Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, Radio interferometer in the Mid West region, Western Australia, Australia

The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio interferometer of 36 identical 12 m parabolic dishes at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia's Mid West. Each dish carries a phased-array feed that widens the field of view, and together the dishes act as one telescope with about 4,000 m2 of collecting area. Data go to the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Perth.

Construction of this advanced radio telescope began in 2009, with scientists achieving first successful observations in October 2012. The facility was built at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia.

The facility sits on the traditional lands of the Wajarri Yamaji People, who hold strong connections to this region. The local community participates in the scientific work and discoveries made here.

The array stands in the Murchison district, a sparsely populated area kept radio-quiet by Commonwealth and Western Australian regulations, so radio transmitters and electronic devices are restricted near the site. Data travel from the antennas to a correlator supercomputer at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Perth, where a pipeline processor handles them in near-real-time. Access to the observatory is controlled, and the dishes are viewed from outside rather than entered.

The facility mapped three million galaxies in the southern sky during approximately 300 hours of observation and discovered one million previously unknown celestial objects. These discoveries help scientists better understand the structure and history of the universe.