Cosmos secrets drive workers building giant telescope

Scientists from eight countries gathered at sites in South Africa and Australia on Monday to mark the start of construction on the world's biggest radio telescope that is hoped will offer a first view into the formation of the universe.

The Square Kilometre Array, or SKA project, is an international effort to build the world's biggest astronomy observatory which, when completed in 2028, could give detailed insight into the history of the cosmos, experts said.

The $2.1 billion international project will gather radio waves from an arrangement of 197 dishes in South Africa and more than 131,000 antennae in the Australian outback, and the entire venture will be managed from the SKA Observatory headquarters in Manchester, England.