On Saturday a French-Chinese satellite Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) was successfully launched by the Long March 2-C rocket from southwestern. China with the aim of studying gamma-ray bursts, which are the most powerful explosions in the universe.
The SVOM satellite, whose weight is 930 kilograms and has tools from both countries. Is designed to reveal and study gamma-ray burst that are very bright celestial. Phenomena emanating from violent explosive stellar deaths or mergers of compact stars. The launch took place at around 3:00 pm (0700 GMT) from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center, AFP journalists reported.
The primary job of this satellite is to image Gamma Ray Bursts and thus provide important information about the history and evolution of cosmic objects. When they explode numerous times more energy than a billion billion suns bursts out, their paths through space offer knowledge about them. This data helps to understand galaxies’ birth and transformation as well as clouds formed by gases.
“The light from these objects takes a long time to reach us,” reasoned Ore Gottlieb, an astrophysicist at New York’s Flatiron Institute Centre for Astrophysics.
Among other things, SVOM will try to answer such questions as where did gamma-ray bursts occur in remote past of our Universe. It can find first ever bursts of their kind far off in distant galaxies. “SVOM has the potential to unravel several mysteries in the field of (gamma-ray bursts). Including detecting the most distant GRBs in the universe. Which correspond to the earliest GRBs,” Gottlieb added.
This project is also part of cooperation between France’s national space agency CNES and Chinese National Space Administration CNSA along with other scientific and technical organizations on both sides. Despite straitened conditions for space collaboration between China and western countries due to US restrictions on technology transfer this partnership is an example of successful international scientific cooperation.
“US concerns on technology transfer have inhibited US allies from collaborating with the Chinese very much. But it does happen occasionally,” noted Jonathan McDowell. An astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.
This year China and France together launched CFOSAT, a satellite for ocean science. While some of Europe’s countries participated in Chang’e missions by China to its moon. Although such collaborations are rare they do however demonstrate growing scientific cooperation with China among Western countries.
Gamma-ray bursts as events are short-live and intense making them difficult to capture through data collection. The SVOM will be located in space at an altitude of 625 kilometers. Above the surface of Earth and relay real-time signals back to ground-based observatories. If a burst is detect in time, SVOM must send out alerts and activate a network of telescopes. Which can make detailed observations within five minutes.
Frederic Daigne, an astrophysicist at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris showed how important it is to study gamma-ray bursts. “We are… interest in gamma-ray bursts for their own sake, because they are very extreme cosmic explosions. Which allow us to better understand the death of certain stars.”
This information will contribute towards testing physical laws under conditions impossible on earth and understanding the dynamics of universe.
