Exploration of Universe with NASA

On Wednesday 5th December I attended the lecture on “Exploring the Universe With NASA” delivered by Dr. Jaydeep Mukharjee who is working at Kennedy Space Centre in NASA. The lecture was of 1hour duration power point presentation followed by a question answer session. The auditorium was almost full though the lecture was kept on odd working day.

Dr.Jaydeep Mukharjee started his speech saying that the NASA’s exploration program of the universe is classified into three main arenas viz. Sun-Earth exploration, Exploration of Solar system and Exploration of universe. He then started directly to speak on each of the programs and gave a brief idea of how the NASA and its instruments are working for them.

The exploration of Sun-Earth is monitored by the satellites, telescopes and space shuttles. NASA has sent 2 satellite telescopes named as STEREO to observe the Sun constantly. The 2 telescopes’ images when merged together give rise to a 3-D image of Sun. The Sun shows some phenomena like solar flares and solar prominences which are the flares of ionic particles emerging out of the Sun. The satellite systems and electronic instruments got damaged due to highly energetic flares and even some parts on the Earth had experienced a total blackout due to the flares affecting the power stations. The same object when seen in different wavelength like visible, infrared, X-ray, ultraviolet, radio, etc. reveals more details. Hence many objects including Sun are observed in different wavelengths using Chandra telescope for X-ray, Spitzer for infrared, and many ground based visible and radio telescopes.

The exploration of Solar system bodies includes exploration of planets and their moons. Various spacecrafts are sent to different planets to study the planets and moons. The main focus of NASA’s Solar System Exploration program is on the study of Mars. The Mars is very much similar to Earth in many aspects. The length of day and the axial tilt of Mars are matching with the Earth’s. Moreover the photographs of Mars have shown the existence of water on it in the past and many areas of Martian surface resemble the river patterns and glacier patterns on Earth. The next main focus is on our moon and NASA is going to start its moon missions soon but for the time being the NASA is going to send its instruments on Moon through the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Moon spacecraft named “Chandrayaan-1”.

The exploration of universe is mainly focused on the discovery of exoplanets i.e. the planetary systems of other stars along the globe. There are certain criteria which have to be fulfilled to hold the life and nurture it on any planet. NASA is examining the exoplanets on these criteria but due to the technological limitations till now very few planets are found which fulfill some of these criteria. Over 200 exoplanets are discovered till date. The telescopes sent to the space like Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer are used to explore the whole universe in multiwavelength. Observing the same object in multiwavelength helps to know more about it.



The Centaurus A is the best example of this. In the universe the galaxies are classified according to their shape viz. elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, lenticular, irregular, etc. But Centaurus A was seen as an elliptical in infrared wavelength but showing some spiral arm like structure which appears exactly on the central region of core in the visible observations. This led to the conclusion that it is formed by the merging of two types of galaxies one is of elliptical and other is of spiral. Radio observations reveal that highly energetic jets are emerging out of it which means a super massive Black Hole is present in the core.


Then he moved on the NASA’s Kennedy centre and its launch pads. He showed some beautiful launches of the space shuttles. He told that the space shuttle is enormously cared by the NASA in all its phases. To take the shuttle from the vertical assembly building to the launch pad which is 5 miles apart from it, NASA’s vehicle takes approximately 5 hours which ensures the shuttle to remain in exact vertical position.


Dr. Mukharjee brought some gifts for the persons who ask the questions and the most beautiful gift was a Can written as ‘Antimatter’ but containing water which has traveled all the way through the space inside the space shuttle. Also he gave a radio receiver to the Nehru Planetarium which has a capacity to capture the radio waves of Sun and Jupiter.

From the Khagol Mandal I, Nilesh, Vineeta, Jui and Varada attended the lecture. The lecture and the presentation were very much informative and moreover it was really fascinating to see the unveiling of many mysteries of universe.

