the goan I network
PANAJI
None will believe that a group of undiscovered galaxies several billion light years from the earth could connect an unknown village in hinterland Goa to the US space agency NASA.
Earlier on Sunday (early Monday morning in Goa), that’s exactly what happened. Astronomers and scientists from across the United States were told in Hawaii that Marcela-Goa based astronomer Dr Vithal Tilvi led an international team of astronomers who discovered the farthest ‘group of galaxies’ ever found.
The galaxy group, labelled as EGS77, contains a trio of galaxies close to each other and has never been seen before, the astronomers from across America gathered at the conference of the American Astronomical Society were officially told by NASA.
“Behind this tremendous achievement is an Indian astronomer Dr Vithal Tilvi who
lead this research finding along with scientists from NASA. This discovery-result was just presented for the first time,” the attendees at the conference in Hawaii were told.
Decades ago, when Dr Tilvi was learning his alphabet in the Marathi medium, none of his teachers at Sharada English High School, Marcela, would have fathomed, this shy kid would hit the galaxies. But he did. And according to Dr Tilvi himself, his growing days in Marcel did indeed shape his yearning and desire to study the stars and the sky.
“We had no power. So I would get out of the house and gaze at the skies where stars used to emanate light,” Dr Tilvi said, adding that he’s thankful electricity hadn’t reached his village then, else he would never have come to like the skies and the starlight coming from above.
Tilve pursued his academics here in Goa itself doing his higher secondary schooling at GVMS’s Ponda, and degree at PES, Farmagudi. He moved to the United States in 2003 to do research in astronomy because “it fascinated me always”.
Before heading to the US, where he achieved great accolades, Dr Tilvi worked at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) Dona Paula for a few years and then at the Antarctic Research Center in Vasco.
Currently, Tilvi is working as Professor of Research, Development and Innovation with the Goa government’s State Higher Education Council and is tasked with inculcating a temper for scientific research among Goa’s student community.
He also simultaneously works from here in Marcel as the team leader on a NASA-funded project to study the Universe’s farthest black hole.
“After working on some of the most sophisticated instruments and largest telescopes in the world, I now hope to take space-exploration research in India to the next level,” Dr Tilve told The Goan.
Meanwhile, in the NASA press statement released to the Conference in Hawaii on Sunday, Dr Tilve said of the discovery: “This is not just the distance record for discovering the farthest galaxy group but even more significant because a galaxy group like this has changed our universe forever. Intense heat from such galaxies clear the way for starlight to travel freely and reach us on earth.”
Tilvi said, the team members pushed the current telescopes to their limits and used a special technique to collect data for several years using some of the best telescopes in the world, including the Hubble Space Telescope.
Earlier in 2013, Dr Tilvi was also part of the team that discovered the farthest galaxy in the universe. Now, since 2017 and up to the point NASA announced the discovery of the farthest group of galaxies.
He also led the team of astronomers that discovered the earliest black hole candidate in the universe and is currently the project leader for a NASA-funded project to study this black hole using observations taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
