Eye in sky: Pune’s NCRA is India’s lead participant in SKA project
PUNE: On Monday this week, Professor Dipankar Bhattacharyya and the Indian community of astrophysicists were elated that the much-awaited construction of the world’s largest radio telescope, which will address astrophysical questions by performing the most precise tests of Albert Einstein’s theories, and even search for extra-terrestrials, finally took off.
Thirty years in the making, from planning to construction, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be housed in Australia and South Africa. India’s participation began in 2005.
Bhattacharya, who is currently a professor of astrophysics at Ashoka University, Haryana, and a distinguished professor at Inter-university Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, recalled being part of the initial six-member team that worked on the concept design.
From a mere handful of scientists involved in the consortia at the beginning, today the team comprises 19 participating institutes from across the country.
The beginning
“I have seen the team grow from a small number of scientists coming together to develop the software design. We used to have regular meetings and the consortia really helped in creating awareness,” recalled Bhattacharya.
“We were all convinced then that it was the right time for our country to grow in the field of radio astronomy with the enormous experience we already had in the field. So, we tried to build a larger community for future research projects and hopefully, it will grow once the SKA is operational live.”
In India, the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), in Pune, affiliated to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), is the coordinating scientific institute involved in the project. India is currently working on finalising plans to formally participate in the construction phase of the SKA project, and awaiting final approval from the Indian government for its official participation. The SKA project is spread across different sites in South Africa and Australia and is headquartered in the United Kingdom. There will be 197 dishes in the South Africa site with different sizes between 15 and 13.5 meter, while the Australian site will have 512 stations with 256 dipole arrays.
Scientists at NCRA said India has been participating in the SKA discussions since 2005. The Pune-based institute formally entered the project in October 2009.
Scientists at NCRA said when the Ska-india team started attending their engineering meetings, it became clear that a major area that was not yet taken up by any other country was the development of the ‘monitoring and the control system’, which is predominantly software related.
“Since India is strong in software, we thought we could take that up and thereafter started our work. In 2010 and 2011, we did some work on the ‘concept design development’,” said Yogesh Wadadekar, an associska-india ate professor at NCRA, who is personally involved in the project. “While details needed to be worked out in the later stage, the entire concept design work was led by NCRA and some industry partners.”
Construction of SKA, led by delegations of scientists and scientific institutes from eight countries, will be completed by 2028. With large number of antennas, SKA has strength to offer unparalleled sensitivity and resolution as it probes targets in the sky. “It is one of the flagship projects and a futuristic endeavour for our country to be a part of it. Once the radio telescope is ready, our scientists would be able to do really good science research through it,” said Bhattacharya.
India is involved in this project as ‘In kind mode’, which means it doesn’t offer any direct funds to run the entire project while assistance is being offered for software and hardware used in the project. Wadadekar, who is also in-charge of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) -the data archives and proposalhandling system -- also holds key positions while working in the SKA project globally. He is member of the software framework control board as well as member of SKA regional centres’ steering committee.
The data collected from this radio telescope will be stored in data centre in South Africa and Australia, he shared.
“Since the SKA will generate seven lakh tera bytes of data every year, which is a huge volume which we cannot manage, there will be five to six regional centres across the world where it will be transferred,” he said.
“There is a preliminary plan to have a centre in India, although its location is yet to be determined. We are trying to get it within the NCRA Pune campus, which will have a separate data centre. It is a longterm project which will come in the next six to seven years,” said Wadadekar.
In 2019, India started the prototyping work for the project for which the ceremony of actual construction work began on Monday.
Project’s benefits
“The benefits of the telescope are scientific. India expects to have a six per cent stake in it. Our scientists would be able to access the telescope in proportion to our share – how that will happen is yet to be worked out. But, there will be big ambitious science projects which could not be done with any other telescope but the SKA,” said Wadadekar. “It will then be opened out, which we call principal investigator-driven projects, where anybody from these member countries will write a proposal to observe this radio source on this frequency and time,” said Wadadekar.
Astrophysicists said, once operational, the unprecedented sensitivity of SKA’S receivers will be significantly larger than India’s indigenous GMRT telescope located in Pune, and will allow insights into the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies after the Big Bang.
“As we are continuously working through the GMRT telescope, the SKA telescope will bring many new aspects of research for Indian astronomers who have been part of the project. Many national-level science working groups who are currently gaining experience from GMRT are preparing for next level of research to be done on SKA. It’s a matter of great pride and a significant achievement to be the part of this international project,” said Yashwant Gupta, director, NCRA, who has played a significant role in SKA- India.