Astrophotography: Its contribution in Astronomical discoveries

Emission Arc in Andromeda

Astrophotography has played a significant role in astronomical discoveries and observations. The use of photography in astronomy dates back to the 19th century. Since then, advancements in technology have allowed for the capture of increasingly detailed and accurate images of celestial objects. Astrophotography has been used to discover and study many different types of objects, … Read more

Search For Life On Other Planets

Featured Image

Is there life on other planets? One of the oldest and most popular question everyone asks whenever a discussion happen around astronomy. Although we generally focus on discussing about possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, finding just ‘life’ or just their traces (like fossils), is more realistic in near future. Discovering alien fossils or martian microbial … Read more

Gravitational Wave Astronomy: Story until the GW150914 Observation

LIGO control room

Notes from Lecture ‘First five years of Gravitational wave astronomy’ by Prof. Archana Pai, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay. World Space Week, Webinar organized by National Space Society(USA)-Mumbai. A broad overview Gravitational-Wave astronomy is an emerging branch of observational astronomy. A distant cousin, we can say, of optical (electromagnetic-wave) astronomy. It’s a young field – … Read more

Indian Planetary Models

Ancient Astronomy

We all know most popular planetary models proposed by Kepler, Ptolemy and Copernicus. Indian astronomers also proposed different planetary models. Earliest Indian planetary model was the ‘Sunrise system’ – where day starts at sunrise. Later Aryabhata I (576 AD) proposed a new ‘Midnight system’ – day starting at midnight. It is well known that the … Read more

Is Hubble’s Tuning Fork Diagram ‘misleading’?

Misleading visualization results in misrepresenting of information Hubble’s tuning fork diagram, published in 1936 by US astronomer Edwin Hubble, is the earliest method for classification of galaxies. It classifies galaxies based on their apparent structure – into three main categories – elliptical, spiral and barred spiral. Edwin Hubble’s program of observing distant galaxies, during 1920s, … Read more

Oldest Depiction of Supernova in Stone Carving

This is a follow-up post on “Indian Records of Crab Nebula“ Earlier I have written about possibility of Indian records of SN1054 – you may see the article on above link. This one is however is relatively new discovery. In 2018, oldest skymap depicting Supernova explosion was unearthed in Kashmir, India. Skymap is a 5000 … Read more