While the mission Aditya of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will play a crucial role towards ensuring safety of satellites, the 3.6 metre optical telescope at Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Devsthal will be the future of astronomy in India. Stating this, the recently appointed director of the institute professor Deepankar Banerjee further informed that ARIES is also participating in the construction of the world’s biggest 30 metre telescope.
Banerjee said that ISRO will launch mission Aditya within the next two years. He said that this mission can not really be compared to NASA’s Parker solar probe. However, the Indian mission will prove to be a milestone for the protection of satellites from the powerful solar particles which affect satellites. He said that information will be relayed by the Aditya probe about the highly charged solar particles on their emission.
This will not only help in protection of satellites from such particles but also help address the hindrances created by solar storms in operation of aircraft flights. The mission was slated to be launched in 2013 but was delayed due to factors related to high level equipment and development of high level technology.
He further informed that ARIES will be playing the lead role in the TMT project involving five nations. With the institute working at a brisk pace for this, the results will be visible soon. Regarding the institute’s 3.6 metre telescope, he said that about a dozen research papers based on work through this telescope have been published so far.
This shows that this telescope will play a major role in astronomy in the future. However, for this, various new equipment have to be incorporated into the telescope. Work to facilitate this is being undertaken at a swift pace, he added. Meanwhile, institute officials said that a visitor centre will also be established at ARIES soon. The plan for this will be finalised soon. Establishment of the visitor centre will enable the visitors and local youngsters to gain knowledge related to astronomy. It will also help in boosting the interest of the youth the sphere of astrology.
