Pune: India’s largest telescope, the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT), near Narayangaon in Pune district.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Questions:
1. According to a classification of the International Telecommunications Union, the frequencies used for radio transmissions are divided into 12 ranges. The highest is THF, for ‘tremendously high frequency’, and is in the terahertz range. The lowest is ELF. What does it stand for?
2. Name the cellular network generation that will use 0.3 terahertz frequency radiation to transmit data.
3. The conventional hardware and techniques used to produce microwave and infrared radiation – which lie on either side of the terahertz band – can’t be used to produce terahertz radiation of 0.1-30 THz. This requires new technologies. What is this technological interval called?
4. Name the type of plastic that is used to make lenses to focus or otherwise manipulate terahertz radiation. This type is preferred because the material has roughly equal refractive indices for terahertz and visible radiation, is transparent to both, and mechanically robust.
5. This telescope represents the world’s largest ground-based astronomical undertaking, costing $1.5 billion to build. Using 66 radio telescopes, it observes the cosmos in the submillimeter wavelengths – i.e. in the terahertz frequency range. Name it.
Answers:
1. Extremely low frequency
2. 6G
3. Terahertz gap
4. Picarin
5. Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)
