Back to the Beginning: Radio waves from the deep space past

Photo: Bart van Overbeeke. After four years in Australia, Mike Kriele returned to the Netherlands to defend his thesis and shared his research on the Square Kilometer Array. In order to pick up radio signals from the very first stars - some 13.5 billion years ago - you need an overview of all the signals emitted by more recent galaxies. Radio astronomer Mike Kriele set out to Australia to work on a test setup of the ambitious Square Kilometer Array, the world's largest radio telescope that is expected to shed more light on the earliest stages of the universe. In the middle of nowhere, some 800 kilometers from Perth - the Western Australian university city that has been home to TU/e PhD candidate Mike Kriele for the past four years - is a vast telescope park. The night sky looks magnificent there, says Kriele with a twinkle in his eye. -Forget all the other starry skies you-ve ever been under.