India contributes to world's largest "eye on the universe" in Hawaii

In a thrilling astronomical development the worlds largest eye on the universe an Optical Infrared Thirty Metre Telescope TMT is fast coming up with critical help from Indian scientists engineers and industries at its proposed location in Maunakea in US HawaiiThe TMT will be the most gigantic scope ever to be constructed by the world at a cost of over 26 billion with collaboration of India US Japan Canada and China said Dr Prasanna Deshmukh 35 one of the scientists engaged in the megaprojectHailing from Maharashtras Sangli Deshmukh is the work package manager for TMTs Primary Mirror Control System and handling the crucial Actuators and Edge Sensors for the telescopeThe TMTs Indian collaborators are the InterUniversity Centre for Astronomy amp Astrophysics IUCAA Pune the Indian Institute of Astrophysics IIA Bengaluru and the Aryabhat Research Institute of Observational Sciences ARIES NainitalDeshmukh of the IIA said that the TMT will comprise 492 pieces of hexagon mirrors which will be put together and aligned with superhighprecision to pore into the farthest or deepest corners of the known UniverseThe TMT will enable us to peek from one Light Year in our Solar System to the early Universe or around 137 billion Light Years LY away Consider The nearest neighbour of our Milky Way Galaxy the Andromeda Galaxy is some 253 Lakh LYs away So imagine the power and reach of the TMT Deshmukh said in a chat with IANSPresently the two biggest telescopes both spacebased are the Hubble Space Telescope diameter 25 metres 1990 535 km above Earth and the latest James Webb Space Telescope diameter 65 metres 2021 to be around 15 lakh km far from Earth orbiting the Sun considerably smaller compared with the upcoming groundbased TMT which will be five times bigger with a diameter of 30 metresThrough the TMT scientists will get a better view of planets stars galaxies exoplanets nebulas supernovas or pulsars in unthinkable faroff regions of the seemingly endless Universe conduct spectroscopy of such heavy objects to study their atmosphere find out if life exists or can thrive there scout possibility of a future cool address for earthlings and test out the current varied hypotheses on the reality of aliens somewhere out thereWith the current generation scopes working in optical ultraviolet or infrared wavelengths its not possible to view many things due to their limited size and resolution but the TMT will open up hitherto unknown avenues to understanding the secrets and mysterious spectacles of the vast Universe the true dimensions of which still elude man said DeshmukhOn how astronomical distances are measured in the Universe 1 LY 9 trillion kms Deshmukh said scientists study and analyse the sources of the light for their intrinsic brightness standard candle method or shift in their spectrum red shift method to determine that object and its approximate distance from Earth or Solar SystemTMT will help us study all known astronomical problems or challenges that were stuck owing to the lack of powerful telescopes Plus TMT has a lifespan of 50 years giving us sufficient time before something more advanced comes up maybe to peer even beyond Time itself Dr Deshmukh saidExplaining the TMT he said the primary mirror will comprise 492 hexagon mirrors supported by another 1476 actuators 2772 highprecision edge sensors and 10332 smaller actuators that will align all the mirrors detect the microminutest deviations and correct them to enable get clear images from staggering distances in the UniverseAll the mirrors and other components are made of highly specialised zero thermal expansion glass to prevent blurred images owing to temperature fluctuations The telescope will be supported by an Extreme Adaptive Optics system to reduce disturbances caused by the Earths atmosphere as it tracks different celestial objects said DeshmukhIncidentally the Andromeda cluster was first discovered and described by the Persian astronomer Abd AlRehman Al Sufi in CE 905But it was only over a 1000 years later in 1924 that the American astronomer Edwin Hubble 18891953 stunned humanity by confirming that Andromeda was indeed a galaxy and our Milky Way is just one of many galaxies dotting the dark UniverseHowever post1990 the world went into a tizzy as the Hubble Space Telescope discovered billions of new galaxies scattered in the Universe with more discoveries expected from the James Webb Space Telescope and mindboggling possibilities likely through the TMTBesides IUCAA IIA and ARIES some 50plus Indian industries are contributing to the megaventure through different components and the direct or indirect involvement of around 200 scientists engineers experts technicians and othersOne such company the India TMT Optics Fabrication Facility ITOFF near Bengaluru became operational in January 2021 and it will manufacture 84 of the 492 mirrors for TMTThese mirrors are highly advanced Each mirror can take up to twothree weeks to manufacture so it will take around four years to build all 84 mirrors here plus the others which are being produced in the US China and Japan said DeshmukhAs per current plans the TMT will open its eye to ogle at the Universe by 2032 the deadline extended from the original 2028Also ReadGoogle Voice rolls out new feature auto switches between WiFi and cellular dataThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever