Category Archives: Astronomy

September 10, 2022, 12:00 PM HST

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then looking through a telescope into the depths of space and the twinkling stars staring back at you while imagining all the possibilities is priceless.

Keiki and their families had the opportunity to do just that during the first Ohana Stargazing event Aug. 27 at Mookini Heiau in Kohala. The event, meant to inspire children to reach for the stars, was hosted by Ohana Kilo Hk, a Native Hawaiian nonprofit organization that supports astronomy and space programs in Hawaii.

Ohana Stargazing shares traditional and modern methods of Hawaii astronomy including storytelling and telescope viewing. The event at Mookini Heiau featured guided tours through the heiau, Hawaiian star compass demonstrations, a question-and-answer session with a Native Hawaiian panel of astronomy and space science professionals, storytelling about Hawaiian sky lore and Mookini Heiau, star tours including Polynesian Voyaging Starlines and international constellations, interactive space themed activities and telescope viewing.

Under a sea of stars, including Mauis fish hook on the horizon and the great dark fish of the dusty Milky Way above, the event closed by honoring two individuals Ohana Kilo Hk founding director and Imiloa Astronomy Center navigator in residence Kalepa Baybayan and Paul Coleman, the first Native Hawaiian astrophysics professor who treasure Mookini Heiau and continue to be guiding lights in perpetuating the practice of Hawaii astronomy.

The mission of Ohana Kilo Hk is to cultivate and support children who have or hope to have a relationship with the study of the skies above. Through Ohana Stargazing, the nonprofit hopes to engage families in fun events, where everyone can be inspired by Hawaiian and international star stories.

Ohana Kilo Hk seeks to inspire keiki, especially Native Hawaiian keiki, by bringing them Native Hawaiian role models who perpetuate the culture of celestial navigation and natural observation through contributions to the study of space, astronomy and the stars. For more information, click here.

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Ohana Stargazing Event Inspires Keiki to Reach For The Stars - Big Island Now

Jennifer Muir didnt know that her lifelong aspirations to become a teacher would eventually take her to the edge of space.

I wasnt set on science till I started going to college, said Muir, a science teacher at Draper Park Middle School. I took a geology class for my physical science requirement and absolutely loved it and majored in earth science education best decision Ive ever made.

Muir was selected in December to attend a prestigious NASA-affiliated teacher training program that includes a trip to the stratosphere aboard the worlds largest flying observatory, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA.

She learned about the program last year after Canyons School District teachers Milo Maughan, who now works at the Utah State Office of Education, and Hillcrests Clief Castleton received their flight jackets from NASA.

I didnt think it was open to middle school science teachers, so when I found out it was through our district science specialist, I was like, Well, Im going to apply because the worst they can tell me is no, Muir said.

Except they didnt say no and Muir joined a list of 24 other teachers across the nation who will be embarking on the journey with her as airborne astronomy ambassadors. She is the only teacher from the Beehive State in this years program.

The group includes K-12 teachers and community college instructors fromacross the country.

Science teacher Jennifer Muir teaches a class of eighth grade students at Draper Park Middle School on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. Muir, who was chosen last year to attend a prestigious NASA-affiliated teacher-training program that includes a flight to the stratosphere, leaves Monday, Sept. 12, for the five-day trip. Muir is also one of 24 U.S. educators from 13 states selected as 2022 Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors.

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

Qualifications to become an ambassador include at least three years of teaching experience in such subjects as physical science, earth and space science, astronomy, astrobiology or integrated science. Teachers also must be scheduled to lead physics and astronomy in the coming years.

Muir was at IKEA when she found out she had been selected.

I was freaking out, she said. I was pulling up the confirmation email for the (IKEA) pickup and thats when I saw the email that Id been selected.

While many have assumed that Muir will be going all the way to space, she is quick to dispel this notion (she is a science teacher, after all).

Its a Boeing 747 called SOFIA. It flies in the stratosphere so it goes higher than regular planes but its not actually going to space, Muir said.

Still, the opportunity is once in a lifetime.

Its going to be amazing because its got a huge telescope on it and you fly at night and youre flying with these amazing research scientists, Muir said. The telescope opens up and you get to be there while live data comes in.

Science teacher Jennifer Muir works with eighth grader Samantha Hillstead at Draper Park Middle School on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. Muir, who was chosen last year to attend a prestigious NASA-affiliated teacher-training program that includes a flight to the stratosphere, leaves Monday, Sept. 12 for the five-day trip. Muir is also one of 24 U.S. educators from 13 states selected as 2022 Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors.

