Candidate Sites for World's Largest Telescope Face First Big Hurdle

摘要

For more than a decade, the Square Kilometer Array has been a paper project, an instrument for astronomers to dream about. Now it's time to start getting real. CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA—One site is a barren tract of South Africa's Karoo semidesert, soquiet that the only sound is a hawk's cry. Another, 12,000 kilometers away, is an arid plain that stretches to western Australia's horizon. Yet another site is across the Pacific Ocean, in Argentina's high, dry plateaus; the fourth is nestled in naturalbowls between the angular karst hills of southeastern China.