Canadian and Indian scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India. The team of astronomers detected a powerful radio signal originating from a distant galaxy, providing new insights into the nature of these mysterious signals and their potential origins.
The radio signal, known as a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), was detected in the galaxy located around 1.5 billion light-years away from Earth. FRBs are extremely bright and brief flashes of radio waves that last only a few milliseconds. They were first discovered in 2007, and since then, only a few dozen have been detected.
The team of scientists, led by researchers from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), used GMRT to observe a patch of sky for over 400 hours to detect the radio signal. The GMRT is one of the largest and most sensitive radio telescopes in the world and is operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) in India.
The detection of this radio signal is significant because it provides new information on the nature of FRBs and their potential origins. FRBs are still not well understood, and their origins have been a topic of much debate among scientists. Some theories suggest that they are caused by highly magnetized neutron stars, while others propose that they are the result of colliding black holes or even extraterrestrial civilizations.
The team of scientists plans to continue observing the same patch of sky with GMRT to detect more FRBs and gain a better understanding of these mysterious signals. They also plan to use other telescopes, such as the Canadian CHIME radio telescope and the upcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, to further study the signal and its origins.
Gravitational lensing is a phenomenon where a massive object, like a galaxy cluster, bends the path of light passing through it, making it appear as if light is passing through a lens. This effect is caused by the massive object’s gravity warping the spacetime around it, which results in this lensing effect. The massive object causing this effect is known as a gravitational lens.
In India, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), situated near Pune, Junnar, near Narayangaon at khodad, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes, all of which are 45 metres in diameter and able to observe at wavelengths of meter.