BENGALURU: A consortium of Indian cosmologists' have proposed to the Indian Space Research Organisation Isro ) that they be allowed to map the sky in specific cosmic microwave background (CMB) frequencies so as to find the first signs of quantum gravity in space as part of the space agency's next astronomy mission.The proposal comes as a response to Isro's announcement of opportunities for its next astronomy mission. Isro, which has already launched one astronomy mission-Astrosat-is vetting the proposal, which has been named " CMB-Bharat "The proposed mission has been sent to a review committee that is looking into it. We've had some meetings with the cosmologists too. If the review committee gives a go ahead, it will be part of the next mission," a source said.However, it may be a few years before the space agency looks at an astronomy mission given that most of its human resource is focused on Gaganyaan and the other planned missions, including increasing the number of transponders.Tarun Souradeep of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), who is part of the lead team of CMB-Bharat told TOI, "CMB-Bharat's primary scientific product will be maps of intensity and polarisation of the sky at CMB frequencies. The Planck mission by the European Space Agency has done some work on this but there is a lot more scope."Over the decades of CMB observations, there is now overwhelming observational support for the paradigm of inflation - a hypothesised phase of rapid accelerated expansion in the very early universe.Souradeep says: "The clinching evidence would be to detect the primordial gravitational wave background that was expected to be generated during inflation," adding that CMB-Bharat could take international efforts a step further in this aspect.Souradeep is also part of the India-LIGO mission that contributed significantly to the discovery of Gravitational Waves."Our proposal is for a comprehensive next generation CMB mission in international collaboration with major Indian contribution. It proposes "near-ultimate" survey polarisation that would exhaust the primordial information in this "gold-mine" for cosmology," he says.