A GIANT 32-metre satellite dish is starting a new life as a deep space radio telescope at the National Space Centre in Cork this evening.
The dish, which will become the largest radio dish available for educational purposes in Europe, will detect audio and visual signals from space, such as exploding stars and storms on Jupiter.
Nasa astronaut Greg Johnson, who has logged over 5,000 flight hours in more than 50 different aircraft, will be lighting up the big dish for the first time. He will be joined by Rebecca Cantwell (13) a student from the Regina Mundi College in Douglas, Cork, who won the naming competition with her entry “Cory – Computer Operated Radio Yoke”.
The dish will be lit with sky strobe and colour-changing lights and the first live feed will be switched on via amplifier tonight.
The dish will detect radio waves at 1.4 gigahertz, and rather than just listening to static from the universe students will be able to see a visual display.
Students from Cork Institute of Technology multimedia department and the the institute’s College of Music will work on the electrical signals from the big dish and turn them into real-time data.
The purpose of designing, developing, and implementing the data visualisation is to encourage interest and intrigue from transition and pre-transition students in space, engineering, maths and technology.
Transition year student focus groups at Cork’s Regina Mundi College and Gaelcoláiste Dabhaid will test the signals.
The satellite dish was originally used in the 1980s to transmit transatlantic calls from Europe to the US. It was retired in the 1990s but the €10 million radio telescope is being reborn for less than €10,000 thanks to the partnership between National Space Centre and the Cork institute.
A spokeswoman for the space centre said this was a “great opportunity for Irish students” and it was hoping to make Cork more prominent on the global map in relation to space, engineering, maths and technology.
Meanwhile, Cork’s own science festival Discovery continued over the weekend with family-oriented exhibitions at Cork City Hall.
Thousands attended the family days with Cork VEC chief executive Ted Owens saying the overall aim of the programme is to encourage young people to be inquisitive.
“The event aims to encourage young people to seek a better understanding of how things work.
“Hopefully, it will also provide the motivation for more young people to pursue a career in these important fields.”
UCC’s College of Science, Engineering and Food Science hosted Mind Ball, a game where you win by relaxing and letting your brainwaves do all the work.
The Tyndall Institutes slime exhibition proved an attractive proposition for younger children while there was much enjoyment to be had from Scratch, a free programme where you could design your own computer game. A chemistry magic show hosted by Declan Kennedy also proved to a highlight of the weekend.
Discovery week, developed independently of Science Week Ireland, was the brainchild of Cork City Learning Forum and is now in its 15th year.
Space is the theme of talks today in the Nexus Centre, Cork Institute of Technology. Speakers include Con McCarthy, from from Skibbereen, Co Cork, who has had an illustrious career in the European Space Agency and his fellow Cork native Carl Jackson who will tell second-level students about his company SensL, which makes sensors for space missions.
Researchers from the Blackrock Castle Observatory and European Space Education Resource Office will be available to talk to students before and after the talks about careers in science.
Discovery Week continues until next Saturday.
corkcity.ie/discovery/