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

Muir said she doesnt know exactly what her role will be while on board quite yet, but acknowledged that she will help with whatever they need help with.

Aside from her upcoming journey being an incredible individual experience, Muir is eager to take what she learns aboard the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy and bring it back to her middle school students.

In eighth grade science, we learn about light and sound and especially the electromagnetic spectrum. So teaching the kids that not all light is visible with the human eye, Muir said. This telescope actually uses infrared or thermal energy to collect pictures and data, so Ill get to show them some of the discoveries made using other wavelengths of light besides just the visible light that the human eye can see.

Ambassadors also are given curriculum and equipment to bolster the classroom experience after they return from a weeklong immersive training.

Science teacher Jennifer Muir is pictured in her classroom at Draper Park Middle School on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. Muir, who was chosen last year to attend a prestigious NASA-affiliated teacher-training program that includes a flight to the stratosphere, leaves Monday, Sept. 12 for the five-day trip. Muir is also one of 24 U.S. educators from 13 states selected as 2022 Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors.

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

She said that she hopes her experience and teaching style will influence some students into a STEM career.

Obviously Im happy with whatever they choose as a career, but if they choose STEM, it makes me happy, she said. The fact that I get this opportunity, to me, is a huge thank you for doing my job and doing my job well.

Muir leaves for her five-day trip on Monday, and while most people would understandably have some jitters leading up to a trip of this magnitude, Muir is ready to go.

Im not really one to say no if I have an opportunity to do something, Muir said. I wouldnt say Im nervous, Im excited to take back what I learn to my students but Im also just excited to have the experience.

Science teacher Jennifer Muir works with eighth graders Sophie Daynes and Maddison Ellis at Draper Park Middle School on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. Muir, who was chosen last year to attend a prestigious NASA-affiliated teacher-training program that includes a flight to the stratosphere, leaves Monday, Sept. 12 for the five-day trip. Muir is also one of 24 U.S. educators from 13 states selected as 2022 Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors.

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

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Utah teacher hopes to inspire students with her journey to the edge of space - Deseret News

Humanity is blinding itself with light and losing sight of the starry night skies that once guided our ancestors and filled them with wonder, according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the international astronomy organization is doing something about it.

More than 80% of the worlds population has their view of the night sky curtailed due to light pollution, according to the ESO. The increasing number of satellites in orbit are photobombing the views of professional telescopes at the few remaining dark sky sites, such as the Very Large Telescope the ESO operates in Chile.

In response the ESO has launched a campaign to educate people about light pollution and the negative impacts of satellite mega-constellations on both professional and amateur astronomy. They launched a website spelling out the problem and created a social media hashtag, #ProtectDarkSkies, to spread the word. In a Tweet posted Wednesday using the new hashtag, the ESO pointed out that about one third of humanity can no longer see the Milky Way the thick disk of our galaxy rich with dust and stars in the night sky from where they live.

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Astronomers launch campaign to protect the dark night sky - The Independent

Astronomy Chair Priyamvada Natarajan has been named the Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton professor of astronomy and professor of physics.

Elizabeth Watson 12:23 am, Sep 09, 2022

Staff Reporter

Priyamvada Natarajan

Priyamvada Natarajan, chair of Yales Astronomy Department, has been named the Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton professor of astronomy and professor of physics.

Natarajans new title honors the legacy of Joseph S. Fruton and Sophia S. Simmonds, both biochemists who taught at Yale and were known for their contributions to research and education. Natarajan was notified of the appointment in May by University President Peter Salovey.

I came into this country as an international undergrad; I was at MIT, and my family was in India, Natarajan said. I lived here as an international scholar, and of course Im an American citizen, but this kind of thing really adds a sense of belonging. [The position] aligns with my values. For me, that was really important. Here are people who know me, who know and understand what I stand for. I stand for equality of opportunity and recognition for all genders in science.

After graduating from MIT and completing her doctoral degree at the University of Cambridges Institute of Astronomy, Natarajan came to Yale as an assistant professor in the physics and astronomy departments in 2000. Since then, Natarajan has been working on research in theoretical physics, specifically pertaining to black holes.

Black holes were often thought to form after the final stages in the life cycle of a star. However, the black hole seeds, or early black holes, that result from this process are often only a few times the mass of our solar systems sun, and there is not enough time for these seeds to reach the size of known supermassive black holes, which can be tens of billions times larger than the mass of the sun, according to Natarajan. To explain this discrepancy, Natarajan and collaborators proposed a theory that these larger black holes result from extremely large black hole seeds that came into being without star formation.

