{"id":24684,"date":"2025-10-27T04:24:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T22:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=24684"},"modified":"2025-10-29T10:44:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T05:14:38","slug":"low-frequency-array-lofar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/low-frequency-array-lofar\/","title":{"rendered":"What is LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR):<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a highly innovative, pan-European distributed <strong>radio interferometer<\/strong> and the first of its kind.<\/li>\n<li>It <strong>observes the Universe at low radio frequencies<\/strong>, close to the FM radio band, from 90 to 200 MHz.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It was developed by the<strong> Dutch Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON<\/strong>) with the goal of <strong>exploring the early, distant universe, solar activity<\/strong>, and the <strong>terrestrial atmosphere.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>LOFAR can <strong>observe in several directions simultaneously,<\/strong> which allows for a <strong>multi-user operation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>For this reason, LOFAR is novel in its design because it is the <strong>first telescope<\/strong> that can <strong>look at the entire sky at the same time<\/strong>, unlike other telescopes which you have to point.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>LOFAR <strong>does not have moving parts<\/strong>; steering and tracking across the sky are achieved by <strong>treating the signal from<\/strong> the <strong>individual antennas<\/strong> in each station <strong>with advanced digital beam-forming techniques<\/strong> that make the system agile, allowing for rapid repointing of the telescope as well as giving the potential for multiple simultaneous observations in different directions.<\/li>\n<li>The LOFAR <strong>main coreis based in<\/strong> the north of the <strong>Netherlands<\/strong>, with <strong>other stations<\/strong> located <strong>in France, Germany,<\/strong> and the <strong>United Kingdom<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are Radio Galaxies?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/radio-galaxy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Radio Galaxies<\/a>, also known as <strong>radio-luminous galaxies<\/strong> or <strong>radio-loud galaxies<\/strong>, are a particular type of active galaxy that <strong>emits more light at radio wavelen<\/strong>gths than at visible wavelengths.<\/li>\n<li>These happen through the <strong>interaction between charged particles and strong magnetic fields related to supermassive black holes at<\/strong> the <strong>galaxies\u2019 center.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They are <strong>driven by non-thermal emissions.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They are <strong>much bigger than<\/strong> most of the <strong>other galaxies<\/strong> in the universe.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>first radio galaxy<\/strong> to be <strong>discovered<\/strong>, and still the brightest, is called <strong>Cygnus A.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What are black holes?<\/h3>\n<p>A black hole is a region in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get out, it is difficult to detect a black hole. The largest black holes are called &#8220;supermassive.&#8221; These black holes have masses that are more than 1 million suns together. Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of black holes in 1916, with his general theory of relativity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wionews.com\/science\/astronomers-discover-new-radio-galaxy-using-low-frequency-array-lofar-736903\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Astronomers discover new radio galaxy using LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) is a highly innovative, pan-European distributed radio interferometer and the first of its kind. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}