What do you know about Gravitational Waves? Why LIGO-India is important to India and the world.
Refer - The Hindu
Manav 6 years
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IAS Parliament 7 years
KEY POINTS
· A gravitational wave (GW) is a concept, predicted by Einstein through his theory of general relativity.
· General relativity states that mass distorts both space and time.
· When an object accelerates, it creates ripples in space-time, just like a boat causes ripples in a pond. These space-time ripples are gravitational waves.
· GWs are caused by cataclysmic events that result in high-energy explosions, such as collision of black holes or neutron stars.
· GWs are extremely weak and so are very difficult to detect.
· Strength of the wave depends on the mass of the object and require extremely sensitive detectors to sense them.
· Missions like LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational–wave Observatory) helps to spot gravitation waves, detecting small changes in the distances between objects at set distances.
LIGO – India
· LIGO-India is a planned advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in India as part of the worldwide network.
· LIGO-India is planned as a collaborative project between a consortium of Indian research institutions and the LIGO Laboratory in the USA, along with its international partners Australia, Germany and the UK.
Importance in India
· Will bring together scientists and engineers of different countries from different fields.
· High-end engineering requirements of the project (such as the world's largest ultra-high vacuum facility) will boost collaboration between Indian industries and academic research institutions.
· Building an observatory will give access to technology that can be useful for future precision engineering industries.
· Will further inspire frontier research and development projects in India.
· Will join forces with several Indian astronomy projects like AstroSat and Neutrino observatory in the future.
· A cutting edge project in India can serve as a local focus and provide motivation to young students for choosing experimental physics and engineering physics as career options.
Importance in the World
· Adding a new detector to the existing network will increase the expected event rates.
· Sky-location of the GW sources is computed by combining data from geographically separated detectors.
· It will boost the detection confidence of new sources.
· India is the best place geographically, as it is at the right distance from US observatories.
