4/3/2023 0 Comments T rack s![]() ![]() To protect the telescope, astronomers are asking planners to consider rerouting the railway or placing the tracks and equipment inside tunnels. ![]() ![]() As the pantograph makes and breaks contact with the line, he says, it produces sparks and electromagnetic bursts that can “drown the entire spectrum of faint radio signals the telescope is devoted to study.” Railway communications equipment can add to the interference, Gupta notes, making it impossible for the GMRT to detect signals within its listening range of 100 to 1450 megahertz. “The key villain here is the pantograph, which is perched on top of the rail engine, constantly touching the overhead high-tension power line to draw electricity to propel the train,” says Yashwant Gupta, director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, a division of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which operates the GMRT. That prospect has astronomers very worried. By 2026, planners envision 48 electric passenger trains, as well as cargo haulers, plying the tracks each day as they travel some 235 kilometers between the cities of Pune and Nashik. ![]() Last month, the Indian government gave approval “in principle” for construction of a pair of high-speed rail lines that would slice through the GMRT’s array, edging within 960 meters of some antennas. The telescope is among the most sensitive in the world at these low frequencies, but it could soon be deafened by signals emanating from a mundane source: electric trains. The dishes have helped astronomers from dozens of nations study some of the most distant known galaxies and one of the universe’s biggest known explosions, an outburst from a giant black hole in the Ophiuchus Supercluster. Its Y-shaped network of 30 antennas, each 45 meters wide, spreads over 25 square kilometers. NARAYANGAON, INDIA-For nearly 30 years, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) here 200 kilometers east of Mumbai has listened for faint low-frequency radio signals emanating from the distant reaches of the cosmos. ![]()
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