Khagol # 130 - Jan - Jul 2023 - Eng & Hindi

Astronomy, ScienceandSociety A workshop on the theme of Astronomy, Science and Society, was organized from th th 6 to 8 September by the Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy (MSFDA) and the Astronomy Centre for Educators of IUCAA, at MSFDA, Pune. The objectives of these workshops which are often held in smaller towns of Maharashtra are to bring the excitement of astronomy and science to faculty members across Workshop on Astronomy-Themed Experiments A workshop on astronomy-themed experiments for faculty members of colleges and universities interested in exploring, creating and sharing laboratory experiments based on concepts in a s t r o n o m y f o r t e a c h i n g a t t h e undergraduate and postgraduate levels th th was organized from 8 to 12 August 2023 at IUCAA. The long-term goal was to produce an open-source repository of astronomy- themed experiments covering diverse topics. There were about 30 participants from over a dozen institutions presenting a wide range of experiments. The workshop started with a presentation of a very creative set of experiments at the undergraduate level developed by Dipankar Bhattacharya and his team at Ashoka University. The workshop covered a wide range of experiments including optical data analysis using archival data aswell, such as from GAIA, a number of radio-astronomy related experiments including determining the rotation curve of the Galaxy from observations of neutral atomic hydrogen and analysis of pulsar data, planetary data analysis, cometary data and astrometry, s t e l l a r i um- r e l a t e d e x p e r i me n t s , g rav i t a t i ona l l ens i ng , gamma ray astronomy, gravitational waves, and on the Sun and stars. Many of the experiments have also been written up and will soon be put in the repository. The workshop was organized by TeamACE IUCAA. disciplines and also discuss broader issues related to science and society such as inclusiveness and non-discrimination. During this workshop Pramod Kale (ISRO and Savitribai Phule Pune University) traced the history of India's space programme and discussed the recent Chandrayaan Mission, while Durgesh Tripathi (IUCAA) brought forward the excitement of the Sun and the Aditya-L1 Mission. The physical scales in the Universe working. The workshop which had about fifty participants including resource persons was organized by Apurva Barve and Ajay Padvi from MSFDA and Team ACE IUCAA. were lucidly described by Prakash Arumuasamy (IUCAA), while Jameer Manur (IUCAA) presented fun astronomy-themed experiments. The recent exciting discovery of nano Hertz gravitational waves and pulsars was presented by one of the discoverers, Bhal Chandra Joshi (NCRA- TIFR). Images in the sky caused by gravitational lensing were beautifully described by Anupreeta More (IUCAA). The workshop ended with a discussion and presentation on the theme of our home, our Galaxy and our place in the Universe by Dhruba J Saikia (IUCAA). The workshop included a visit to the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope near Narayangaon where Shubendu Joardar, Kaushal Buch and colleagues described the telescope and its The lectures covered a wide range of topics, introducing the basic important topics of the field, which included radiative processes, stellar structure and evolution, the Sun, compact objects, galaxies, galactic dynamics, active galactic nuclei and jets, gravitational lensing, x-ray astronomy, fluids and plasmas, general theory of relativity and cosmology, structure formation, photometry and spectroscopy as well as recent advances. The latter included the exciting field of gravitational wave astronomy and LIGO, machine learning, quantum clocks, and mega projects such as theThirtyMeterTelescope, LIGO, Aditya-L1 and the Square Kilometre Array. An online quiz was held after the Course, and Certificates of participation were given to all those who performed satisfactorily. Vaidehi Paliya andTeamACE IUCAA coordinated theRefresher Course. Therewere about thirty participants fromhigher educational institutions fromacross the country. | 13 | KHAG L | No. 130 - JANUARY, APRIL & JULY 2023