IDHSF2018Nepal: A Tribute To The First Human in Space!

To mark the historical day of the first human in space on April 12, 1961, Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) had a week long celebration as ' A Tribute To The First Human In Space' during April 6-13, 2018. On April 12, 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin went to Space and spent 108 minutes around the earth opening a new era of human space exploration.

On 6th of April, an event 'Role of Astronomy and Space Science in Our Society' was conducted at Janaki Secondary Boarding School, Janakpur (Province 2). This event was attended by around 80 students who came to know about the role of astronomy and space science in our society.

Photo: Participants of 'Role of Astronomy and Space Science in Our Society' held at Janaki Secondary School, Janakpur during a group photo.

On 7th of April,  an event 'The Role of AI in Space Exploration' was conducted at Itahari International College,Itahari (Province 1). Mr. Santosh Ghimire presented his talk on AI and its role in exploration. In order to provide an overview of NASO and WIAN by NASO officials.

Photo: Participants during a group photo session after the event 'The Role of AI in Space Exploration' held at Itahari Interrnational College, Itahari.

On 8th of April,  an event 'Space Weather Science and Application' was conducted at Gandaki Boarding School, Pokhara (Province 4). This event was attended by around 10 students who came to know about space weather science and it's application.

Photo: Participants and school authority during the group photo after the event 'Space Weather Science and Application' at Gandaki Boarding School, Pokhara.

On 9th of April, an event 'Satellite Navigation for Socio-Economic Development of Nepal' was conducted at Southwestern State College, Kathmandu (Province 3). Er. Narayan Dhital, our 'GNSS Working Group' lead and AirMeetsSpace Engineer at DLR, Germany presented his talk to the audience. Click here to access the talk.

Photo: Participants during a Q/A session of an event 'Satellite Navigation for Socio-Economic Development of Nepal' at Southwestern State College, Basundhara, Kathmandu.

On 10th of April, a webinar on the topic Connecting the planet from the Space Coast to the Himalayas was held between Ryan L. Kobrick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Spaceflight Operations at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona, FL, USA and chairman of Yuri's Night (www.yurisnight.net) and Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, chairman at Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) to inform the students about the possibilities of space science in Nepal. Click here to watch the webinar.

On 11th of April, an event 'A new Era of Exoplanetary Science: Is there an Earth 2.0?' was held in the premise of Southwestern State College,Kathmandu. During this event a webinar was held with Dr Suman Satyal and students to inform about the exoplanetary science. Click here to watch the talk.

Photo: Participants discussing their questions to Dr. Suman Satyal during an event 'A new Era of Exoplanetary Science: Is there an Earth 2.0?' held at Southwestern State College, Basundhara, Kathmandu.

On 12th of April, a wenibar on 'Terrnaut Nepal: An Opportunity to train like a Yuri Gagarin'  was held in order to give more insights on Terranaut Nepal. Bishal Manandhar, CEO/Founder at Srothe Code and Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman at NASO discussed on how 'Cosmo Run Space Dash' mobile game (online) can be promoted among Nepali so that they can be a apart of this historic program in Nepal. Click here to watch the webinar.

On 13th of April,  an event 'Importance of Autonomous System in Our Daily Life' was held in Shubh Sanskar English Boarding School, Bhairahawa (Province 5). This event helped student to know the importance of autonomous system in our daily life and space too.

Photo: Participants during an event 'Importance of Autonomous System in Our Daily Life' held at Shubh Sanskar English Boarding School, Bhairahawa.

Besides these events, we also had an interaction as a radio talk show via Bishaya Prabesh in Image Channel News FM 103.6 MHz. RJ Kamal Rana  and NASO chairman Suresh Bhattarai talked about different aspects of space science and status of activities in Nepal. Chick here to listen the full interview. 

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Sano Sansar Youth Hostel Pvt. Ltd.-Kathmandu, Janaki Secondary School-Janakpur, Ithari International College-Itahari, Southwestern State College-Basundhara, Gandaki Boarding School-Pokhara, Shubh Sanskar English Boarding School-Bhairahawa, Yuri's Night and IAU Office of Astronomy for Development for their supports to our celebration. We would also like to thank Natraj Tours and Travels Pvt. Ltd. for joining us as our travel partner. 

Moreover, those of you who showed their active participations in all these events are our motivation for better event/celebration in 2019 AD! 

