Here's What You Should Know About The New Telescope Named GOTO

A powerful new telescope helps scientists monitor collisions of neutron stars or dead suns.

While NASA’s James Webb telescope is busy exploring space and sending amazing photos of galaxies back to Earth, one revolutionary telescope scans the sky for colliding dead suns and helps scientists better understand physics. The new telescope, called the Gravitational Wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO), is located on the volcanic island of La Palma in Spain.

According to Interesting Engineering, the new Gravity Wave Optical Transient Observer consists of two jet-black batteries of eight cylindrical telescopes bolted together. To cover different parts of the sky, the GOTO instrument rapidly rotates and rotates vertically and horizontally to capture the collision of the dead sun, known as a neutron star.

How Do Scientists Study Dead Star Collisions Using GOTO?

Astronomers in 2017, by sheer luck, observed the collision of two neutron stars. After that, British scientists built the Gravitational Wave Optical Transient Observer to systematically search for these events.

Prof Danny Steeghs of the University of Warwick explained to the BBC that it was important to move quickly whenever a “good detection” occurred. He commented, “We’re looking for something short-lived – there’s not much time before they disappear.”

Scientists must move quickly to gather data on the colliding dead suns because they occur so quickly and disappear within two days. A neutron star is a dead sun that has collapsed under its own enormous weight, because only a teaspoon of its material weighs up to four billion tons.

Neutron stars also have such strong gravity that they are attracted to each other, cause collisions and then merge. This collision caused flashes of light and powerful shock waves called gravitational waves that were felt throughout the universe and distorted space.

The operator of the Gravity Wave Optical Transient Observer aims to locate the crash site within hours of its occurrence or within minutes of gravitational wave detection. The scientists then took the GOTO image and digitally removed the stars, planets, and galaxies that were present the night before.

Any speck of light that wasn’t there the night before might have been a collision of a dead sun. Traditionally, the process took days or weeks, but with GOTO, scientists can now do it in real time.

Also Read: James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Phenomenal Images of Stars

The Importance of Capturing Dead Sun Collisions in Understanding the Universe

After identifying the collision using the Gravity Wave Optical Transient Observer, the scientists then used larger and more powerful telescopes found in other parts of the world to help examine the collisions of neutron stars in greater detail and at different wavelengths. However, that does not mean that GOTO’s role in studying the incident is minimal.

In his press release, Professor Rene Breton of The University of Manchester who is one of the partners of the GOTO project explained that it is very important to detect gravitational waves and the collisions that cause them. Breton described the “‘time-lapse’ sky images” captured by Gravity Wave Optical Transient Observer as a “gold mine for studying the variability of other astronomical objects and looking for transient phenomena unrelated to gravitational wave events.”

GOTO is designed to fill the observation gap by searching for optical signals in the electromagnetic spectrum that can pinpoint the source of gravitational waves and pinpoint their source so that fleets of telescopes and other instruments can focus on them and gather more information. The Gravitational Wave Optical Transient Observer was awarded £3.2 million or over $3.8 million in funding by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for a full-scale facility deployment.

Related article: NASA Wants James Webb Space Telescope To Study The Milky Way’s Monster Black Hole

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