Paper detail

The SKA and the Unknown Unknowns

As new scientists and engineers join the SKA project and as the pressures come on to maintain costs within a chosen envelope it is worth restating and updating the rationale for the 'Exploration of the Unknown' (EoU). Maintaining an EoU philosophy will prove a vital ingredient for realizing the SKA's discovery potential. Since people make the discoveries enabled by technology a further axis in capability parameter space, the'human bandwidth' is emphasised. Using the morphological approach pioneered by Zwicky, a currently unexploited region of observational parameter space can be identified viz: time variable spectral patterns on all spectral and angular scales, one interesting example would be 'spectral transients'. We should be prepared to build up to 10 percent less collecting area for a given overall budget in order to enhance the ways in which SKA1 can be flexibly utilized.