Govind Swarup facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Govind Swarup
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| Born | 23 March 1929 Thakurdwara, United Provinces, British India
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| Died | 7 September 2020 (aged 91) |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Known for | Radioastronomy; R&D |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Radioastronomy |
| Institutions | TIFR |
| Doctoral advisor | Ronald N. Bracewell |
| Doctoral students | Vijay Kumar Kapahi, Gopal Krishna |
Govind Swarup (born March 23, 1929 – died September 7, 2020) was a very important scientist in the field of radio astronomy. He helped build amazing and powerful telescopes to study the universe.
Swarup was the main scientist behind the idea, design, and building of the Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT) in India. He also led the creation of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune. He was the first director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Under his guidance, India became a world leader in radio astrophysics.
He wrote over 125 research papers and helped us understand things like solar radio emission (radio waves from the Sun), radio galaxies, quasars, and pulsars. He also studied dark matter and how the universe began.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Govind Swarup was born in 1929 in Thakurdwara, a town in Uttar Pradesh, India. He went to Allahabad University, where he earned his first degree in 1948 and a master's degree in Physics in 1950.
After university, Swarup worked at the National Physical Laboratory of India in Delhi from 1950 to 1953. He studied how electrons behave. Because radio astronomy was a new and exciting field, he was sent to Australia to learn how to build radio telescopes.
In March 1953, Swarup went to Sydney, Australia, for a two-year fellowship. He worked with famous scientists like Joseph Pawsey and learned a lot about building radio arrays to study the Sun. He even arranged for parts of an old telescope to be sent to India. He returned to India in 1955.
When the telescope parts were delayed, Swarup went to the United States. He worked at Harvard University in Texas from 1956 to 1957. Then, he became a research assistant at Stanford University in California from 1957 to 1960. He earned his PhD from Stanford in 1961 and became a professor there until 1963.
Later in his life, Swarup received several honorary degrees from different universities in India. These awards recognized his important contributions to science.
Career Highlights
In March 1963, Govind Swarup returned to India and joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai. He quickly moved up, becoming a professor in 1970.
He became the project director for the GMRT in 1987. In 1993, he became the director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) at TIFR. He retired from TIFR in 1994, leaving behind a great legacy.
Major Discoveries and Projects
Early Research in Australia and USA
While in Australia, Swarup helped convert a telescope to study the Sun's radio emissions. He created a map of the "Quiet Sun," which is the Sun when it's not having big eruptions.
At Harvard College Observatory, Swarup discovered a new type of solar radio burst called 'Type U' bursts. These are special radio signals from the Sun.
At Stanford, he continued to study the Sun's radio emissions. He developed a model to explain how the Sun produces microwave radiation. He also explained how sunspots emit radio waves.
In 1959, Swarup invented a clever way to quickly adjust all 32 antennas in a telescope array. This method, published in 1961, made it much faster to set up and use radio telescopes around the world.
In 1962, Swarup used a telescope at Stanford to look at Cygnus A, a powerful radio galaxy. He found a continuous "bridge" of radio emissions connecting its two main parts. This was the first time such a bridge was seen, and it helps scientists estimate how old a radio galaxy is.
Kalyan Radio Telescope
When Swarup returned to India in 1963, he started building a team at TIFR. They used the antennas he brought from Australia to build India's first radio telescope array. It was called the Kalyan Radio Telescope and was finished in 1965 near Mumbai.
Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT)
Swarup's next big project was the Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT) in South India. It started working in 1970. This telescope was very special and "unique." It was the first large telescope that could move in two directions to track objects in space.
The ORT is 530 meters long and 30 meters wide. It was built on a hill at an angle, so its long axis was parallel to Earth's axis. This smart design allowed it to track celestial radio sources for many hours.
The ORT has made many important observations. It helped confirm the Big Bang model of how the universe began. It also studied Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Even after 50 years, the ORT is still used to observe solar winds, coronal mass ejections (big bursts from the Sun), and pulsars.
Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT)
Starting in 1985, Swarup began building the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune. This huge telescope was completed in 1997. It has 30 large dish antennas, each 45 meters wide. These dishes are arranged in a Y-shape over a 25-kilometer area.
The GMRT uses a clever design called SMART (Stretched Mesh Attached to Rope Trusses). It is the world's largest radio telescope for detecting frequencies between 130 and 1430 MHz. Scientists from over 40 countries have used it for their research. In 2020, the GMRT was recognized as a major historical achievement in engineering.
One of the main reasons for building the GMRT was to study dark matter and understand the nature of the universe. Scientists needed a sensitive radio telescope to test ideas about whether the universe contains hot dark matter or cold dark matter.
Swarup used the GMRT to observe hydrogen in the early universe and study radio emissions from Venus.
Awards and Memberships
Govind Swarup was a member of many important scientific groups, including the Royal Society in London and the Indian National Science Academy. He also held leadership positions in international astronomy organizations.
He received many awards for his work, including:
- 1973 Padma Shri (a high civilian award in India)
- 1972 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology
- 2005 Herschel Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society
- 2007 Grote Reber Medal
- 2009 Homi Bhabha Award for Lifetime Achievement
Personal Life
Professor Govind Swarup was married to Bina Swarup. They lived in Pune, India. They had a daughter named Anju Basu and a son named Vipin Swarup.
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Govind Swarup
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