Ever wondered why skies of villages are so captivating and
endearing.....most of us get really attracted to the hinterlands for the dark
skies for its natural splendour and stunning clarity. Chile, the South American
country has become the new destination for astronomical observations. It is
rapidly emerging as the hot favourite for astronomers and attained a popular acclaim
of being the astronomical paradise. The clear dark skies devoid of the
artificial light deflection are attracting scores of avid star gazers.
The Atacama Desert of Chile with its majestic northern
mountain terrain 5000 mts from the sea level offers 300 days of clear nights is
emerging as the choicest destination to observe the Southern Hemisphere skies. The
extremely transparent atmosphere, isolation, and dry climate are most sought
after prerequisites for an observatory. With its coveted possessions, Chile is
drawing scores of professional astronomers. Chile is now favourite star gazing destination
to rival New Zealand, Canada and Southern United States. As a result the government is trying to
establish collaboration with reputed astrophysical entities of the World.
Astronomical observations with advanced telescopes help in
unravelling the mystery of the stellar birth and can potentially revolutionise
our understanding of the cosmos. A massive string of space observation projects
worth millions of dollars are moving to Chile. The government believes that by
the year 2020, Chile would host 70% of the global astronomical infrastructure.
This surging boom would in turn spur technological innovation, engineering and
astro-tourism. To cater to the astronomical boom budgetary allocation has been
increased to $1.8 billion per year for developing scientific infrastructure and
trained manpower. University of Chile in Santiago opened National Laboratory
for High Performance Computing to manage the huge volumes of the data created
on a daily basis. It is also educating new generation of experts to meet the
growing need for scientific personnel. The installation of modern astronomical
observatories enhanced beneficial technology transfer opportunities and boosted
the economic situation of the northern most region of Chile.
One of the largest installations planned this year in Chile is
the construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) a 3.2 billion pixel
camera capable of shooting the colour movie of the Universe. This project is
aimed at creating the largest public data base of complete sky to conduct
detailed investigation without access to the telescopes. It is similar to
genomic research and would create nearly 20 to 30 terabytes of data every night.
It also catalogues the transient movements of supernovae, asteroids, comets,
clouds and stars. Thus Chile can soon evolve as the global leader of
informatics capable of analysing the blazing speed data produced by the sophisticated
instruments.
While Chile lags behind the established players of the field
like the United States, it is now actively collaborating with other countries
to amass technological know-how and trying to build pieces of the appliances
needed for the star gazing projects. It is building the World’s largest
optical/ infrared telescope, European-Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) by the
year 2023. Collaborations are underway to build SIMPLE High Resolution
Spectrograph- a tool designed to study nuclear physics and planets outside
solar system and chemical enrichment of galaxies and a $1 billion ALMA (Atacama
Large Millimetre Array) Radio Telescope having an array of 66 antennae in the
northern Atacama Desert to search our cosmic origins. Under these huge
scientific ventures Chilean scientists are alloted 10% telescope time at all
observatories in the country. Thus, the government is on a mission mode to
produce 10 native astronomers from a population for every million inhabitants.
Government has realised that astronomy is not simply about
scientists, but it is set to revamp the nation as such. There has been spurt in
the number of tourists visiting the country, with setting up of observatories
there has been a substantial improvement in the scientific infrastructure invigorating
scientific temper among the enthusiastic public too. While the heavenly sparkle
and stunningly clear skies above are a visual treat to astronomers, the massive
businesses are attracted to the natural resources under the earth. The mining
business is now threatening the astro-tourism by producing a trail of light
pollution. Realising the need to curb the light pollution government had put in
place regulation of lighting standards, a legal framework to protect the
quality of skies. But there exists a large gap between the legislation and
execution as a result the artificial light contamination is slowly peaking. Chile
is now largely counting on the astro-tourism and with its huge repositories of
observatories and modern equipment it will continue to elude astronomers from
all corners. But strict legal enforcements should be in place to safeguard its
prized possessions.
@ Copy rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment