Prysmian Group donated about three kilometers of cables, energy and telecommunications, for the development of the radio telescope of the Santa Cruz Radio Observatory (ROSAC), the only equipment of its kind in Central America, located in Guanacaste.
Providing deeper coverage of solar phenomena
ROSAC is a radio astronomy project: the science that studies celestial objects and astrophysical phenomena by measuring radio waves. On Earth, there are radio telescopes that observe the Sun at frequencies between MHz and GHz. These observations provide deeper coverage of solar phenomena.
The ROSAC project — registered in the Vice-Rector’s Office for Research at the University of Costa Rica — will allow astronomical observation of solar radio waves and the obtaining of a database through 24-hour monitoring of the activity of said star. These data will be used in scientific research both nationally and internationally.
Ideal location
“Solar radio observatories are located at different longitudes around the world and have instrumentation for solar spectroscopy. Costa Rica is located at a longitude of GMT -6 hours, where there is no equipment of this type that measures the Sun at the frequencies we want (100 and 1,000 MHz), so the development of this radio telescope will be an element important in our Central American region and in the global radio observatory network,” explained Dr. Carolina Salas Matamoros, researcher at the Space Research Center and professor at the School of Physics at the University of Costa Rica.
ROSAC will position local researchers in an international group that will carry out observations of high relevance at a global level. On the other hand, it will allow, for the first time, to obtain unique local data to carry out research in areas such as civil aviation.
Function of cables for ROSAC commissioning
The fiber optic cable will be of vital importance for transferring the data obtained from the Sun and for recovering it on the servers. In this way, the people in charge will be able to treat them and make them available to the national and international scientific community. Without fiber optics, this task would not be possible due to the volume of information and the real-time nature of the data that is necessary for the study of space weather.
On the other hand, as the ROSAC project is in the power supply implementation stage, Prysmian Group provided the power cables. With the donation, ROSAC will have the appropriate installation to connect the receivers and equipment that will allow data collection from the radio telescope. Experts are sure that this technology will allow ROSAC to achieve all of its goals andscientific objectives.