We have very clear-cut predictions out there for the James Webb Space Telescope, and we made these predictions well before the telescope was launched in 2017, Natarajan said. Ive been working for nearly more than a decade on making those predictions. It was very challenging because computers were not fast enough and you just couldnt simulate it all. So we had to wait for computers to become more sophisticated and for the instruments on a new facility like James Webb before it could be tested. Thats what Im really excited about right now.

Natarajan is also one of the principal investigators working on the Harvard Black Hole Initiative. As part of this initiative, she maps dark matter with gravitational lensing, which relates to the way that light bends in response to matter. Natarajan observes this light bending and uses the degree of distortion to ascertain details about the dark matter within a given galaxy. This kind of mapping can help scientists develop a better understanding of dark matter and in turn, the universe.

Its without question that professor Natarajan is one of the worlds foremost experts in studying massive black holes and dark matter, said Michael Tremmel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Over her career, her work has pushed the field forward and, in many cases, opened up entirely new avenues of research which remain active today.

Erica Nelson, an assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who was mentored by Natarajan as a graduate student, agreed.

It always felt like she had my back and was on my side, Nelson said. Grad school is a very vulnerable time in terms of your confidence and whether or not you feel like you deserve to be there, and she always gave me confidence and inspiration that I could do it and that I was doing a good job and that she respected my intelligence. She was always a very positive influence in my graduate career. I literally wouldnt be here if it wasnt for her.

Natarajan currently serves as the director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities at Yale.

Elizabeth Watson covers breakthrough research for SciTech and illustrates for various sections. She is a sophomore in Pauli Murray College and is planning to major in science and the humanities.

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Yale professor appointed to inaugural position in physics and astronomy department - Yale Daily News

The Moorpark College Astronomy faculty and Ventura County Astronomical Society will present the summers final Star Party at 6:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 17 at the Moorpark College Observatory, 7075 Campus Road.

Guest speaker Kevin McKeegan will provide a short lecture on meteorites. He is a professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry in UCLAs Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, where he served as chair from 2012-16.

McKeegan earned a Bachelor of Science from St. Lawrence University and his doctorate from Washington University of St. Louis.

Moorpark College Astronomy Professor Hal Jandorf will provide a walk-through of the summer stars, constellations, planets and other objects in the evening sky at 7:30 p.m.

Saturn, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies will be visible through the telescopes set up by the VCAS. Attendees can also take a trip through the observation dome.

Star parties are always special because the community can learn about the night sky, learn the constellations, look through dozens of powerful telescopes and learn more about the universe. Wait until you see Saturn for the first time. Its not a photo in a book or on a computer monitor, Jandorf said.

The event is free for all ages and recommended for ages 6 and up. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Attendees should bring cushions for the concrete seating, a light jacket and binoculars. Leave pets at home.

This years series of star parties have drawn 250 to 300 people at each event.

The observatory enables students to participate in courses and labs and allows the college to share the experience with the community, said Debi Klein, chief development officer of the Moorpark College Foundation, which has sponsored the observatory and astronomy programs for more than 30 years.

While this is the last event of the year at the observatory, Molly Shelton, a power systems engineer at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, will speak at 7 p.m., Frid., Oct. 21, at the Moorpark College Forum in the Applied Arts Building.

The Astronomy Department, VCAS and the Moorpark College Foundation will coordinate the event.

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Reach for the stars at astronomy party - Moorpark Acorn

The orbit of an exoplanet around a star in a binary star system has been portrayed in three dimensions for the first time. The planet orbits its star at a different angle to the plane of the orbit of the two stars, and the misalignment could offer clues as to how planets form in binary systems.

The exoplanet, GJ 896Ab (note the lower case b for the planet), was found in the binary system GJ 896AB (note the capital A and B for the two stars) that is located 20.3 light-years away from Earth. Astronomers tracked the motion of the binary star system through space with the help of archived optical observations dating from 1941 to 2017, with extra data covering 2006 to 2011 gathered by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), which is a network of 10 radio telescopes strung across the United States. The researchers also made new observations with the VLBA in 2020.

The astronomers, led by Salvador Curiel of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), found that as the star GJ 896A moves through space, it appears to wobble along its path. This wobble is caused by an orbiting planet with 2.3 times the mass of Jupiter that completes one orbit every 284.4 Earth days. Between the planet and its star is a common center of mass, known as the barycenter; the star's wobble is the result of its motion around this common center of mass.