Sunita Williams at IIT

The department of Aerospace Engineering of IIT Bombay had arranged a beautiful afternoon with a talk of United States Naval officer and a NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams. The department is celebrating its annual event “Zephyr” for the Golden Jubilee year of the institute. The lecture was open for all and was arranged in the convocation hall which has a capacity of 1700 people. Though having such a large capacity the hall became houseful in a while.

The Head of the Department formally introduced the speaker. He told that from the day of announcement of the lecture his inbox got crowded with emails. One kid emailed him that “Oh, she is with us for just 2 hours; it is just a 0.04% of the time she spent in the space!” The people especially the students all over Mumbai and outside rushed to IIT to see their IDOL. It was really astonishing moment for all present there.

Sunita Williams started her talk saying that everyone goes to freak out in summer. I went to space for my summer vacations. I stayed there for long time, I did some work but I really enjoyed the vacation. She showed a video presentation and explained how they feel in the gravityless world. Everyone in space station has their sleeping room where they sleep, clean the teeth, bath with wet towel, and everything that they do on Earth. There is no shower or a sink. They have to use the water carefully as it is limited. Water is recycled whenever possible and it is also used to create the oxygen. All the food is already packed for them. They do have to exercise for 2 hours daily to keep the bones and heart muscle least affected. To maintain the sensation of up and down the space station is designed in such a way that the lighting of the station is done in so called ceiling and the floor is also designed in such manner. Otherwise there is no up or down there.

Astronauts have to know each and every thing of the space station and they periodically check the systems. They do scientific experiments and check the results for zero gravity environment. They also experiment on themselves. These experiments are carried to know how things behave in such situations and what are the effects of long stay in such environment. These experiments will help to understand the requirements of the manned mission to mars. The spaceship with the today’s technology will take 8-9 months to reach the mars and the personnel will have to live there for at least one and half year before they start coming back.

After the speech people asked her lots of questions and she gave the fair answers without being tired. In the question answer session one small girl bravely asked her that “I want to congratulate you. Can I come on stage?” Sunita Williams for a while stunned due to the unexpected question but she allowed her and also came 2-3 steps ahead to meet her. This was a wonderful moment of the lecture and the cameras got flashed off continuously over the two.

Life in the Universe

Khagol Mandal is arranging free lecture series which is free to all and on last Wednesday Prof. M.N. Vahia came to deliver the third lecture in the series. Prof. Vahia is working in TIFR in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The lecture was on the topic “Life in the Universe”.

He started the lecture by saying the basic requirements to sustain the life formation. The basic molecule in any organism is DNA and RNA which store all the basic information about the organism and which is capable to replicate that is it has the capacity to produce the exact copy of itself. The DNA or RNA is the complicated molecule which is formed by the long chains of carbon atoms and other elements combined to them. Such long chins of atoms can be made by only tetravalent elements like carbon, silicon, germanium, etc. But in these all elements only carbon is the abundant element in the universe. So life forms must be carbon based. Hence we have to see the conditions where these molecules can sustain without braking and hence only certain small zone known as habitable zone around any star can give rise to the life formation.

After we fix our problem to a little zone around the star we will have to see other requirements like the gravity, temperature, water (this is the most necessary thing other than carbon), oxygen, ozone (UV rays can break the long carbon chain), etc. This is formulated by Drake and he gave the famous ‘Drakes Equation’ which gives the probability of occurrence of the life form in the universe. But unfortunately we cannot solve the equation as some values are unknown till date. But it seems from the equation that it is easy to prove that we (i.e. life) do not exist in the universe than to prove the existence of life outside Earth.

Prof. Vahia gave very useful and simple examples like spilling of milk, etc to explain the complicated things. The lecture was very exiting and everyone enjoyed the lecture and some of the comic sentences made by the Prof. to keep the lecture interesting throughout. Around 45-50 people attended the lecture. The next lecture in the series is on 17 Oct and is on the topic “Astronomy for Beginners”. It will be delivered by Pradeep Nayak, Director, Khagol Academy. For more details visit www.khagolmandal.com

Lecture on "Excitement of Modern Solar Astronomy"

On Saturday, 1st September we went to Nehru Centre for the lecture “Excitement of Modern Solar Astronomy”. This was the 2nd lecture of the lecture series ‘Vistas of Astronomy’. The lecture was addressed by Prof. S.S. Hasan.

