An antenna of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) positioned close to the Pune-Nashik high-speed rail project route.
| Photo Credit: PTI photograph
The information
- In February 2023, the Union Railway ministry gave in-principle approval to the Pune-Nashik high-speed railway project. This has scientists on the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) facility fearful.
- The GMRT is a distinctive radio-frequency astronomical analysis facility close to Narayangaon in Pune district, put collectively by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) beneath the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
The context
- According to the NCRA, Narayangaon was chosen as the placement for the project after intensive analysis and attributable to advantages like low human-origin radio noise, good communication amenities, and industrial and academic infrastructure in the neighborhood.
- “A geographical latitude sufficiently north of the geomagnetic equator in order to have a reasonably quiet ionosphere and yet be able to observe a good part of the southern sky as well” additionally favoured Narayangaon because the apt location for establishing GMRT, in accordance with the NCRA web site.
- This may change as soon as the development and operation of the high-speed railway hyperlink begins. The railway line will slice by way of GMRT’s array, reaching as shut as round 960 metres to some antenna, the journal Science reported.
- The pantograph, an instrument connected to the highest of electrical rail engines, is used to make and break contact with an overhead electrical line and the resultant sparks and electromagnetic bursts may flood the window of radio indicators, the report added. Wireless railway communication may additionally disrupt GMRT operations.
Why it issues
- Even although the GMRT is sort of 30 years outdated, it’s the greatest and most delicate radio interferometer in the world at low frequencies (lower than 1 GHz).
- GMRT is utilized by astronomers from world wide to review distant galaxies, pulsars and neutron stars, and many others. and to make essential discoveries like an explosion in the Ophiuchus cluster, the most important ever seen in the universe.
