Community Christmas Dinner

Published on Monday, 7 February 2022 at 4:51:15 PM

The end of year community Christmas event was celebrated with a dinner and get together by staff, community members and our neighbours from CSIRO and SKAO’.  Along with a fabulous dinner, we also formally welcomed Mr and Mrs Human who received their Australian citizenship and a hearty welcome.  

These festivities were undertaken alongside our quite unique and spectacular Christmas tree – a low-frequency radio telescope antenna. The antenna is about 2 metres in height and collects low-frequency radio waves.

There will be more than 130,000 of these antennas in the upcoming SKA-Low telescope, based here in the Murchison at CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. The SKA low antenna makes a fine Christmas tree, but in reality, it will play a more important role in studying the universe. 

The purpose of the arrays is to conduct research into one of the most interesting periods of the Universe, looking back to the first billion years of the Universe to look at the formation of the first stars and galaxies, providing valuable insight into dark matter and dark energy and the evolution of the Universe.

Back to All News