I-LOFAR thinks Ireland could become a star of astronomical research
By Will Goodbody, Science & Technology Correspondent
@willgoodbody
On St Patrick’s Day, as we marked our national holiday, a substantial breakthrough in cosmology and astrophysics was announced by a team of scientists in the US. They revealed that for the first time, they had recorded an echo of gravitational waves – signals emitted in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang.
The discovery was made using a specialist telescope based in the inhospitable environs of the South Pole. It’s a big deal, as it goes a long way towards proving some pretty important physics theories about what happened during the dawn of the universe, and could help us to answer the most fundamental question of all – why the Big Bang took place.
The announcement took place across the Atlantic as we were all celebrating St Patrick’s Day. But it posed the question; could we one day find ourselves celebrating an astrophysics breakthrough on this scale, discovered in Ireland by researchers based here?
No chance, might be your immediate reaction. After all we don’t have an internationally renowned research centre in the area, a critical mass of researchers capable of such a significant discovery, or even the necessary equipment, you could argue.
But one cross-institutional group of Irish scientists and technologists has an ambitious plan to change all that. Led by Professor Peter Gallagher, from Trinity College Dublin, they want Ireland to become part of the €150m LOFAR network of cutting edge radio telescopes across Europe.
According to the Irish LOFAR website, the impact of LOFAR on a wide range of astrophysical topics will be immense. “It will revolutionize studies into transient stars and galaxies; conduct the first studies into the early Universe after the Big Bang, complete the most extensive surveys of galaxies at low frequencies; and provide a new insight into the Sun-Earth connection,” it claims.
Irish involvement would cost around €1.5 million in equipment purchases and set up costs. Seed funding has already been donated by businessmen Denis O’Brien, Dermot Desmond and Joe Hogan, the founder of Irish network operator software vendor Openet. While a number of academic institutions have pledged funding too. But a hefty balance of around €1.3m remains to be raised, if the project is to become a reality.
And the window for action is fast closing. Poland is to invest €6m in three LOFAR stations, construction on which begins this year. If I-LOFAR were to raise its funding, it could piggy back on that equipment order, and have the Irish station up and running before the others in the LOFAR network have progressed their work beyond the catch-up point.
Fittingly, the LOFAR station here would be located in Birr Castle, the original home of the Great Leviathan Telescope. Built by the 3rd Earl of Rosse in the 1840s, it held the accolade of being the world’s largest telescope for more than seven decades.
Aside from star gazing, the project would serve as a platform for educational outreach in mathematics, physics, and technology to young people. It would also bolster an already popular tourist attraction. It would provide opportunities to Irish small and medium sized enterprises. And it should serve as an attraction and focal point for leading international researchers in the astrophysics area. Build it and they will come.
Ireland is an attractive location for astronomy. Our peripheral location and abundance of large areas with low density of population, means light pollution and radio frequency interference are minimised. Indeed a 700sq km area of south west Kerry was recently given the rare international “dark sky reserve” status by the US-based International Dark-Sky Association.
We all know that government spending generally is still exceptionally tight. And that funding is being prioritised for research projects with the potential to create large numbers of jobs or other immediate social or economic dividends.
But the Dutch government has spent €100m on the LOFAR project. The British government has pledged €120m to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). And it could be argued that relatively low cost scientific endeavors, like I-LOFAR as one example, which have the potential to deliver a myriad of longer term educational, economic and social benefits, need to be given due consideration by the Irish government too.
So that Ireland might become an even brighter rising star in international astronomy research and one day make a Big Bang discovery all of its own.