Headquarters selected for next generation-telescope
Linnaeus University is one of the international higher education institutions that selected Bologna and Berlin as headquarters and data management centre for the Cherenkov Telescope Array, a future observatory for gamma-ray radiation from space.
The CTA project is an initiative to build a ground-based observatory for studying very high energy gamma-ray radiation from space. The aim is to investigate the origin of cosmic rays, to learn more about black holes and to seek to understand the ultimate nature of matter. More than 1,000 scientists and engineers from 32 countries participate in the CTA project.
Among the twelve countries that are shareholders and associate members of the CTA Council, Sweden is represented by Linnaeus University – Senior Lecturer Yvonne Becherini of the Astroparticle Physics research group, to be precise. After careful consideration, the council decided to select Bologna in Italy as the host site of the Headquarters and Berlin-Zeuthen in Germany for the Science Data Management Centre.
The headquarters will employ two dozen personnel, while some 20 persons will manage the data centre, which means coordinate science operations and handle acquainted data. The CTA is expected to generate approximately 100 petabytes, that is 100 million gigabytes, of data by the year 2030.
The CTA observatory is planned to consist of about 100 telescopes in the southern hemisphere and about 20 telescopes in the northern. The first telescopes are expected to be on site in 2018.
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Image: Architectural rendering of CTA Science Data Management Centre Building, Zeuthen (Credit: Dahm Architekten & Ingenieure, Berlin)