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Astrosat

  • Posted By
    10Pointer
  • Categories
    Science & Technology
  • Published
    25th May, 2022

Context

Astrosat, India’s first dedicated astronomy mission witnessed the birth of black holes for the five hundredth time.

What is a black hole?

  • A black hole is a place in space where gravitational force is so high that even light cannot get out.
  • High configuration space telescopes can help find black holes.
  • Black holes in the modern sense were first predicted as a consequence of Albert Einstein’s general Theory of relativity in 1915.
  • According to NASA, the gravity in black holes is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.
  • The gravity is so strong because the matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.
    • Because no light can get out, one can't see black holes. They are invisible.

About AstroSat

  • AstroSat is India’s first multi-wavelength space telescope, which has five telescopes seeing through different wavelengths simultaneously — visible, near UV, far UV, soft X-ray and hard X-ray.
  • Onboard the AstroSat is a 38-cm wide UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT), which is capable of imaging in far and near-ultraviolet bands over a wide field of view.
  • AstroSat was launched on 28 September 2015 by ISRO into a near-Earth equatorial orbit.
  • It is a multi-institute collaborative project, involving IUCAA, ISRO, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (Bengaluru), and Physical Research Laboratory (Ahmedabad), among others.
  • It has been studying Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB).

What are Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB)?

  • GRBs are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies.
  • They are the brightest and most energetic electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe.
  • GRBs shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and about a million trillion times as bright as the Sun.
  • When a GRB erupts, it is briefly the brightest source of cosmic gamma-ray photons in the observable Universe.

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