World DNA Day 2018 Celebration in Nepal

On the occaisson of the World DNA Day, Biotechnology Society of Nepal (BSN) organised a two day Conference cum Exhibition during April 24-25, 2018 at Nepal Academy of Science And Technology (NAST), Khumaltar, Lalitpur. We had an opportunity to be one of the supporters of the celebration. We had one invited talk and  solar observation session for the organizers, exhibitors, participants and visitors during April 24-25, 2018.

Photo: Prof. Dr. Jibraj Pokhrel, Vice-Chancellor at Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) observing the sun during Solar Observation session at World DNA Day Celebration 2018.

The invited talk/presentation was given by Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman at Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) on the topic "The Role of Biotechnology in Human Space Exploration" which was hugely appericiated and liked by the participants, distinguished guests and senior professionals presented in the conference. Solar Observation session was available at the premises of NAST.

The conference had four thematic sessions: Plant and Agriculture Bioscience, Medical and Pharmaceutical Bioscience, Environmental Bioscience and Food and Industry Bioscience. During the sessions university students and young professionals shared their respective works with the participants.

The celebration was formally concluded on 25th of April with a Prizes, token of love and certificate distributions by Prof. Dr. Jibraj Pokhrel, Vice-Chancellor and Dr. Buddhi Ratna Khadge, Secretary at Nepal Academy of Science and Technolgy (NAST).

Astrofest Nepal 2018: Look upward to unravel the mistery!

On the occasion of Global Astronomy Month (GAM), Central Department of Physics (CDP) organized AstroFest Nepal 2018 at Department premises, Kirtipur on April 22, 2018. The event was supported by B.P. Koirala Memorial Planetarium, Observatory and Science Museum Development Board, Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO), Pokhara Astronomical Society (PAS) and Beyond Apogee.

Photo: NASO volunteers conducting lunar observation sessions during AstroFest Nepal 2018 at Central Department of Physics, Tribhuvan University (TU) on April 22, 2018.

During this event students got chance to know about cosmology studies from Dr Uday Raj Khanal.  His speech on the topic of cosmology and astronomy gave new insight to the world of astronomy. Also the talk session of Dr Binil Aryal (Head of Central Department of Physics) helped student to know about current condition of physics and astronomy in Nepal. The presentation of Mr Suresh Bhattarai (Chairman of NASO) helped student to know about astronomy, engineering and outreach projects handled by NASO team for promotion and implementation of science and technology. Sabin Gautam (Treasurer of PAS) presented the ideas and activities of Pokhara Astronomical Society. Sudip Vikram Adhikari (Chairman of Beyond Apogee) presented the idea of CAN Satellite which could be easily programmed by school level students too which they termed as Sajilo Satellite.

For recreational and talent exposure purpose many student of department of physics presented their poems related to universe and astronomy. Various posters and quotes of scientific minds could be seen on the premise of the college too. The event was attended by around hundred students and visitors. After 5:00 PM observation session was jointly organized by CDP, NASO and PAS in which visitors got chance to observe the Moon and Venus. Also visitors were informed about the types of telescopes used for the observation.

This event thus helped the student and visitors to know about the astronomy, cosmology, physics study in Nepal and the activities related to these topics done by various organizations for promoting and implementing science in Nepal.

The Global Astronomy Month (GAM) is the largest global celebration of astronomy, celebrated every year in April by organizing different astronomical events like Astro-art, Astro-star party, Astro-poetry, Astro-concert etc. The motto of the GAM is to bring interested people together to encourage participation in programs related to astronomy and astrophysics. The main aim of conducting this event is to bring new opportunities for interested and enthusiastic persons to celebrate the Global Astronomy Month. 

Gravity Spy: How you can contribute to LIGO’s discoveries, from the other side of the globe?

LIGO is designed to detect gravitational waves which produces a length change of 10E-18 metres in its 4 km long arm. This also makes it sensitive to a great deal of instrumental and environmental sources of noise. Among these the one that are of most concern are transient, poorly modeled artifacts known by the LIGO community as glitches. Gravity Spy is a program designed to involve citizen scientists in identifying those glitches, which are not ofastrophysical origin. These identified glitches makes a dataset that is used to train a machine learning algorithm to enhance its ability to separate the noise from the gravitational wave signals.

This program was initially launched as a beta version on June of 2016. The full implementation of the program was launched on October of 2016. It has close to 12,000 registered users and has achieved about 3,000,000 different classifications by now. You can signup at the following link and help LIGO find glitches that are already known or even find a new kind of glitch.

Gravity Spy: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/gravity-spy

You can also get new updates about the gravity spy by following the blog linked below:

https://blog.gravityspy.org

Enjoy and happy glitch hunting!

(Prepared by Sudarshan Karki, Graduate Research Assistant at University of Oregon)