{"id":65411,"date":"2026-01-31T11:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=65411"},"modified":"2026-01-31T15:52:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T10:22:58","slug":"hanle-dark-sky-reserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/hanle-dark-sky-reserve\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanle Dark Sky Reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Hanle Dark Sky Reserve Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, a rare blood-red auroral activity was captured by the all-sky camera at the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Ladakh&#8217;s Hanle Dark Sky Reserve.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About\u00a0 Hanle Dark Sky Reserve<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Location:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is located at 4,500 metres altitude, in the remote <\/span><b>Changthang region of Ladakh.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is part of the <\/span><b>Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, offering <\/span><b>Bortle-1 dark skies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (the darkest category).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was notified in December 2022 by the Government of Ladakh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>India\u2019s first International Dark Sky Reserve,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> centred around the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) at Hanle.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is managed by the <\/span><b>Indian Institute of Astrophysics<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (IIA) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Science &amp; Technology<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reserve aims to <\/span><b>curb light pollution<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and promote astro-tourism benefiting local communities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reserve is a science-driven socio-economic development project, built on two pillars:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curtailing light pollution in the region<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Promoting astro-tourism<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for local livelihood generation<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The UT Ladakh administration supports the project by <\/span><b>funding astro-tourism initiatives<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and light management plans.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Significance of Hanle:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Hanle\u2019s <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">pristine dark skies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">transparent atmosphere<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> allow observing and photographing faint celestial objects that are often impossible from other locations in India.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/news\/new-updates\/red-auroras-hanle-ladakh-why-has-the-night-sky-over-ladakhs-hanle-village-left-the-internet-stunned-explained\/articleshow\/127766240.cms?from=mdr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ET<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hanle Dark Sky Reserve is located at 4,500 metres altitude, in the remote Changthang region of Ladakh. Read more about Hanle Dark Sky Reserve (HDSR), Location, Features, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":85076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2933,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-65411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-hanle-dark-sky-reserve","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\/65411","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85133,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65411\/revisions\/85133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}