The Mileura Widefield Array (MWA) is a triple purpose, low cost radio telescope with wide utility. The array comprises 500 “antenna-tiles”, each with 16 crossed dipoles, distributed over a region 1.5km across. The design trades complexity in hardware and software subsystems for massive computational power.

The MWA will be built at an extraordinarily radio-quiet site in Western Australia. The first phase is designed to operate in VHF band. It targets the study of 21 cm hydrogen emissions from the cosmological Epoch of Reionization (EOR), transient radio sources and space weather phenomena. The 21 cm EOR signals are redshifted by a factor of between 6 and 20 due to the expansion of the universe. It may shed light on how galaxies formed.

There is a short (4 page), but informative download on the MWA http://www.ursi.org/Proceedings/ProcGA05/pdf/. Look for J04.6(01286).pdf in the alpha-index. Background on cosmological expansion and redshift can be found at http://www.einsteins-theory-of-relativity-4engineers.com/cosmology.html.