SARAS 3 Radio Telescope And Radio Waves
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Background
- In 2018 a team of researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) and MIT in the US detected a signal from stars emerging in the early universe.
- The team had claimed the discovery of a radio wave signalling the birth of the First Stars.
- However, the world awaited confirmation from independent researchers.
- Utilising SARAS 3 radio telescope, researchers from Raman Research Institute, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, of India refuted this claim.
About SARAS 3
- SARAS 3 is an indigenously invented and built radio telescope that can detect extremely faint radio wave signals from the depths of time.
- It can detect faint cosmological signals, especially radiation emitted by hydrogen atoms at the 21-cm wavelength (1.4 GHz) arising from the depths of the cosmos.
Note: Detecting a faint signal from such an early period of the Universe is extremely difficult. The celestial signal is exceptionally faint - buried in sky radio waves that come to us from the gas in our own Galaxy, the Milky Way, which are a million times brighter.
Radio Waves
- Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically with frequencies of 300 gigahertz (GHz) and below.
- Like all electromagnetic waves, radio waves in a vacuum travel at the speed of light, and in the Earth's atmosphere at a close, but slightly lower speed.
- Radio waves are generated by charged particles undergoing acceleration, such as time-varying electric currents.
- Naturally occurring radio waves are emitted by lightning and astronomical objects, and are part of the blackbody radiation emitted by all warm objects.
- Radio waves are generated artificially by transmitters and received by radio receivers, using antennas.
- Radio waves are very widely used in modern technology for fixed and mobile radio communication, broadcasting, radar and radio navigation systems, communications satellites, wireless computer networks and many other applications.
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