Related: 10 amazing exoplanet discoveries

This technique of detecting the motion of stars through space, and any deviations in that motion, is called astrometry. Astrometry is the only means by which the orbits of a planetary system with more than one star can be interpreted in three dimensions, since astronomers are visibly detecting the wobble and the orientation of the orbits.

Intriguingly, the plane in which the planet orbits is misaligned by 148 degrees relative to the plane of the orbit of the two stars around each other.

"This means that the planet moves around the main star in the opposite direction to that of the secondary star around the main star," Gisela Ortiz-Len, an astronomer at UNAM and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany and team member on the project, said in a statement (opens in new tab).

Less than 4% of known exoplanets are in binary-star systems. This small proportion is in part because it's trickier to detect planets in binary systems, but also because models suggest that the existence of a companion star can truncate and destabilize a planet-forming disk.

"Maybe those models need to be adjusted," said UNAM's Joel Sanchez-Bermudez.

One problem in forming such a system is that gas giants are thought to take 5 to 10 million years to accrete all their gas from the planet-forming disk around them. However, the current models suggest that such a disk in a binary system survives for less than 1 million years before gravitational tides from the companion star break the disk apart.

Furthermore, in the case of GJ 896AB, the two stars are red dwarfs, which makes the existence of a gas giant planet in the system even more surprising. Scientists think red dwarfs lack the necessary amount of raw material to form giant planets, but the presence of a gas giant in this binary system suggests that planets could form differently when there are two stars present.

"Additional detailed studies of this and similar systems can help us gain important insights into how planets are formed in binary systems," Sanchez-Bermudez said.

There are currently two competing models for how binary systems and their planets form. One is termed disk fragmentation, whereby there is originally one star- and planet-forming disk that becomes gravitationally unstable and breaks apart into two separate disks that form two stars and any planets around them.

The other model is called turbulent fragmentation. In this explanation, turbulence in the original cloud of gas leads to two or more dense concentrations of material forming, which independently collapse to form the stars and any accompanying planets.

Now, these models will need to factor in the misalignment of GJ 896Ab by 148 degrees. Whichever better replicates the strange system could indicate how binary systems form.

The research was published on Sept. 1 in The Astronomical Journal.

Follow Keith Cooper on Twitter @21stCenturySETI. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Discovery of alien world with strange, tilted orbit puzzles astronomers - Space.com

NASA has extracted the sound waves from a black hole 250 million light years away and made them audible.

Sammi Kwon 11:06 pm, Sep 07, 2022

Contributing Reporter

Jessai Flores, Staff Illustrator

NASA released a groundbreaking audio clip of the soundwaves emitted by the black hole in the Perseus Galaxy Cluster, located 250 million light years away from Earth.

Astronomers have been aware of the sound waves emitted by the black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster for nearly 20 years, since they were first captured by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in 2003. However, the sonification the conversion of astronomical data into sound is a recent development by researchers at NASA. The process involves sound waves being extracted radially, outwards from the center of the black hole, and then transposed up by 57 to 58 octaves to make them audible to the human ear. While the audio is fascinating in itself, it also provides another dimension of data in investigating black holes, star formation and galaxies for researchers. Yale astronomers underscored the significance of this development.

It provides sort of a unique way to study the environments of black holes, said astronomy professor and department chair Priyamvada Natarajan. Right around the vicinity of the black hole, there is a medium, theres a lot of gas sitting around. And this gas reverberates, so you can see these sound waves, and thats the sonification project.

The black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster has been investigated ever since researchers at NASA realized that it emitted pressure waves that would interact with gasses around it and produce sound waves. These sound waves are not audible to the human ear without modification, but now that NASA transposed the waves they can be listened to, interpreted and analyzed.

The waves are indicators of how energy from the black hole is interacting with the surrounding gasses. Energy propagating from the black hole interacts with gasses in the form of sound waves, and this interaction heats gasses up. Star formation relies heavily on heated gasses, so the sonification project and investigation of sound waves could help researchers better understand the formation of stars.

The general research used for data like this is to understand the role supermassive black holes play in regulating the star formation in the universe, said Michael Tremmel, post-doctoral associate of astronomy.

For researchers, the importance of this development stems from the tangible representation of the way black holes, specifically their sound waves, interact with the surrounding space.

Its not so much directly the black hole. Its more of the effect the black hole has on its surroundings, said Frank van den Bosch, Yale professor of astronomy and physics, whose research focuses on cosmology and galaxy formation.

