The world’s most important astronomical project has started. Indian scientists are playing an important role in this. Vera Rubin Observatory located in Chile has started a 10-year project named Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). In this, the world’s largest digital camera will repeatedly take pictures of the night sky. Everything from small asteroids to exploding stars, black holes and distant galaxies will be captured in these pictures.
Scientists hope that this project will provide a lot of new data about the universe, which can solve many big mysteries of the universe. Scientists from IUCAA and NCRA-TIFR of Pune are also included in this. Surhud More is the Rubin-IUCAA Program Manager. He said that this survey is the beginning of a new chapter in astronomy. “The Rubin LSST survey promises the beginning of a new era for astronomy.”
Information about how the universe will change in the future
“Whether you’re interested in understanding the formation of the solar system, finding exploding stars, finding black holes that tear apart stars, mapping dark matter in half the sky, or understanding how the universe will change in the future, it’s all included,” said Surhud More. Another major contribution of Indian researchers will be in the study of ‘Gravitational Lensing’. This is a phenomenon described by Albert Einstein, in which the gravity of giant objects bends light coming from distant galaxies, creating multiple images of the same object.
Anupreeta More, co-chair of the LSST Strong Lensing Science Collaboration, said the observatory is expected to find more than 10,000 such gravitational lenses. He said, “Lensing can cause some rare transients, such as supernovae or kilonovae, to appear unusually bright, but they may also appear to occur more than once. This gives us a feeling of ‘déjà vu’. Such gravitational lensing events not only present spectacular sights, but also help us measure the age of the universe and its expansion rate.”
Indian scientists are also keen to study the galaxy on a much larger scale using Rubin’s data. Yogesh Wadadekar of NCRA-TIFR, which is part of the LSST Galaxies Science Collaboration. He said that the telescope will provide very deep images that will help scientists study about 20 billion galaxies, each of which has its own history billions of years old.
Leave a Reply