India & giant radio telescope

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Last Updated11/01/2024

India recently formally joined the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project, world's largest radio telescope initiative.
India had already been contributing to the project for the past several years.
However, full membership involves signing an international treaty and financial commitment.

India would build a gravitational wave detector to join the international LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) network.
India is a full member of the ITER project, which is working to harness energy from nuclear fusion reactions.
Strong participation in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
- LHC is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator executing experiments in particle physics.
The Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune is one of the most advanced facilities in the world.
- There are other similar facilities in Ooty, Nainital and Bengaluru.

SKA is not a single large telescope, but a collection of thousands of dish antennas operating as a single unit.
- The name comes from the original intention to create one square kilometre of effective area for collecting radio waves.
Construction underway in South Africa and Australia in sparsely populated locations.
- To minimise signal interference from undesirable Earth-based sources.
Once operational, SKA would be between 5 to 60 times more powerful than existing radio telescopes.

Despite no SKA facilities in India, full membership promises significant gains in science and technology.
- It offers opportunities similar to the LHC or the ITER, which too are located on foreign soil but have brought rich dividends to the Indian scientific community.
Full member status grants India preferential access to SKA facilities.
SKA operates on highest-end technologies, offering intellectual properties accessible to member countries.
Potential expansion of science and technology base, with learning opportunities for academics, scientists, and private industry.

The Indian participation in the project is being led by Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA).
However, 22 institutions are collaborating on SKA-related activities in the country.
- These include leading research institutions, IITs and IISERs, universities and colleges and some private companies.
India has been involved in SKA project since the 1990s, contributing to design, development, and negotiation of the SKA Observatory Convention.
Main contribution: Development and operation of the Telescope Manager, the ‘neural network’ or the software that will run the entire facility.

There are plans for an SKA regional centre in India to process and store data for the global network.
Indian scientists have identified several areas of research for which they want to use the SKA telescopes.
- These include early universe evolution, galaxy formation, neutron star physics, and solar sciences.