{"id":55872,"date":"2025-07-20T12:28:58","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T06:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=55872"},"modified":"2025-07-21T14:40:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:10:52","slug":"indian-astronomical-observatory-iao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/indian-astronomical-observatory-iao\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Indian Astronomical Observatory Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indian astronomers have successfully photographed the interstellar comet C\/2025 N1 (ATLAS), also known as 3I\/ATLAS, using the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) of the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) at Hanle, Ladakh. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>About Indian Astronomical Observatory\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Indian Astronomical Observatory, also known as the <\/span><b>Hanle Observatory,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is located in the<\/span><b> Hanle Valley, Ladakh.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is situated at an altitude of<\/span><b> 4500 metres above mean sea level <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the north of Western Himalayas.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inaugurated in 2001, the observatory is <\/span><b>run by Bengaluru&#8217;s Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The site is a <\/span><b>dry, cold desert<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with s<\/span><b>parse human population<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the <\/span><b>ancient Hanle monastery <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as its <\/span><b>nearest neighbour.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>cloudless skies and low atmospheric water vapour <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">make it one of the <\/span><b>best sites<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the world<\/span><b> for optical, infrared, sub-millimetre, and millimetre wavelengths.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It houses a <\/span><b>2-meter aperture Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT), <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which is remotely <\/span><b>operated from the Centre for Research and Education in Science and Technology (CREST) in Bengaluru.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It also features a <\/span><b>solar power plant,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> satellite-based communication systems, and a<\/span><b> liquid nitrogen plant for cooling detectors.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hanle is also home to a <\/span><b>unique Dark Sky Reserve designated by the International Dark-Sky Association.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Dark Sky Reserve is a designated area that <\/span><b>aims to preserve <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and protect the <\/span><b>quality of its night skies by minimising light pollution.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dark Sky Reserves are typically located in areas with <\/span><b>exceptional natural darkness and starry skies.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And Hanle, with less than 1000 people living in the village, is the perfect area.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.etvbharat.com\/en\/!technology\/3i-slash-atlas-indian-astronomers-photograph-interstellar-comet-visiting-solar-system-from-deep-space-enn25071703507\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ETVB<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian Astronomical Observatory, also known as the Hanle Observatory, is located in the Hanle Valley, Ladakh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":56054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1677,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-55872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-indian-astronomical-observatory","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55872","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}