Madrid, 14 Feb. Spain is to date the first country in the world to have a global network of robotic telescopes. The network, which was built by replicating the Malaga station on the rest of the planet, will be a unique resource for monitoring the sky and supporting observations from missions and satellites.
The BOOTES network has stations in New Zealand, China, Mexico, South Africa, Chile and Spain (two installations) and was developed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) and the University of Málaga, in collaboration with the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) and the University of Huelva (south).
BOOTES will be able to quickly and autonomously observe transient sources, i.e. astrophysical objects which are not seen continuously, but emit light briefly, intensely and suddenly, such as gamma-ray bursts (GRB), the most violent explosions in the Universe. since the Big Bang, capable of releasing in a few seconds a quantity of energy comparable to what the Sun would emit during its entire life.
GRBs are usually detected by satellites which, when captured, notify the scientific community of the discovery. From now on, BOOTES will be “an ideal complement” in this observation work.
In addition, this array of very fast pointing robotic telescopes will observe sources emitting neutrinos and gravitational waves, and even objects such as comets, asteroids, variable stars or supernovae, and will survey the skies for debris. space objects and potentially dangerous objects that could pose a threat to our planet.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF CONTINUOUS EFFORT
“BOOTES is the result of nearly 25 years of continuous effort” and its culmination was “an important scientific milestone”, said Alberto J. Castro-Tirado, researcher at IAA-CSIC and project leader since 1998. , in a statement to EFE.
“The existing network was incomplete (two of the three southern hemisphere stations were missing). Now, with the new stations in South Africa and Chile, it can be exploited to its full potential and benefit many research groups , both in Spain and in the countries where the rest of the stations are located, ”explains the researcher from Malaga.
In practice, BOOTES will operate as a single observatory but with “seven eyes” (the seven stations) which will be coordinated from the IAA.
Also, because it’s a global network with stations spread across different time zones, the network will be able to cover both hemispheres and monitor the sky even if the weather is bad at some facilities, Castro-Tirado points out.
VARIOUS SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES
So far, observations from the BOOTES network have led to several scientific discoveries. One of the observatories (the one in Mexico) was the only location in the northern hemisphere to successfully observe event GW170817 in 2017, the fifth gravitational wave detection in history.
The phenomenon behind this emission – the merger of two neutron stars – allowed for the first time the first simultaneous study in light and gravitational waves and ushered in a new era in astronomy.
In addition, BOOTES contributed in 2020 to identifying the original source of the very short-lived radio bursts in the Milky Way. These radio bursts emanated from a magnetar, a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field, the scientists described in several Nature articles.
A year later, Nature published another work in which Castro-Tirado succeeded in measuring the pulses of a magnetar’s luminosity during the moments of greatest energy.
With the completion of BOOTES, Spain has become the first country in the world with a network of robotic telescopes on all five continents, a milestone it has reached even before the United States and Russia, which are still missing. stations in Asia (in the case of the United States) and in Oceania (in the case of Russia). EFE
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