What is the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope?

In recent times, a team of international astronomers threw light on scientific evidence . The evidence confirmed the presence of gravitational waves, all thanks to the pulsar observations.

The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) of India was among the six large telescopes of the world. This telescope played an important role in bringing out the evidence.

What exactly is the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope- understanding the basics

The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope is a low-frequency radio telescope that aids in investigating multiple radio astrophysical issues. These issues range from the solar systems nearby to the edge of the observational universe.

The telescope is located at the Khodad, which is 80km north of Pune. The National Centre of Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) operates the telescope. The National Centre of Radio Astrphysics is a part of the Tata Institute of the Tata Institute f Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope is a Department of Atomic Energy's project. It operates under the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

 The GMRT has a total of 30 completely-steerable dihs type antennas of a diameter of 45-meter each. It is spread across a region of 5-km.

At present, the GMRT is the largest radio telescope of the world, operating at meter wavelength. 

The Key Objectives

The  Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope is an instrument that is used fr the urpse f investigating a wide array of radio astrophysical issues.

First things first, the GMRT helps in detecting the extremely redshifted spectral line of neutral Hydrogen that is expected from protoclusters before they condensed to create galaxies in the early phases of the Universe.

The redshift represents the wavelength change of the signal on the basis of the location and movement of the object.

Another important objective of the GMRT to discuss is that it proves to be useful for studying the rapidly-rotating Pulsars in the galaxy.

Pulsars are actually neutron stars that rotate rapidly with excessively high densities. One can understanda pulsar by thinking of it as a cosmic lighthouse. Just like a cosmic lighthouse, a pulsar emits radio beams flashing by the Earth on a regular basis.

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Significance of GMRT

The telescope is a unique telescpe that functions in a frequency bandwidth from 100 Mhz to 1,500 Mhz. 

The telescope is an esteemed one, both within India and across 30 countries. The telescope also proves to be helpful in understanding the evolution of galazies over cosmic time. Understanding this evolution isn't an easy job, as it needs tracing of the neutral gas at various cosmological periods.

When the heated ionised gas from the nearby medium of a galaxy falls on the universe, the gas cools down and creates atomic hydrogen.

Next, it becomes molecular hydrogen. This further leads to the formation of stars.

The Atomic hydrogen brings out radio waves of 21 cm wavelength. This means that the wavelengt is actually a direct tracer of the atomic gas content in the surrounding as well as distant galaxies.

Now, it is important to note that this radio signal is feeble. It is almost impossible to detect the emission from a far away galaxy.

However, with the help of the GMRT information, scientists have recently detected the signal that was emitted from a faw away galaxy when the universe was not more than 4.9 billion years old.

It is because of the large collecting ara and wide coverage of frequency, GMRT proves to be useful for studying various other issues at the frontiers of astrophysics.

These include studies of the solar as well as the planetary radio emissions. It also studies the relationship between the solar activity and the problems in the interplanetray medium.

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