- In June 2021, CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) scientists shared its data in annual meeting of American Astronomical society and told that this Telescope has detected record number of FRBs (fast radio bursts) in its 1st year of operation, between 2018 and 2019.
- The Telescope has detected 535 new FRBs in just one year.
- The CHIME project is mainly co-led by 3 Canadian Universities- University of British Columbia, McGill University and University of Toronto.
- India’s Pune based NCRA (National Centre for Radio Astrophysics) which is a part of TIFR (Tata Institute for Fundamental Research) also co-ordinates with CHIME and analyses its Data.
- CHIME’s shape is way different from traditional telescopes, It comprises 4 massive cylindrical radio antennas, roughly the size and shape of snow boarding half pipes.
- The CHIME Telescopes are located at Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia of Canada.
- CHIME receives radio signal from half of the sky as the Earth rotates.
- It collects as much as 7 terrabytes (per second) data from the sky, It is too difficult to store this data in any hard disk so this data is analysed in real time by the Universities.
- CHIME can focus on a vast area at a time this helps us in detecting FRBs a thousand times more often than a traditional Telescope.
- FRB is oddly a bright flash of light which can not be seen by bare eyes, it blazes for a few miliseconds, their origin are still unknown, 1st FRB was spotted in 2007 since then only 140 FRBs had been detected but now with the help of CHIME we are detecting FRBs at an unprecedented rate. Catching sight of an FRB is considered as a rare thing in Radio Astronomy.
- With more observations, astronomers hope to find out the origins of FRBs.
Thank You 🙂
18/07/2021 (SUNDAY)
sources:
- The Hindu
- Drishti IAS