astronomy

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope rather than just read about it. In short: The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Narayangaon, Pune in India, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes of 45 metre diameter, observing at metre wavelengths. It is the largest and most sensitive radio telescope array in the world at low frequencies.

Key takeaways

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Narayangaon, Pune in India, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes of 45 metre diameter, observing at metre wavelengths. It is the largest and most sensitive radio telescope array in the world at low frequencies. It is operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), a part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. It was conceived and built under the direction of Govind Swarup during 1984 to 1996. It is an interferometric array with baselines of up to 25 kilometres (16 mi). It was recently upgraded with new receivers, after which it is also known as the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT).

Location The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) Observatory is located about 80 km north of Pune at Khodad. A nearby town is Narayangaon which is around 9 km from the telescope site. The office of National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) is located in the Savitribai Phule Pune University campus.

Science and observations One of the aims for the telescope during its development was to search for the highly redshifted 21-cm line radiation from primordial neutral hydrogen clouds in order to determine the epoch of galaxy formation in the universe. Astronomers from all over the world regularly use this telescope to observe many different astronomical objects such as the Sun, Jupiter, exoplanets, magnetically active stars, microquasars or binary stars with a compact object (neutron star or black hole) as companion, pulsars, supernovae, supernovae remnants (SNR) HII regions, galaxies, quasars, radio galaxies, clusters of galaxies, cluster radio relics and halos, high-z galaxies, solar winds, Inter-galactic HI absorption lines, diffuse radio emission from filaments of galaxies, possible signs of time-variation of fundamental constants, variation of gas content with cosmic epoch, epoch of reionisation etc. . GMRT has produced an all sky survey named TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS). Nearly 90% of the sky has been imaged at the frequency of 150 MHz (wavelength 2m), with an angular resolution of 25 arc second and rms noise of 5 mili Jansky per beam. Source Catalogue and FITS image files for the scientific community are freely available. General public and citizen scientists can see 150 MHz image of any, supernova remnant, spiral galaxy or radio galaxy with its name or position at the RAD@home RGB-maker web-tool. Power and versatility of the GMRT has led to a renaissance in the field of low frequency radio astronomy. From this, TGSS survey, data, in August 2018, the most distant known radio galaxy : TGSS J1530+1049, located at a distance of 12 billion light years, was discovered by GMRT. In February 2020, it helped in the observation of evidence of the largest known explosion in the history of the universe, the Ophiuchus Supercluster explosion. In January 2023, the telescope picked up a radio signal (21 cm line emission from neutral atomic hydrogen gas) which originated from 8.8 billion light years away.

Activities Each year on National Science Day the observatory invites the public and pupils from schools and colleges in the surrounding area to visit the site where they can listen to explanations of radio astronomy, receiver technology and astronomy from the engineers and astronomers who work there. Nearby schools/colleges are also invited to put their individual science experiments in exhibition and the best one in each level (primary, secondary school and Jr. college) are awarded. Visitors are allowed into GMRT only on Fridays in two sessions - Morning (1100 hrs - 1300 hrs) and Evening (1500 hrs to 1700 hrs).

Gallery

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope

In research: Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1995 establishments in Maharashtra, Astronomical observatories in India, Interferometric telescopes, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in simple terms?

Why does Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope.