Year milestone 1962
LIGO Project at a global level
Download 2.63 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE
- OUTER SPACE TREATY
- SPACE TOURISM
- SPACE ELEVATOR
| LIGO Project at a global level
Two LIGO detectors are already operational in the U.S., at Livingston and Hanford. The Japanese detector, KAGRA, or Kamioka Gravitational-wave Detector, is expected to join the international network soon. LIGO India LIGO India will come up in Maharashtra, which will also have two arms of 4 km in length. The project aims to move one Advanced LIGO detector from Hanford to India. This project is a collaboration between the LIGO Laboratory and three lead institutions in the IndIGO consortium: Institute of Plasma Research (IPR) Gandhinagar, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune and Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore. It is an ultra-high precision large-scale apparatus, which is expected to show a unique “temperament” determined by the local site characteristics. EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPEThe Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes (used to detect radio waves from space). Event horizon telescope consists of eight radio observatories around the world, including telescopes in Spain, the US and Antarctica. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Earth with angular resolution sufficient to observe objects the size of a supermassive black hole’s event horizon. The project’s observational targets include the two black holes with the largest angular diameter as observed from Earth: the black hole at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87), and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) at the center of the Milky Way. The first image of a black hole, at the center of galaxy Messier 87, was published by the EHT Collaboration on April 10, 2019, in a series of six scientific publications. The EHT is composed of many radio observatories or radio telescope facilities around the world, working together to produce a high-sensitivity, high-angular-resolution telescope. Through the technique of very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI), many independent radio antennas separated by hundreds or thousands of kilometers can act as a phased array, a virtual telescope that can be pointed electronically, with an effective aperture which is the diameter of the entire planet. The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration announced its first results in six simultaneous press conferences worldwide on April 10, 2019. The announcement featured the first direct image of a black hole, which showed the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87, designated M87* General Theory of Relativity (Einstein) predicts that photons emitted by the gas falling into a black hole should travel along curved trajectories, forming a ring of light around a “shadow” corresponding to the location of the black hole. While we often use the term “shadow,” it isn’t technically correct. What we are hoping to observe with the EHT is rather a “silhouette” of a black hole: its dark shape on a bright background of light coming from the surrounding matter, deformed by strong spacetime curvature. OUTER SPACE TREATYThe Outer Space Treaty, formally the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, is a treaty that forms the basis of international space law. The Treaty was opened for signature by the three depository Governments (the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America) in January 1967, and it entered into force in October 1967. The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles: The exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind. Outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States; outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means; States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner. The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes; Astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind; States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities; States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies. SPACE TOURISMSpace tourism is space travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes. A number of startup companies have sprung up in recent years, such as Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace, hoping to create a sub-orbital space tourism industry. Recently a winged spaceship designed to take tourists on excursions beyond Earth’s atmosphere exploded during a test flight over the Mojave Desert, killing a pilot in the second fiery setback for commercial space travel. It raises serious questions about the viability of such programs. SPACE ELEVATORA space elevator is a proposed type of space transportation system. It is a highly ambitious program inspired by sci-fi stories. Its main component will be a ribbon-like cable anchored to the surface and extending into space. It is designed to permit vehicle transport along the cable from a planetary surface, such as the Earth’s, directly into space or orbit, without the use of large rockets. An Earth-based space elevator would consist of a cable with one end attached to the surface near the equator and the other end in space beyond geostationary orbit. It will carry humans and other objects to space without rockets. Download 2.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
|