The Phase II Murchison Widefield Array: Current Status and Future Plans

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a low-frequency precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The telescope operates between 70 and 300 MHz and is located on the Murchison Radioastronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia, which is a pristine environment for radio astronomy [1]. The instrument [2, 3, 4] is operated by Curtin University on behalf of a consortium of 21 international partner organisations spanning 6 countries. The telescope was recently upgraded with an additional 2048 dipole antennas spread out over ~5 km area [5]. I will provide an update on the capabilities of the expanded array; the Phase II MWA, and discuss some of the recent scientific highlights [6, 7, 8], and expected performance improvements [5].