Indian Connection to the World of Radio ASTRONOMY

Abstract

Radio Astronomy had to face an almost unassailable hurdle in pursuing its attempts to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos due to the characteristics of the radio signals emitted from our Milky Way and the galaxies. Discovery of Radio Interferometry provided the much awaited breakthrough to create radio telescopes of huge dimensions which was hitherto considered unrealistic to achieve. With gradual development of research, useful devices such as Large Array and Very Large Array Interferometers equipped with improved Base Line values and use of technique of Aperture Synthesis, radio astronomy grew to explore the entire radio sky successfully and interpreted the data collected to derive information for a better understanding of the phenomena like Big Bang, supernova explosions, supermassive stars, dwarf galaxy, black hole, and dark matter&energy. A brief account of the development in this field has been attempted to be discussed in a popular way.