Astronomical Transients

Recently, Srinivas R Kulkarni, an Indian-origin US scientist has been awarded the prestigious Shaw Prize in Astronomy for 2024.

Scientist Srinivas R Kulkarni Honoured with Prestigious Shaw Prize in Astronomy

He has been awarded for his ground-breaking discoveries about millisecond pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, & other variable or transient astronomical objects.

The annual award is given by the Shaw Prize Foundation, which was founded in 2002 by the Hong Kong-based filmmaker, television executive and philanthropist Run Run Shaw (1907–2014).
It includes a $1.2m cash prize.
There are also Shaw Prizes for life sciences and medicine; and mathematical sciences.

Transients are astrophysical phenomena that change their brightness over a relatively short time.
These can be caused by a number of different astrophysical sources, and each of these transient events has particular characteristics.
There are many kinds of astronomical transients, all of them united by phenomena that are violent in some measure.
Significance : Astronomers study transients to understand where their violence comes from and what that can tell us about non-transient events.

It is a near-ultraviolet imaging satellite with a wide field of view (204 square degrees).

Design & Development : It is a mission being developed by the Israel Space Agency (ISA).
- NASA has entered into an implementing arrangement to provide launch services and share in the scientific results.
Utility :
- It will provide high cadence observations and rapid target-of-opportunity response.
- It will provide a powerful capability for time-domain and multimessenger astrophysics, and
- It will have scientific applications from solar system studies to cosmology.
- It will conduct unprecedented surveys for variability in the ultraviolet sky.
  - This will enable exciting new discoveries in fields such as gravitational waves, supernovae, and exoplanet habitability.
It has a field of view 200 times greater than NASA’s GALEX (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) mission.

Supernovae : when the outer layers of large stars blow up while their cores implode because the stars have run out of elements to fuse.
- Many a supernova has been known to become so bright that it emits light more intensely than the stars in the rest of its host galaxy combined.
Active galactic nucleus (AGN) : The centers of massive galaxies host supermassive black holes. Sometimes, these black holes actively feast on matter in their orbit.
- Interactions between the black holes and the matter in this process cause the latter to acquire energy and glow with a changing brightness.
Fast radio burst (FRB) : FRBs are very energetic sources 10-times as much energy as the Sun,which usually only last on the order of milliseconds.

Astronomical Transients

Must Read
NCERT Notes For UPSC	UPSC Daily Current Affairs
UPSC Blogs	UPSC Daily Editorials
Daily Current Affairs Quiz	Daily Main Answer Writing
UPSC Mains Previous Year Papers	UPSC Test Series 2024