Abstract: The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) will be the largest Global science project of the next two decades. It will encompass a sensor network dedicated to radioastronomy, covering two continents. SKA is a large-scale international science facility involving 67 organizations in 20 countries, as well as world industrial partners and is the only global ESFRI project.
SKA is a multipurpose radio interferometer with thousands of antennas linked together to provide a collecting area of one square kilometer. The SKA can be described a central core of ~200 Km diameter, with 3 spiral arms of cables connecting nodes of antennas spreading
over sparse territories up to 3000Km distances. The two SKA sites (South Africa and Australia) were chosen for their exquisitely low Radio Frequency Interference, among other
conditions.
The Science to be extracted will open some almost unexplored spectral radio windows. SKA will mapping the first formed stars in the Universe, in high synergy with Space Science mission Euclid in the quest for Dark Energy and will unveil the largest census of galactic pulsars, addressing the final life stages of stars and testing general relativity; it will
probe for organic molecules in the atmospheres of exo-planets and hear potential SETI signals. In this seminar I will describe the history and potential of this mega-project and how Aveiro and Portugal are contributing.