The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) is an autonomous institution set up by the University Grants Commission of India to promote nucleation and growth of active groups in astronomy and

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

in Indian universities. IUCAA is located in the University of Pune campus next to the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, which operates the

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Pune, Junnar, near Narayangaon at khodad in India, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes of 45 metre diameter, observing at metre wavelengths. It is operated by t ...

. IUCAA has a campus designed by Indian architect Charles Correa.

History

After the founding of the

(GMRT) by Prof. Govind Swarup, a common research facility for astronomy and astrophysics was proposed by Dr. Yash Pal of the planning commission. Working on this idea, astrophysicist Prof. Jayant Narlikar, along with

Ajit Kembhavi Ajit Kembhavi (born 16 August 1950) is an Indian astrophysicist. He is presently a Professor Emeritus at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, (IUCAA) at Pune, India, of which he was also a founder member. He also serves ...

and Naresh Dadhich set up IUCAA within the Pune University campus in 1988. In 2002, IUCAA initiated a nationwide campaign to popularize astronomy and astrophysics in colleges and universities. IUCAA arranged visitor programs for universities in Nagpur (

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

), Thiruvalla ( Kerala),

Siliguri Siliguri, ) is a major tier-II city in West Bengal. It forms twin cities, "Twin Cities" with the neighboring district capital of Jalpaiguri. The city spans areas of the Darjeeling district, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts in the Indian sta ...

( West Bengal) and others, along with a tie-up with the

Ferguson college Fergusson College is an autonomous public-private college offering various courses in the streams of arts and science in the city of Pune, India. It was founded in 1885 by the Deccan Education Society. Professor Vaman Shivram Apte was its firs ...

, Pune. In 2004, IUCAA set up the ''Muktangan Vidnyan Shodhika'' (Exlporatorium), a science popularization initiative, with a grant from the

Pu La Deshpande Purushottam Laxman Deshpande (alternatively written as Pu La Deshpande; 8 November 1919 – 12 June 2000), popularly known by his initials ("Pu. La.") or as P. L. Deshpande, was a Marathi writer and humorist from Maharashtra. He was also an ac ...

foundation. The center is open to all school students from Pune. IUCAA was declared the nodal center for India to coordinate the year-long celebrations for the International Year of Astronomy. IUCAA was headed for its first decade by Prof. Jayant Narlikar, followed by Prof. Naresh Dadhich and Prof.

. From September 2015, the Director is Prof. Somak Raychaudhury.

Research

Scientists at IUCAA carry out research in a wide range of areas in astronomy, astrophysics and physics. IUCAA has active research groups in fields like classical and

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...

, cosmology, gravitational waves, optical and radio astronomy, Solar System physics and instrumentation.

Facilities

IUCAA, along with Persistent Systems, Pune, operates the Virtual Observatory project. The observatory provides users access to raw observational data along with advanced processing software designed by engineers at Persitent. IUCAA also maintains

Girawali Observatory IUCAA Girawali Observatory is an optical astronomy observatory run by the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, India. The Observatory is located about 80 km from Pune, off the Pune Nashik Highway in Girawa ...

which is about 80 km from Pune city, off Pune-Nasik Road and near the historical Junnar town. In addition to catering to the needs of astronomers in general, this observatory is unique in setting aside a certain amount of time specifically for training as well as observational proposals arising from Indian Universities. The telescope has a primary mirror of diameter 2 meter, f/3 and a secondary of 60 cm, f/10. IUCAA Faint Object Spectrograph & Camera (IFOSC) is the main instrument available on the telescope's direct

Cassegrain Cassegrain may refer to * Cassegrain reflector, a design used in telescopes * Cassegrain antenna, a type of parabolic antenna * Cassegrain (crater), on the Moon * a Belgian canned vegetables producer now part of Bonduelle S.A. People : * Guillaume ...

port currently. IUCAA, along with the

Raman Research Institute The Raman Research Institute (RRI) is an institute for scientific research located in Bangalore, India. It was founded by Nobel laureate C. V. Raman in 1948. Although it began as an institute privately owned by Sir C. V. Raman, it is now fund ...

and Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, declared a proposal to take a ten percent stake in the

Large Telescope Project Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (or ...

, which would allow Indian astronomers access to major upcoming observatories such as the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and the European Extremely Large Telescope (EELT).

Science popularization

The SciPop initiative was set up by Prof. Jayant Narlikar along with N. C. Rana and Arvind Paranjpe. SciPop, based out of the Muktangan Vidnyan Shodhika building, provides educational facilities for school students, teachers and amateur astronomers. IUCAA organizes the open Science day program every year on 28 February, in which members of the general public can visit the institute to take a look at ongoing research and contemporary work happening elsewhere in the world. IUCAA was one of the few Indian research institutes to start a science popularization program, and other organisations such as the Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, and

TIFR Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the De ...

, Mumbai started similar public outreach programmes in the wake of its success.

People

Notable people associated with IUCAA: * Jayant Narlikar, founding director * Naresh Dadhich, physicist, Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, 2nd Director *

, 3rd Director *

Thanu Padmanabhan Thanu Padmanabhan (10 March 1957 – 17 September 2021) was an Indian theoretical physicist and cosmologist whose research spanned a wide variety of topics in gravitation, structure formation in the universe and quantum gravity. He published n ...

, Padma Shri award-winning astrophysicist * Somak Raychaudhury, Present Director * Sanjeev Dhurandhar, gravitational-wave physicist and science advisor to the IndIGO consortium *

Raghunathan Srianand Raghunathan Srianand (born February 1, 1969) is an Indian cosmologist, astrophysicist and a scientist at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA). Known for his research on Redshift-space distortions, redshift evolution ...

, astrophysicist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate *

Kanak Saha Kanak Saha is an Indian astrophysicist. He is an associate professor of astrophysics at Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics. His research interests include formation of galaxies in the early universe and their evolution. Th ...

, astrophysicist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Inter-University Centre For Astronomy And Astrophysics Research institutes in Pune Savitribai Phule Pune University Astronomy organizations Research institutes established in 1988 1988 establishments in Maharashtra