News and Updates
2013-03-01: Both MWA project description papers have been released! Check out Science With the Murchison Widefield Array by Bowman et al. (2013) and The Murchison Widefield Array: The Square Kilometre Array Precursor at Low Radio Frequencies by Tingay et al. (2013).
Upcoming Project Meeting: The June 2013 MWA Project Meeting will be held at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle. Team members: you can reigster to attend and get travel information and program details here.
- Outrigger tile about 1.5km from the core of the array, with a view of the breakaway behind it. Credit: Natasha Hurley-Walker
- 28 April 2013: Early look at a test drift scan while commissioning the MWA. Credit: Andre Offringa and MWA Science Commissioning Team
- Silhouette of an individual dipole. Credit: Natasha Hurley-Walker
- 12 April 2013: First image from the full MWA! Credit: MWA Science Commissioning Team
- Image of the nearby radio galaxy Cen A acquired by the MWA development system. Credit: Ben McKinley
The Telescope
The Murchison Widefi eld Array (MWA) is a low-frequency radio telescope operating between 80 and 300 MHz. It is located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia, the planned site of the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA) lowband telescope, and is one of three telescopes designated as a Precursor for the SKA. The MWA has been developed by an international collaboration, including partners from Australia, India, New Zealand, and the United States. It is entering final construction and will be fully operational beginning in 2013. Read more about the telescope...
The Science
The MWA will perform large surveys of the entire Southern Hemisphere sky and acquire deep observations on targeted regions. It will enable astronomers to pursue four key science objectives. The primary endeavor is the hunt for intergalactic hydrogen gas that surrounded early galaxies during the cosmological epoch of reionization. The MWA will also provide new insights into our Milky Way galaxy and its magnetic field, pulsing and exploding stellar objects, and the science of space weather that connects our Sun to the environment here on Earth. Read more about MWA science...
