Announcement

The Fast Radio Transient Sky (FTSky, https://www.icts.res.in/program/FTSky) 2025, a school-cum-conference, will be held from October 6–17, 2025, at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) in Bengaluru, India. During the school week (October 6–10), preference will be given to PhD students and postdoctoral…

Statistical Techniques for Astronomy Research (STAR) is a six-day workshop on astro-statistics for early-career PhD students in astronomy. The school is planned to be held at VBО, Kavalur, from June 30 to July 5, 2025. The objective of the school is to introduce students to modern statistical concepts, tools, and techniques as applied to research in astronomy and astrophysics…

The third MALS data release, consisting of Galactic HI 21-cm line spectra of about 20,000 radio sources, is public now.  This represents the largest Galactic HI absorption line catalog to date.  The new catalog and accompanying scientific results of this study are described in Gupta et al. (2025), accepted for publication…

The Infosys Science Foundation calls for nominations for the Infosys Prize 2025. The Infosys Prize is given for an invention, innovation or distinct achievement. 

Nominees must be of Indian origin working anywhere in the world or anyone whose work impacts India and must be 40 years or younger as of November 1, 2025 to be eligible. The nominators will be invited to the nomination…

XSPECT (X-ray SPECtroscopy and Timing payload) is a soft X-ray spectrometer on-board X-ray Polarimetry Satellite (XPoSat), which was launched on 1st January, 2024. XSPECT payload is operating well and have observed many sources for the last one year. While the data will be made public soon, U. R. Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) which is the lead centre for the development and operation of XSPECT,…

Please find attached the SkyNews for April 2025.

Arvind Paranjpye  
Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai

BRICS Astronomy, in collaboration with science communicators and organisations across BRICS and African countries, is launching a series of Science Communication Training Sessions.

This program is designed to equip researchers, students, professionals, and science communicators in astronomy and other basic sciences with essential science communication skills. The initiative aims to…

The Second Daksha Science Workshop will be held at IUCAA on 30th and 31st March 2025. The workshop will be in hybrid mode, and we invite registrations for online participation.

The goal of the workshop is to get together scientists and students from various institutes and universities across the country to discuss topics pertinent to the science cases of Daksha. The workshop will…

The Gender in Physics Working Group of the Indian Physics Association (IPA) organized Pressing for Progress, a first-of-its kind national conference towards gender equity in Physics in India, in 2019 at Hyderabad University. This meeting focused on the key issues faced at different levels of career, and based on various discussions, the ‘Hyderabad Charter for Gender Equity in Physics’ was…

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the first SKA-India Summer Training School 2025, which will be held from July 7 to 18, 2025, at IIT Indore. This school aims to provide hands-on training in radio astronomy, data analysis, and techniques relevant to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

About the School:
The training school is designed…

An online course on the historical development of astronomy in India. The course will start in April/May 2025 and will continue for about a year with 90-120 minute sessions once a week.

The course aims to introduce the historical development of astronomy in India from ancient times to the colonial era and early decades of Independent India. This historical context is crucial for…

The European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Characterising Exoplanet Satellite (CHEOPS) mission foresees its 6th Announcement of Opportunity (AO-6). This Call will invite the submission of research proposals to the Guest Observers (GO) Programme.

Key Dates: The AO-6 Call is foreseen to open on the 18 March 2025 (12:00 CET) and close on the 8 May 2025 (12:00 CEST).

Observing Cycle: The…

Dear everyone

The BRICS Astronomy Program and the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) are excited to announce an opportunity for participants to engage in an innovative training course that blends data science, and machine learning (ML) with practical applications to Astronomy. This 8-week virtual program aims to empower individuals at all skill levels, from…

A biography of 19th century British astronomer Norman Robert Pogson and his family has been published recently. Pogson did most of his work in Chennai (or Madras as it was then). His daughter, Elizabeth Isis, worked as his assistant and became the first meteorologist (after her father) in south India. The book titled Astronomer Norman Pogson and his Amazing Family is available on Amazon.…

Aditya-L1 which observes the Solar Chromosphere and Corona and also the in-situ observations at the Sun-Earth L1 point. The first set of science quality data was released on Jan 6th 2025 (Refer Jan 15, 2025 Solar News). The second set of science quality data of Aditya-L1 is released on the 14th of February 2025. To access and download the data, please use the following website…

We are pleased to share details about the upcoming International Conference on "Astrophysics and Space Science with Meteorological Balloons," organized by the Indian Centre for Space Physics (ICSP), Kolkata, India, from April 2 to 4, 2025. The registration deadline is March 21, 2025, and the abstract submission deadline is March 7, 2025.

