Question: Astronomers from which of the following country recently discovered the Main-sequence Radio Pulse’ emitters or MRPs?
a) India
b) USA
c) Japan
d) China
Answer: (a)
Related Facts:-
- Astronomers from India’s NCRA have discovered Main-sequence Radio Pulse’ emitters or MRPs.
- It is the team of astronomers from the Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA-TIFR).
- Scientists are of the view that it is a vital discovery which will aid in the understanding of exotic radio stars and stellar magnetospheres.
- (NCRA-TIFR) astronomers have used the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) to discover eight stars belonging to this kind rare category.
- Of the total 15 MRPs known so far, 11 have been discovered by the NCRA-TIFR team alone.
- Wide bandwidth and high sensitivity of the upgraded GMRT played a pivotal role in this kind of discovery.
- GMRT is a radio telescope located at Khodad in Pune district and which is not operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the U.S.
- The Main-sequence Radio Pulse’ emitters (MRPs) are stars hotter than Sun with unusually strong magnetic fields.
- MRPs eject gases much stronger than stellar wind (a continuous flow of gas from a star’s upper atmosphere).
- Due to this activity they emit bright radio pulses like a lighthouse.
- The success of the GMRT programme has revolutionised our notion about this class of stars.
- Though the first MRP was discovered in 2000, it was only due to the high sensitivity of the uGMRT that the discovery of more such stars as possible.
- The success of the survey with the uGMRT suggests that the current notion of MRPs as rare objects may not be correct.
- Barnali Das a PhD student at the NCRA-TIFR, who has been actively studying this phenomenon, says that MRPs are probably more common but are difficult to detect.
- In fact, it was Ms. Das and her supervisor, Prof. Poonam Chandra of the NCRA who first introduced the appellation ‘MRP’ in 2020 in an effort to understand the properties of these stars.
- The duo has performed the most extensive study of MRPs over an ultra-wide frequency range.
- The used for this purpose two of the world’s leading radio telescopes: the uGMRT and the U.S. based Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).
- The high sensitivity of the uGMRT and its ability to make high resolution images have been instrumental in enabling the recovery of the pulsed signal from the space.
- This, combined with a strategic observation campaign allowed the astronomers to overcome difficulties, and reveal the true nature of these objects.
- Ms. Das expressed that magnetic field and the temperature is two quantities that appear to play the major role in deciding how intense the radio pulse.
- She said that these findings will prove crucial in understanding what switches off the production of radio pulses in a hot magnetic star.
- A research paper describing these new discoveries has been recently accepted for publication in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal (ApJ).
- The work done by Ms. Das, Prof. Chandra and other members of the NCRA team has shown for the first time that the radio pulses emitted by MRPs contain a vast amount of information regarding the stellar magnetosphere.