Mr. Pande introduced the Speaker. Prof. Hasan is the Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bamglore. He and his institute, along with the international collaborations, are doing the research in the field of Solar Astronomy. He has published lots of research papers.

Prof. Hasan started his talk with the ancient evidences of the Solar Observations done by the rock observatories. Sun was the main worshiping God and was the unknown mystery for many centuries. To know our mysterious Sun we have sent many spacecrafts that keep watch continuously on the Sun. These spacecrafts are looking at the Sun in different spectral regions such as visible, X-ray, Infra red, H-alpha, etc. In present scenario though we have collected lots of information about the Sun many things regarding the Sun are unknown till date.

In his talk Prof. Hasan gave a brief account of the statistics of the Sun, its internal structure, Sunspots and their 11 year periodicity, Solar wind, Prominences, Flares, etc. He showed many animations and videos showing the violent changes occurring on the visible surface of the Sun. He told how the Sun’s interior is studied using the audio waves generated inside the Sun which are very similar to the seismic waves of the Earth. This field is known as Helioseismology.

While explaining these modern concepts and theories about the Sun he was telling us the open questions and unsolved mysteries regarding the Sun like how the temperature of the corona - the outermost part of the Sun, is about 1 million degree Kelvin, what is the depth of the Sunspot?, does they extend upto the core?, how the prominences or flares occurs?, etc.

He concluded his lecture with the Indian contribution to the modern solar research. India is developing a 2 meter large solar telescope known as NLST (National Large Solar Telescope). This will help the researchers in India as well as outside India to accelerate their work. After the lecture audience bombarded him with lots of questions. The lecture was a good conceptual lecture and the response of the Audience was also very good. From Khagol Mandal, I, Sameer, Pritesh, Vikrant, Prathamesh, Anup, Sarang, Nilesh, Abhishek, Akshaya, Vineeta attended the lecture.

The lecture series on Astronomy started off on August 22 with a wonderful inaugural lecture on “Demoting Pluto: After one year” by Dr. Aniket Sule, one of the eminent astronomers of today’s time and a member of Khagol Mandal. This lecture was attended by about 40 people, seeking answers to numerous questions about this celestial body which is no more a part of our Solar System.

Dr. Sule began the lecture with a basic idea of ‘size’ when we talk about huge celestial bodies. The initial introduction itself made everyone realize how ordinary our Sun is and how even smaller Pluto is. The size being one of the major factors in the objections raised against Pluto, this explanation laid a foundation of the lecture. Then came a brief visit to our Solar System since the ancient times and how it gained each of its members that we know today.

With a base of fundamental knowledge about our Solar System, Dr. Sule moved on to the actual topic for the day: Pluto and its subsequent demotion. He talked about the initial predictions made about it and how those predictions proved to be a result of sheer coincidence later. The credit of accurate prediction of Pluto’s position goes to American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh who discovered it in 1930.

Then coming down to the fundamental question: “What’s wrong with Pluto?” Dr. Sule went on to explain the oddity in various features of Pluto like the inclination of its orbit, the size ratio of Pluto with other satellites in Solar System and also its own satellite. Later, some new bodies in the kuiper belt were discovered. It was found that some of the bodies called as Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) also have larger diameter than Pluto. Discovery of Sedna and Xena (2003 UB313) and consequent study of their orbits chiefly compelled the scientific community to seriously consider this issue.

Further Dr. Sule explained how the need of defining what a planet was realized and how International Astronomy Union kicked off with an organized debate over this matter. Dr. Sule was himself present at this assembly and he gave a lively account of everything that happened there! The hot topic was taken on an anvil in 26^th General Assembly where a primary poll was conducted and looking at the result, the first draft of the definition was prepared. This draft faced many objections and was rejected unanimously. Naturally, IAU came up with second resolution for the definition of ‘planet’. Even this second resolution was rejected and ultimately, IAU decided to hand over the charges into third party’s hands in order to have an unbiased debate. Third resolution was drafted and it was presented by Prof. Jocelyn Bell to the assembly.