The sonification project has provided a new way for astronomers to interact with data in different forms. While astronomers are familiar with visual forms, the project has provided data that will expand the ways in which researchers can learn about black holes. In addition to information, the sonification project also provides further accessibility of data in non-visual forms.

When you hear something, you learn about it in a very different way, no matter how many different times youve looked at it, said Kimberly Arcand, data visualizer and science communicator at NASA. It would be fantastic to be able to capture the sound waves of other black holes in the universe.

Albert Einstein first hypothesized the existence of black holes in 1916.

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Yale astronomers weigh in on newly captured sound emitted by black hole - Yale Daily News

Humanity is blinding itself with light and losing sight of the starry night skies that once guided our ancestors and filled them with wonder, according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the international astronomy organization is doing something about it.

More than 80% of the worlds population has their view of the night sky curtailed due to light pollution, according to the ESO. The increasing number of satellites in orbit are photobombing the views of professional telescopes at the few remaining dark sky sites, such as the Very Large Telescope the ESO operates in Chile.

In response the ESO has launched a campaign to educate people about light pollution and the negative impacts of satellite mega-constellations on both professional and amateur astronomy. They launched a website spelling out the problem and created a social media hashtag, #ProtectDarkSkies, to spread the word. In a Tweet posted Wednesday using the new hashtag, the ESO pointed out that about one third of humanity can no longer see the Milky Way the thick disk of our galaxy rich with dust and stars in the night sky from where they live.

Light pollution, electric light from human settlement and industry, makes it harder to see the more subtle celestial lights of the night sky. A 2019 survey found that 57% of English people could pick out more than 10 stars in the night sky, while just 2% could pick out 30 or more.

But light pollution goes further than cutting off views of the sky, according to the ESO campaign website.

Light can intrude into bedrooms, distract drivers, and upset the natural body clock of animals, the ESO website reads, noting human health can suffer without a clear light-dark cycle. And in the natural world, Flocks of migratory birds and dung beetles alike orientate themselves using the Milky Way, and are disorientated by light pollution.

The loss of astronomical views is more dramatic than most contemporary urban dwellers may understand. In a graphic on the ESO website illustrating a measure of light pollution known as the Bortle Scale, it shows just how much of the further universe is actually visible with the naked eye when standing under a truly dark night sky.

Even more problematic for professional astronomers than light pollution are the swelling mega-constellations of low Earth orbit satellites, such as those being launched by the UKs OneWeb and the Starlink constellation of SpaceX. Companies plan to launch as many as 100,000 of these satellites in the coming years, and astronomers worry that they will reflect sunlight in ways that impairs important astronomical observations.

And in the case of the Starlink satellites, many observations have already been impacted by the long white streaks of satellites passing through a telescopes view during a long exposure.

To combat these issues, the ESO has launched the Protect Dark Skies campaign and suggested new lighting standards, noting that light pollution isnt just any light, but artificial light that shines where it is neither wanted, nor needed.

The ESO is also a member of the International Astronomical Union Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, which was founded in April to help coordinate efforts to study and mitigate effects of satellites on astronomy. The ESO has also petitioned the United Nations to take action, leading to a discussion of the issue of satellite interference at the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space earlier in 2022.

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Astronomers launch campaign to protect the dark night sky from light pollution - The Independent

BRISTOL The President of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford will be coming to Manross Library Sept. 19 to discuss the recent images captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

The free program will be held at 2 p.m. at the library at 260 Central St. Chris Markiewicz, president of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford, will be going over the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, which were released by NASA on July 12.

The telescope, which was launched on Dec. 25 2021, has captured high definition images of the Carina Nebula, a young star forming region, Stephan's quintet, a grouping of five galaxies, the Southern Ring Nebula, and more.

Teresa Goulden, supervisor of branch services at Manross Memorial Library, said that Markiewicz will lend his astronomical expertise to further explain the beautiful images captured by the advanced telescope.

People are very curious to take a look at these beautiful images, she said. The James Webb Telescope is capturing images that allow us to see space in ways that weve never seen before. NASA is just starting to release them to the public and there is a lot of buzz about them. It gives you a whole different perspective on your place in the universe.

According to the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartfords website, the organization is a group of amateur astronomers interested in observing, imaging and studying the wonders of the heavens. The group participates in public education in astronomy through its public observing program and outreach events.

Member meeting are held online on the third Wednesday of the month from September through May. The group also holds public observations at the Van Vleck Observatory at Wesleyan University in Middletown.

For more information, visit asgh.org

Registration is required for the program at Manross Library.

