National Press Club to Host "NEWSMAKER" Media Briefing on Building the Biggest Telescope, Searching for the "Big Bang"

South Africa's "Square Kilometre Array" Project to Revolutionize Man's Look at the Heavens

News provided by

Jun 17, 2013, 12:41 ET

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- When it's completed in the early 2020s, the Square Kilometre Array – or SKA – will be by far the largest radio telescope ever built, requiring massive amounts of IT infrastructure and supercomputing capacity to be assembled in Africa. South Africa was selected over Australia to host the bulk of the project, which will take scientists closer to the instant of the Big Bang than previously thought possible. And it's believed the SKA will collect more data in its first two weeks of operations than everything astronomers have gathered since man first started looking at the heavens.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080917/NPCLOGO)

Discussing the marvel and the impact of the SKA at a National Press Club Newsmakers news conference on Thursday, June 20 will be Dr. Bernie Fanaroff, head of the SKA project and former aide to South African President Nelson Mandela, along with South African Minister of Science and Technology Derek Hanekom.

This National Press Club Newsmakers news conference is scheduled for 2:00 PM, Thursday, June 20, 2013 in the Club's Bloomberg Room on the 13^th Floor of the National Press Building, 529 14^th St, NW, Washington, DC, 20045.

Contacts:
Peter Hickman, Newsmaker Event Host
301-367-7711 (cell), 301-530-1210 (office), [email protected]

SOURCE National Press Club