Indian Astronomical Observatory: 25 Years B C Bhatt, Dorje Angchuk & Man Singh In Ladakh, there are only two seasons. One is winter (October to April), and the other is Summer (May to September). That’s why business activities start as soon as the surface transport opens in May, and all resources reach Ladakh in the…
Fazlu Rahman Objects in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear – A very familiar sentence to all of us. Though this is a safety warning written for the drivers who may mistakenly assume that the car behind them, as seen in the mirror is far away, given its small size, it has become a…
R C Kapoor Observing comets from India Although the subject of comets has received space in a few old Indian texts, the description remains confined only to their morphology and the ominous implications. Nowhere is there an allusion as to a specific comet or even a hint that some real-time observations were made. Since 2009,…
Suman Saha Just like the planets in our Solar system orbiting around the Sun, there are planets outside the Solar system orbiting around other stars. They are known as the Exoplanets (or Extra-solar planets). By definition, planets are much smaller than the stars and unlike the stars, they have no direct source of light but…
Vaibhav Pant I have always had a fascination towards science since my childhood. I used to study books and articles related to scientific theories and discoveries as a child. After finishing secondary school, I took up Mathematics and Biology since I did not want to miss out on any stream of science. I joined St….
Professor Varun Sahni speaks about his exciting career, childhood days, PhD life in Moscow, and his views on the future of cosmology About the IntervieweeProfessor Varun Sahni is an Indian theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, and distinguished professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune. Known for his research in cosmology, Professor Sahni has…
Dr. Sangeetha CR I joined the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in 2010 for PhD and had very little knowledge about research. Being a shy person, pursuing your dream in research is a bit difficult, as you need to interact with people. But it is not an impossible dream to have, and I realized I…
Prof. B. C. Bhatt, Dorje Angchuk, and Man Singh Preamble Under the Himalayan Infrared Optical Telescope (HIROT) project, first team of IIA landed Leh in November 1994 and with initial acclimatization in high altitude and cold weather, this team arrived Hanle in December 1995. We pitched our setup in a mud-hut in the premises of…
Sandeep Kataria Bars are ubiquitous features in the disk galaxies. Observations show that around 2/3 of the disk galaxies in the observable universe (optical and infrared) have a bar in their central region. Bars are thought to be formed as a result of global instability in the disk, which traps eccentric orbits of the stars…
