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.