Topics Covered: Awareness in space.
Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT):
Context:
Indian astronomers collaborated with Nobel laureate on Thirty Meter Telescope Project.
- 2020 Physics Nobel Laureate Prof. Andrea Ghez had worked closely with Indian astronomers on the design of back-end instruments.
About TMT:
- It is an astronomical observatory with an extremely large telescope (ELT).
- It is an international project being funded by scientific organisations of Canada, China, India, Japan and USA.
- Planned location: Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii in the US state of Hawaii.
- Purpose: The TMT is designed for near-ultraviolet to mid-infrared observations, featuring adaptive optics to assist in correcting image blur.
Significance:
- TMT will enable scientists to study fainter objects far away from us in the Universe, which gives information about early stages of evolution of the Universe.
- It will give us finer details of not-so-far-away objects like undiscovered planets and other objects in the Solar System and planets around other stars.
Sources: PIB.