concept stage · Belgrade, Serbia
SWARNET
Synthetic Wide Aperture Radio Network
A planet-sized radio telescope built by volunteers. Nodes are cheap enough for anyone. Together, they see farther than any observatory on Earth.
∞
aperture grows with network
24/7
continuous sky coverage
0
central points of failure
How it works
Antenna node
A small dish, SDR receiver, GPS oscillator. Listens to a slice of the radio sky. Knows nothing about the rest of the network.
Compute node
Any computer or GPU. Correlates data from antenna nodes. No dish required — contribute processing power instead.
Emergent aperture
Resolution is determined by the distance between the farthest nodes. A global network rivals professional VLBI systems.
Weighted democracy
Influence over observation targets is earned through real contribution — signal quality, uptime, geographic coverage.
First targets
Galactic hydrogen
21cm line mapping. Every node contributes from day one.
Solar flares
Real-time CME monitoring and triangulation across time zones.
Transients
Fast radio bursts and other short-lived events the sky keeps missing.
Pulsars
Continuous timing of bright pulsars — impossible for professional scopes.