In the end, the various terms like planet, dwarf planet, satellites etc. were delineated precisely and the issue was resolved. On a last node, Dr. Sule shed light on consequences of demotion of Pluto. He concluded the lecture with some funny cartoon sketches which depicted the reactions of people on this matter, all over the world. The lecture was followed by a brief interaction session which gave voice to questions on other topics in astronomy.

Discussion on "Phoenix mission" and "Magnitude of binary system"

On Wednesday, 8th August we discussed about the recent launch of the mars mission “Phoenix”. Sukhada gave the statistics and the information about the mission. Nasa launched it on 4th August. Previous rovers Opportunity and Spirit were lost in the Martian storm. Due to this NASA named the mission as Phoenix. Phoenix will take 10 months to reach the planet. The lander will land on the polar region and will search the soil for water content, minerals and organic compounds which will unveil the history of the planet Mars. The lander has 8 special ovens which will heat the collected sample upto 1000 degree Celsius and will analyze it with the spectrometers. The discussion ended with one unanswered question; “What is the mode of Energy used to create such high temperatures in the Oven? Can the Solar panels be sufficient enough to generate the high temperature?”

Then Jayshree raised one question; “If we have a binary star system and we know the apparent magnitude of both the stars then how can we calculate the total magnitude of the system?” Sukhada said that the magnitude cannot be add up or the total magnitude cannot be the average of the two. Noone was having the idea or the formula to calculate the total magnitude of the system. Bhide kaka told that, “The magnitude will differ if the stars are revolving in such a way that one star comes in between us and the other star i.e. the pair is the eclipting binary system. Also the distance between the two stars will matter in the calculation.” He gave the example of galaxies. Though galaxies contain billions of stars we are seeing galaxies very faint as the individual stars brightness will not just add up to give the total brightness of the galaxy but their inter stellar distances will affect the summation of their brightness and what we see is the very faint galaxy than a bright patch.

Lecture on New Advances In Optical Astronomy

On Saturday, 4th August there was a lecture arranged by the Nehru science centre, Mumbai. Nehru Science centre is going to conduct a lecture series “Vistas In Astronomy” and Saturday’s lecture was the inaugural lecture. The topic was “New Advances in Optical Astronomy”. Prof. Ram Sagar, Director of Aryabhatta Research Institute
of observational SciencES (ARIES) was the honorable speaker for the lecture. The ARIES is situated in the high altitude Manora peak of Nainital. ARIES has 4 giant telescopes and it is building a 3.6 m huge telescope in the Devasthal near Nainital.

In his speech Prof. Ram Sagar briefly discussed different kinds of telescopes (detectors) used for the different wavelengths of light. Then he gave the statistics differentiating the abilities of human eye and telescopes and discussed the need of having bigger aperture for light gathering. He also discussed the difference in ground based telescope and a satellite telescope and mensioned the new techniques implemented to overcome the difficulties like air turbulence. He described the new technique of auto correcting the curvature of large diameter telescopes used with comparatively less thickness. This technique has decreased the cost of building the large diameter telescopes. Then he described the advantages of using photographic plate over human eye and the charge coupled devices (CCD’s) over the photographic plates.

After he finished his lecture I asked him the first question: “Why the interferometry is not yet been used effectively with optical telescopes?” On this question he gave the answer as, “The incoherence in the coming beam of light is the main problem implementing the interferometry in the optical region. In radio interferometry we are working on the specific wavelength and hence the problem does not occur. But in case of optical observations we are dealing with a band of spectrum and hence we have to take into consideration the incoherence.”

The overall lecture was very good and informative. The response to the lecture was also very good. From Khagol Mandal, I, Anup, Nilesh, Sameer, Jay, Vikrant, Anshulee, Akshaya, Vineeta and Juie attended the lecture.