The Vikram lander, which was scheduled to touchdown on the Moon’s surface on September 7, had deviated from its planned flight path when it was just 2.1 km above the Moon. (Image source: PTI)

The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics will organise open days for the public on February 28 and 29 as part of the national science day celebrations.

Apart from the session ‘Ask a Scientist: Q&A with eminent astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar and IUCAA director Somak Raychaudhury’, there will be special talks under the theme ‘Astronomy visions for the next decade’. Short talks by astrophysicists will also be organised on cosmology, gravitational waves, next-generation radio astronomy and other areas. Several activities have been planned and the statues of four scientists will be introduced by volunteers. There will be demonstrations on gravitational waves, ‘Imaging a Black Hole’ and Chandrayaan 2.

Apart from a presentation on an overview of astronomy, astrophysics and research at IUCAA, there will be optical facility displays and information on radio astronomy. A public lecture on the work that won the Nobel Prize in Physics, 2019, ‘Universe unravelled’, will be conducted by Tarun Souradeep, IISER, Pune.

At the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, Khodad, the institute is organising an exhibition on February 28 and 29. Several school and college students will visit the exhibition and there are separate stalls set up by various government and private organisations. Shantanu Chowdhury, Director of National Remote Sensing Centre ISRO Hyderabad, will inaugurate the exhibition.

Among the exhibits are the GMRT engineering systems stall, various live experiments by TIFR, Mumbai, C-Sky telescope Mumbai, TIFR Balloon Facility, Hyderabad, Space Odyssey Planetarium, Ahmednagar, and others.