A remote area in Nevada’s Great Basin is set to host the world’s most sensitive radio telescope array. The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) leads the project and announced its progression after securing funding. This initiative, called the Deep Synoptic Array (DSA), will consist of 1,650 radio dishes. These will examine supermassive black holes, pulsars, and fast radio bursts, which are brief, intense radio wave explosions from deep space.
Project Specifics
Gregg Hallinan, a Caltech professor of astronomy and a principal investigator for the DSA, highlighted the project’s uniqueness due to the sheer number of antennas. Unlike optical observatories, radio telescopes capture natural radio waves from stars, planets, galaxies, and other celestial objects. They analyze these radio emissions’ patterns to understand celestial objects’ structures, compositions, and temperatures. Although radio telescopes do not capture images in the same way as optical ones, their signals are translated into data, forming images.
According to Hallinan, once operational, the DSA will outpace all previous radio telescopes in surveying speed and image quality. Historical telescopes identified about 20 million radio sources. The DSA aims to double that figure within its first 24 hours of operation.
Each dish, approximately 20 feet in diameter, will collectively form one of the most extensive radio telescope arrays ever, extending over 123 square miles in Nevada’s White Pine County, an area managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The project is currently in the permitting phase, with construction potentially starting next year and completion targeted for 2029.
Types of Radio Telescopes
Two types of telescopes are typically used in radio astronomy. The first is a single, large dish like the 328-foot Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The second is an array of smaller dishes, such as the 27-dish Very Large Array in New Mexico. Single dishes are usually more sensitive to faint radio waves from deep space, while arrays with multiple dishes offer sharper images. The DSA will excel in both areas.
Future Aspirations
The DSA, according to Caltech’s Vikram Ravi, will observe a larger universe volume more frequently than ever before. Researchers will conduct at least five sky surveys, identifying radio emissions for further examination by various observatories.
Hallinan pointed out that the DSA will precisely locate radio sources in the sky, enabling other telescopes, including optical, infrared, and X-ray, to focus on these sources. Funding for the DSA came from Schmidt Sciences, a philanthropic organization founded in 2024 by Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, and his wife, Wendy. Last year, Schmidt became CEO of Relativity Space, which received a significant NASA contract to deliver science instruments to Mars in 2028.
Site Selection
As part of the preliminary efforts, two prototype dishes were recently built near Bishop, California, as a technology demonstration. Hallinan and his colleagues scoured the western United States, evaluating sites across California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah for an optimal location. They sought areas away from radio frequency interference from devices like cellphone towers and Wi-Fi.
“This telescope is sensitive enough to detect a cellphone as far away as the sun,” Hallinan noted, underscoring the need for isolation from electronic interference.
The Great Basin in Nevada offered a natural shield due to its quiet valleys and low population, making White Pine County an ideal site for radio astronomy.