The new Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is set to discover as many as 700,000 new galaxies, according to scientists from the University of Westenr Australia.

 

In a recently published paper, the researchers have combined computer simulations with ASKAP's specifications to predict the new telescope's extraordinary capabilities.

 

“ASKAP is a highly capable telescope. Its surveys will find more galaxies, further away and be able to study them in more detail than any other radio telescope in the world until the SKA Is built,” said Dr Alan Duffy from The University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.

 

Dr Duffy said two ASKAP surveys, WALLABY and DINGO, would examine galaxies to study hydrogen gas - the fuel that forms stars - and how those galaxies had changed in the last 4 billion years, allowing us to better understand how our own galaxy, the Milky Way, grew.

 

ASKAP will start scanning southern skies in 2013 as a forerunner to the massive Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will be shared between Australia-New Zealand and South Africa.