Bangalore scientists to help peek into birth of universe

Mysteries surrounding the birth of the universe may well come close to being unravelled starting next year, and Indian scientists will play an active role in it.

Scientists from Bangalore’s Raman Research Institute (RRI) are collaborating with their counterparts from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, and Curtin University in Australia to build a radio telescope by early next year that will allow them to see how the universe was formed.

Termed as the Murchison Wide-field Array (MWA) project, the telescope “will highlight parts of the universe that can’t be seen by conventional telescopes,” said Ravi Subrahmanyan, director, RRI. “Our goal is to build a telescope that will pick up different frequencies from the universe, and divide it in time zones to observe it. No one has done this as yet.”

The telescope, with a budget of $30 million (Rs158 crore), will be able to detect radiation from the first stars in the universe. It will be used to detect hydrogen present in various cosmic structures. In this way the scientists hope to see how the universe was formed — by establishing which stars emitted hydrogen first, and from where in the universe.

Designed with 128 powerful antennas, the radio telescope is being built at Boolardy Station in western Australia, about 800km from Perth, and will be ready in a year, Subrahmanyan said. This location was chosen as it is considered a ‘radio-quiet’ area, he added.

The digital receivers for the telescope will be located within the radio astronomy laboratory in the RRI campus.

The MWA telescope is only a precursor to a much more powerful radio telescope — the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). It’s estimated to be completed by 2020, and will be 50 times more sensitive while detecting cosmic hydrogen. It will be able to survey the universe faster than any existing radio telescope.

“That will be the big one. Its location will be decided in March,” said Subrahmanyan.