The MRO site also hosts the Curtin University-led Murchison Widefield Array ( MWA ) telescope, which has been peering into the universe’s “dark ages” and finding no trace of aliens. These are flashes of radio waves in space that last just milliseconds. It has already found a niche as a finder and localiser of fast radio bursts. It’s actually an array of 36 individual antennas that work together as one large telescope.ĪSKAP can capture high-quality images and scan the whole sky, a bit like a wide-angle lens allowing you to see more through a single viewpoint. One of the radio telescopes is the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder ( ASKAP ) operated by CSIRO. That’s why the observatory was set up with strict rules on what can and can’t be used on site. It’s the site of CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory ( MRO ) and is home to three telescopes (and soon a fourth when half of the Square Kilometre Array, the world’s largest radio telescope, is built there).īut it’s important these telescopes don’t pick up any other radio signals generated here on Earth that could interfere with their observations. Me (left) and my colleague Carol Wilson at the signs marking the start of the Australian Radio Quiet Zone WA.Ī remote outback station about 800km north of Perth in Western Australia is one of the best places in the world to operate telescopes that listen for radio signals from space.