A Heritage Library in the Mountain Observatory (Part II)
Christina Birdie & A. Vagiswari Special Archival Collection of resources in the library of Kodaikanal Observatory Library inherited the priceless copy of ‘Astronomia Nova’ by Kepler dating back to 1609. The volume is leather-bound with 650 pages of Latin text, calculations, tables of observations, and woodcut diagrams of planetary orbits. Very little is known about…
Soft Actuators for the Thirty Meter Telescope
Prasanna Deshmukh India’s participation in the TMT project will provide Indian astronomers an opportunity to carry out frontline research in astronomy. Another major reason to participate in this scientific endeavour which integrates latest innovations in segmented mirror design, precision control and adaptive optics, is to bring home some of these engineering expertise through international collaboration….
Extra Solar planet: The lamp in dark!
Manika SIngla Eight years ago, innocent Ishu was staring at the stars incessantly on a cold winter night. Her mother was sitting beside her on an old charpai [a bed] and sipping hot badam milk. Ishu’s face was gleaming under the full Moon. She suddenly asked, “Ma! What are stars?”. Ma smiled and answered,” My…
Speeding and inflating Solar eruptions blame Lorentz force, but bothers us !!!
Satabdwa Majumdar “Ah! Mani da, great that I finally meet you here.”, exclaimed a briskly walking stranger on seeing Dr Manibhushan Mukhopadhyay (seldom called Mani da in his neighbourhood). As the stranger continued “I was planning to come to your house to discuss on the agenda of this year’s Durga puja, as we are..” Manibhushan…
Chromospheric heating by acoustic shock waves
Harsh Mathur The chromosphere is the most dynamic layer of the solar atmosphere, located between the bright solar surface and the million-degree hot corona. It is the region above the photosphere where the plasma is not in radiative equilibrium, and hydrogen is predominantly neutral, resulting in the characteristic Hα spectral line. The non-thermal energy that…
My Time at IIA
Eswar Reddy Often, people ask me how I entered this field. Let me admit. I chose astronomy as a career, not by design but partly accidentally and partly due to necessity. After our final year M.Sc at Venkateswara University, Tirupati, in 1990, my friends and I stayed back at our hostels for a couple more…