{"id":10982,"date":"2026-07-30T12:22:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T06:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=10982"},"modified":"2026-07-30T15:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:56:13","slug":"himalayan-chandra-telescope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/himalayan-chandra-telescope\/","title":{"rendered":"Himalayan Chandra Telescope"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Himalayan Chandra Telescope Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">25 years of the successful operations of the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) atop Hanle in Ladakh was recently celebrated with a conference highlighting its history, engineering challenges, scientific research, and the road ahead. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Himalayan Chandra Telescope<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>2 meter optical-infrared telescope<\/b> <b>named after Nobel laureate Subramaniam Chandrasekhar.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>located <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at the<\/span><b> Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in <\/span><b>Hanle near Leh in Ladakh.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is currently the <\/span><b>tenth highest optical telescope in the world<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, situated at an <\/span><b>elevation of 4,500 meters.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>cloudless skies <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>low atmospheric water vapour <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">make it <\/span><b>one of the best sites <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the world for <\/span><b>optical, infrared, sub-millimetre, and millimetre wavelengths.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The telescope saw its &#8216;First Light&#8217; on 26 September 2000, and was <\/span><b>dedicated<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to the nation in August <\/span><b>2001<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The telescope is<\/span><b> remotely operated<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> using a dedicated satellite communication link from the<\/span><b> Centre for Research &amp; Education in Science &amp; Technology (CREST), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>Hosakote<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, about 35 km northeast of <\/span><b>Bangalore<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Currently, the HCT <\/span><b>hosts HFOSC (a spectrograph and camera in the optical), uTIRSPEC (a near-infrared spectrometer and imager),<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>HESP (a high-resolution Echelle spectrograph).\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">HCT is used by astronomers from across India, to<\/span><b> study objects as varied as planets and asteroids, to stars and galaxies.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some <\/span><b>research highlights <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">have been <\/span><b>spectroscopy of comets,<\/b> <b>study of atmospheres of exo-planets, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>participation in the discovery of the famous Trappist 1b exoplanet<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the field of planetary science.\u00a0 <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News<\/b><strong>:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2291141&amp;reg=48&amp;lang=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>PIB<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Himalayan Chandra Telescope is a 2 meter optical-infrared telescope located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) in Hanle near Leh in Ladakh. Read more about Himalayan Chandra Telescope, Location, Features, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":116013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9096,21,22,23],"class_list":["post-10982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-himalayan-chandra-telescope","tag-prelims-pointers","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116059,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10982\/revisions\/116059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}