The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the world’s next great radio telescope that will change our view of the universe and the galaxies within it. Radio telescopes like the SKA give a unique view of galaxies by showing of their most basic ingredient: gas.

It is from gas that stars form and to gas that they return when they die. The gas within a galaxy also acts as its atmosphere, conveying galactic ‘weather systems’ from one place to another.

Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has many mysteries. For example, to keep up its voracious habit of star formation the Milky Way must receive a steady trickle of fresh gas from intergalactic space, but we have yet to find the source of that gas trickle.

Professor McClure-Griffiths will take us on a tour of the Milky Way, revealing how the SKA will revolutionise our understanding of the galaxy, and by extension other galaxies.