Construction has started on the largest telescope array (阵列) on Earth. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will contain hundreds of radio antennae (天线) spread across two continents, is now under construction in both South Africa’s Karoo region and Western Australia’s Murchison Shire.

Together, the two sites—named SKA-Mid and SKA-Low, for the types of radio frequencies they will primarily detect—will enable high-resolution imaging of the whole sky, according to the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), the organization that oversees the telescope. The sensitivity of the telescope will allow scientists to pick up even faint signals left over from the earliest days of the universe.

“The SKA project plan has been many years in the making,” SKAO committee chair Catherine Cesarsky said in an address at the South Africa site on Dec. 5, “Today, we gather here to mark another important chapter in this 30-year journey that we’ve been on together, a journey to deliver the world’s largest scientific instrument.”

The Australia site will host 131,072 low-frequency antennae placed as far as 65 kilometers apart. Together, they’ll act as a radio telescope with a lens spanning nearly 400,000 square meters. Each antenna station is 2 meters tall and contains 256 antennae in an arrangement that looks a bit like a pine tree. By catching very-low-frequency signals from the whole sky, SKA-Low will be able to dig into some of the oldest echoes left over from the first billion years of the universe.

The site is on the land of the Native Wajarri Yamaji, who signed a land-use agreement to ensure that the telescope did not interfere with any cultural sites and that locals would receive economic and educational benefits from the site. As a part of the agreement, the Wajarri Yamaji awarded the traditional name “Inyarrimanha llgari Bundara” on the site, which means “sharing the sky and stars.”

Scientists around the world plan to use data from the telescope to study questions ranging from the fundamental nature of dark energy to the nature of mysterious fast radio bursts from distant galaxies(星系).

【小题1】What do scientists probably care about the telescope under construction?

A．Its size.	B．Its location.
C．Its sensitivity.	D．Its cost.

【小题2】What can be inferred from the third paragraph?

A．The SKA project is about a 30-year journey.

B．The SKA project has been planned for decades.

C．The biggest telescope has been constructed for years.

D．The biggest telescope will be shown at the South Africa site.

【小题3】What does the underlined word “host” mean in Paragraph 4?

A．Possess.	B．Chair.
C．Organize.	D．Sponsor.

【小题4】How was the Australia site attained?

A．Negotiating with the land owner.

B．Making agreement with the locals.

C．Applying to the local government.

D．Purchasing from the native village.