SALSA is an ICT Based Educational Tool for Astrophysics Students to Study Structure and Dynamics of Milky Way Galaxy

After the discovery of radiation from Galactic Hydrogen gas clouds in 1951, the 21cm wavelength HI line had become the best marker to study spectral profiles in radio astronomy. It has been utilized as an important tracer for the distribution and velocity of molecular gas clouds in the Interstellar that has helped enormously in the understanding of galactic structure. ICT based astronomy and astrophysics tools have been developed for decades for undergraduate level use including radio telescopes controllable over the Internet at minimal cost. These radio telescopes can effectively be used to study galactic structure and dynamics. This paper presents an observation to study galaxy dynamics and map its spiral structure which was carried out between galactic coordinate longitudes 6° to 225° and latitudes 0° to 35° with two low cost 2.3 meters Haystack model type radio frequency receiving systems called SALSA radio telescopes at Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden which is maintained by Chalmers University of Technology. Components of the velocity of Hydrogen gas clouds were calculated using different galactic longitudes and latitudes as a function of galactic distance from the center to plot spiral galactic arms and rotation curves. This radio observational experiment was done by remote operation over the Internet in frequency switching mode. Our project aims to prove the quality and importance of this type of ICT based tools for astronomical education and citizen science.