Inside the SKA's Fortress of Silence: Dual Faraday Cages Shield Universe-Listening Datacenter
The Square Kilometre Array's ultra-sensitive radio telescope requires unprecedented RF isolation, forcing engineers to construct its Australian datacenter within nested Faraday cages featuring Star Trek-style shielded airlocks. This extreme containment prevents computing equipment from drowning out faint cosmic signals with stray radio emissions. As construction nears completion, this radical infrastructure prepares to process terabytes of astronomical data daily while maintaining absolute radio silence.