INNOVATION July-August 2018

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the telescope’s 1,000 antennae to digital data at a rate similar to the world’s cellphone-data rate. The correlator then processes the data into images of the sky. The CHIME correlator was designed outside of BC, but engineers at the DRAO are developing a different correlator system for another radio astronomy observatory. The Square Kilometre Array observatory, which is a partnership between Canada and nine other countries, will detect very faint radio signals that originated billions of light years from Earth, when the first galaxies and stars were forming. Using the same technology that Internet giants like Google and Amazon use to process massive amounts of data power efficiently and cost-effectively, this correlator will combine, convert and process data collected by thousands of radio telescopes working together over two continents. Simard says that once the entire Square Kilometre Array is operating—possibly by the early 2020s— the observatory’s correlator “will process as many bits every two seconds as the global internet traffic (2016) generates in a second.” CONTINUING TO MAKE LEADING-EDGE SCIENCE POSSIBLE The TMT, CHIME, and the Square Kilometre Array are among many telescope-related projects that BC engineers are contributing expertise on. Engineers from almost every discipline in the province are developing and advancing new technologies that will help astronomers—and, ultimately, the rest of us—explore and learn more about the universe, its beginnings, and its structure. Their work is enabling Canada to continue the world-class astronomy and astrophysics research that began when John Stanley Plaskett first turned the 1.8-metre telescope near Victoria towards the stars 100 years ago. j

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