INDIAN ASTRONOMICAL UNION

INDIAN ASTRONOMICAL UNION

Subject : Science & tech

Context : The Indian Astronomical Observatory located in Hanle near Leh was  featured in the Republic day tableau .

Concept :

• The Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO), located in Hanle near Leh in Ladakh, India, has one of the world’s highest located sites for optical, infrared and gamma-ray telescopes.
• The Indian Astronomical Observatory, the high-altitude station of IIA is situated at an altitude of 4500 metres above mean sea level to the north of Western Himalayas.
• It is operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore. It is currently the ninth highest optical telescope in the world, situated at an elevation of 4,500 meters.
• A 2-m optical infrared telescope is installed at the observatory. This telescope is remotely operated from CREST, Hosakote, using dedicated satellite links.
• A 0.70m wide field robotic telescope is under installation for monitoring transients, under the GROWTH project.
• Other larger facilities at IAO in Hanle include the Himalayan Chandra Telescope, the gamma-ray array telescope (HAGAR), and the imaging Cherenkov telescope (MACE)
• IAO also hosts several site monitoring instruments such as seeing monitor, extinction monitor, all sky camera, Automated Weather Station, etc. The site is being characterised for a 10m class telescope.

Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH)

• The GROWTH program is a 5 year project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF is a United States government agency.
• It is an international collaborative network of astronomers and telescopes dedicated to the study of short-lived cosmic transients and near-earth asteroids.
• Cosmic transients are energetic flashes of light that are millions to billions of times the brightness of the sun, e.g. explosive deaths of massive stars, white dwarf detonations, etc.
• Key follow-up observations of fast-fading or fast-moving events must occur at night promptly after discovery but before the sun rises.
• Therefore, a relay or network of telescopes spanning multiple longitudes (time-zones) on earth is required to pass the baton amongst each other to effectively extend the night-time darkness.
• GROWTH enables detailed monitoring of events that would otherwise vanish before the next night.
• Its goals are threefold:

Search for explosions in the optical regime whenever Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) group detects a Binary Neutron Star merger.

Study nearby young supernova explosions.

Study nearby asteroids.