Interested…

Please find attached the SkyNews for March 2025.

Arvind Paranjpye  
Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai

Dear Colleagues,

We are happy to invite the nominations for Prof. Peraiah Foundation Lecture 2025 from the Heads of Institutions, Directors of  Observatories, Heads of Departments or individual senior scientists. The nominations, including all the supporting documents (as a single PDF file), may please be sent by email to …

An Introductory Workshop on Exoplanet Detection and Characterization: From Observation to Understanding the Science of Exoplanets

From: April 4-6, 2025 at IIT Kanpur, India.
Please find more information from the following link: https://sites.google.com/view/exows25/home

Please find attached the workshop poster for your…

ARIES Training School in Observational Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences (ATSOAA 2025) is from April 21 to May 02, 2025 at ARIES, Nainital. Please find more information from the following link.

https://www.aries.res.in/ATSOAA-2025

The fourth workshop of Indo-Belgian collaboration (BINA workshop) will be held at the University of Calicut from 4 to 7 November 2025.

Please find more information from the attached file.

The annual Kodaikanal Winter School on Solar Physics conducted by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, will be organised this year in March 2025, and it will be part of the year-end events celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory. 
 
The details of the School:
 
Dates: 18-22 March 2025. 
Location: Kodaikanal Solar…

Dear Colleague,

We are happy invite you to attend the "Radio Astronomy TEchniques Seminars - RATeS".

Currently we are witnessing spectacular radio images of the sky opening new scientific challenges, thanks to the precursor and pathfinder radio telescopes of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) that have become operational in the past few years. The explosion of data volumes is…

Please find attached the SkyNews for February 2025.
An important feature of this newsletter is - the passing of the International Space Station over the southern half of India. It will be a very bright pass -3 mag.

Arvind Paranjpye  
Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai

Dear colleague,

We are pleased to enclose the annual call for proposals for International Teams hosted at the International Space Science Institute–Beijing (ISSI-BJ), jointly with our colleagues from the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern (Switzerland).

International Teams are usually composed of 8–12 scientists from different institutes and nationalities,…

Aditya-L1 is India’s first Solar and Heliospheric Observatory class mission to study the Sun and its influence in the inter-planetary medium. On Jan 6 2025, Aditya-L1 completed its one year of operation at the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1). With all its payloads completed its performance verification and currently in science operation. On this occasion, the science ready data from…

1. Astronomy Baseline Survey - Phase 2
In the year 2023, OAE Center India conducted a baseline survey on the status of astronomy education in schools. More than 2000 students across 11 states participated in this survey. You can find a manuscript detailing results of this survey here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12308

…

We are pleased to announce that Dr. G. C. Anupama, from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, will assume the position of Chief Editor of the Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy (JAA), effective January 2025.

Additionally, Dr. Seetha S., from the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, will take on the role of Associate Editor for JAA, also…

Would you like your design to be the logo of the COSMOS-Mysuru planetarium that's being built by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics? Submit your designs, and get a chance to win book vouchers as well as spend a couple of nights at one of our observatories! Please see https://bit.ly/cosmoslogo for submission guidelines and prizes.…

The latest edition of Orbit, ICSP’s quarterly newsletter (Sept–Nov 2024), edited by Dr. Tamal Basak. It features key updates, including the inauguration of the Stratospheric Balloon Facility, the visit of Mr. Karl Mercer, Consular Chief of the USA at Kolkata, to our space museum, and other essential highlights of the institute.

Please find attached the newsletter and it is also…