By Kim Seon Ah

The country is joining an international project to build the largest radio telescope in human history.

The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) on March 17 said it will attend the board meeting of the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) in Zurich, Switzerland, on March 18 and officially express its intent to participate in the global campaign.

As the global organization pursuing the radio telescope project, SKAO is handling construction and operation, data processing and analysis, and global cooperation for radio telescopes.

The project's intent is to build radio telescopes in Australia and South Africa with resolution and observation speed superior to those of conventional models. This will allow detection of faint radio signals from the early universe, thus helping answer fundamental questions about the universe such as its origin and the search for extraterrestrial life.

KASA seeks full membership status in SKAO to gain participatory rights for domestic industries and priority acquisition of project data, and plans to take the proper procedures for this in order.

sofiakim218@korea.kr