People can register at Manross Memorial Library, by visiting bristollib.com or by calling 860-584-7790.

Brian M. Johnson can be reached at 860-973-1806 or bjohnson@bristolpress.com.

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President of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford coming to Manross Library - The Bristol Press

By the end of 2022, India will establish the countrys first Dark Sky Reserve in the cold desert regions of Ladakh, Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent charge) for Science and Technology, announced Saturday. This facility will also promote astronomy-tourism, he said.

A Dark Sky Reserve is public or private land with a distinguished nocturnal environment and starry nights that has been developed responsibly to prevent light pollution.

According to the International Dark Sky Association (IDSA) website, these reserves consist of a core area meeting minimum criteria for sky quality and natural darkness, and a peripheral area that supports dark sky preservation in the core.

These reserves, it said, are formed through a partnership of multiple land managers who have recognized the value of the natural nighttime environment through regulations and long-term planning.

Individuals or groups can nominate a site for certification to the International Dark Sky Association (IDSA). There are five designated categories, namely International Dark Sky parks, communities, reserves, sanctuaries and Urban Night Sky Places.

The certification process is similar to that of a site being awarded the UNESCO World Heritage Site tag or getting recognised as a Biosphere Reserve. Between 2001 and January 2022, there have been 195 sites recognised as International Dark Sky Places globally, the IDSA said.

The IDSA considers a piece of land suitable for dark sky place only if it is either publicly or privately owned; is accessible to the public partially or entirely during the year; the land is legally protected for scientific, natural, educational, cultural, heritage and/or public enjoyment purposes; the core area of the land provides an exceptional dark sky resource relative to the communities and cities that surround it and the land offers prescribed night sky brightness either for a reserve, park or sanctuary.

India is still in the process of filing its nomination to IDSA.

The Ladakh Union Territory administration is leading the efforts in establishing the countrys first Dark Sky Reserve.

To be situated at a height of 4,500 metres above sea level, the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve (HDSR) will come up within the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Department of Science and Technology and experts from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, are providing scientific and technological support in developing this first-of-its-kind facility. The IIA already manages the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) complex at Hanle, Ladakh.

Here, scientists have been carrying out astronomical observations using the existing gamma ray, an infrared and an optical telescope to study exoplanets, galaxies and stars through the pristine skies of Hanle.

The formal decision to set up this Dark Sky Reserve was made through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between officials from the IIA, Bengaluru, the Ladakh UT and the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council in June this year.

Ladakh is a unique cold desert located about 3,000 metres above sea level with high mountainous terrains. Long and harsh winters with minimum temperatures dropping to minus 40 degrees Celcius make large parts of the UT highly inhabitable.

This aridity, limited vegetation, high elevation and large areas with sparse populations all make it the perfect setting for long-term astronomical observatories and dark sky places.

But the primary objective of the proposed Dark Sky Reserve is to promote astronomy tourism in a sustainable and environment-friendly manner. Scientific methods will be used here to preserve the night sky from ever-increasing light pollution.

With metros, cities and peripheral areas experiencing light pollution and remaining constantly lit up, there are diminishing areas that offer a view of clear skies on cloudless nights, experts have noted.

After it became a UT, tourism in Ladakh has seen an uptick during favourable months. However, its fragile environment is vulnerable to rising carbon footprint and in-coming vehicles. The Ladakh Tourism Vision Document 2022 underlined the need for efforts to increase the use of green fuels and boost carbon-neutral activities.

The locals in Ladakh are sensitive towards the conservation of the ecosystem. They are keen to protect the environment from getting deteriorated, said Prof Annapurni Subramaniam, Director, IIA. Since June, experts have held active interactions with the locals. A number of initiatives are underway ahead of opening the HDSR to the public.

Our teams travelled to remote villages to give hand-outs to villagers sharing details about the training programmes, the IIA Director said.

In the pilot phase, the IIA has procured ten small and easy-to-handle telescopes and light-reflecting shields. IIAs scientists and outreach experts will identify locals and train them to use these telescopes. This will include basic sky gazing, identification of constellations, and locating the pole star, among others. These telescopes will be installed at the homestays, which is a popular option for tourist accommodation in Ladakh.

The 22-km radius around the Hanle observatory, where the core Dark Sky Reserve will stand, will have restrictions imposed on outdoor lighting. All vehicles will be barred from using high-beam headlights. Houses here will be encouraged to use curtains of darker shades, install light reflecting shields and switch off all unwanted illumination.

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What is Ladakh's Dark Sky Reserve astronomy facility? - The Indian Express