patrick Stewart explains here: vimeo.com/19475801

    3. Don Dumb
      Thumb Up

      ESS in Sweden

      @Tom Womack.

      Thanks. I thought that it seemed way too large to fit into Jodrell Bank. Upon reading the Sceince artilce link, it seems that the UK commitment is only a part of the €1.8 billion ESS cost, which also is not clear in the article.

  3. Tom 7

    football pitch sizes

    so that covers your back yard to half the earth if its aussie rules football?

    1. earl grey
      Trollface

      Re: football pitch sizes

      What, you can't handle real footie?

  4. Teiwaz

    Is everybody sure this is not an extension of the spying network?

    Maybe I'm just jaded and cynical with the mounting revelations but...

    Perhaps they've detected the alien equivalent of 'yahoo' chats and want to collect that data as well.

    1. b0llchit Silver badge

      Re: Is everybody sure this is not an extension of the spying network?

      Of course, they are also placing mirrors in orbit to reflect the world-wide signals back to the array. But that is a different, non-public, budget. Give the scientists some change to cover up the orders of magnitude more costly spying operation. Then, when it all gets under public scrutiny, blame the scientists for not keeping to the budget. Its a win-win for the government vs. the government.

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Is everybody sure this is not an extension of the spying network?

      Well, if the network cable installer will cross the wires for us, maybe 915 PB per day can be fed straight to the NSA and GHCQ. That ought to keep them busy for a bit.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Jodrell Bank showered with cash" ?

    "The largest project in the Jodrell Bank funding is £165 million for the European Spallation Source."

    The announcement by David Willetts was made at Jodrell Bank, but the European Spallation Source and PLATO exoplanet spotter projects are not related to Jodrell Bank in any way. Also, much of the SKA cash will be spent elsewhere.

    Perhaps the author should have read the Willetts announcement here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/great-britain-the-best-place-in-the-world-to-do-science

    Good news, undoubtedly, but most of the cash will be showered on places other than Jodrell Bank.

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