The Mileura Widefield Array (MWA) is a triple purpose,
low cost radio telescope with wide utility. The
array comprises 500 “antenna-tiles”, each with 16
crossed dipoles, distributed over a region 1.5km
across. The design trades complexity in hardware
and software subsystems for massive computational
power.
The MWA will be built at an extraordinarily
radio-quiet site in Western Australia. The first
phase is designed to operate in VHF band. It targets
the study of 21 cm hydrogen emissions from the cosmological
Epoch of Reionization (EOR), transient radio sources
and space weather phenomena. The 21 cm EOR signals
are redshifted by a factor of between 6 and 20 due
to the expansion of the universe. It may shed light
on how galaxies formed.
There is a short
(4 page), but informative download on the MWA
http://www.ursi.org/Proceedings/ProcGA05/pdf/.
Look for J04.6(01286).pdf in the alpha-index. Background
on cosmological expansion and redshift can be found
at
http://www.einsteins-theory-of-relativity-4engineers.com/cosmology.html.