“We are made of star stuff. Our bodies are made of star stuff. There are pieces of stars within us.” -Carl Sagan

When Carl Sagan said these words, honestly, I don’t think he was trying to be poetic or philosophical, he was being serious. Behind his poetic words lies one of the universe’s most extraordinary realities, cosmic dust. Turns out, the atoms in our bodies, everything from the iron in our blood to the calcium in our bones all came from stars. Like, billions of years ago, stars literally exploded and scattered themselves across space, and that cosmic dust eventually became us, so I guess we could call this dust the engineers of the galaxies. Kinda wild, right?

Where Dust Comes From — The Ashes of Stars

Okay, so where does all this “star stuff” actually come from? Let me explain.

Stars commit their lives to the fusion of light elements like hydrogen and helium into heavier ones like carbon, oxygen and iron. These are the building blocks of life and dust. Once a star dies, it explodes as a supernova (if the star is really huge) or it gradually loses its outer layers (if it’s not so big). That’s when all those elements get tossed into space.

When the gas cools, it becomes small solid particles that’s the star stuff or dust we are talking about here. Over time, that dust mixes with interstellar gas and gather into large, dense clouds where new stars and planets are born. So, in short it is that when a star “dies,” it doesn’t actually die, it merely serves as the birthplace of new worlds. Like a cosmic recycling program of sorts. This led me to thinking even when stars die, they are not really leaving us, they are actually living within us.

Multi-wavelength image of a dusty supernova remnant from Spitzer, Hubble, and Chandra data

Building Blocks of Galaxies — Dust at Work

Now here’s where it gets even cooler, these little dust grains don’t just float around doing nothing. They actually make stuff happen. They gather in these big bodies called molecular clouds, which help gas cool off and clump together in a process that eventually produces stars. Dust also helps form simple molecules such as hydrogen and even complex ones like water and organic compounds, the building blocks of life itself. So yeah, dust may not be exciting, but without it, there would be no stars and planets and probably no us.

And get this, dust even shapes galaxies. It moves gas around, creates those dark lanes and spiral arms we see in space photos, and basically decides how galaxies look. It’s like the universe’s interior designer, turning old star ashes into jaw-dropping cosmic art.

Reflection nebula illuminated by a young star, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Looking Beyond the Dust — The Astronomer’s Tools

Cosmic dust is a massive force in sculpting the universe it helps create stars, planets, and galaxies, but it also conceals them from sight. Dusty areas appear dark to our naked eye, but they’re filled with material where worlds and new stars are forming. Astronomers employ infrared telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope to penetrate the dust, because infrared light can travel where visible light cannot. By detecting weak signals from molecules like carbon monoxide and hydrogen, radio telescopes help scientists map the motion and interactions of gas and dust in space. Thanks to these advanced instruments, the beginnings of star and planet evolution can now be seen in what once seemed to be empty darkness.

A ground-based radio telescope observing cosmic radio emissions to study distant celestial phenomena such as pulsars, quasars, and interstellar gases.

From Stardust to Life — Our Cosmic Connection

In addition to forming galaxies, cosmic dust is essential for producing the building blocks of life. Essential elements like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and silicon all of which are present in our bodies are contained in these tiny particles floating through space. The majority of this dust was created within dying stars and expelled during supernova explosions. The material from those stars cooled, mixed, and eventually created new stars, planets, and complex molecules the same kinds that gave rise to life on Earth over billions of years..

When we look at the night sky, we’re seeing the same process that created us. The iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, and the carbon in our DNA were all forged in ancient stars long before the Sun existed. Cosmic dust shows how deeply connected life is to the universe it’s the physical link between stars, planets, and living organisms, proving that we really are made from the remnants of stars.

-By Yahvi & Chelsa Clephen

Originally published at https://medium.com on November 11, 2025.

Ever looked up at the night sky and wondered how small we are in this big universe but in a comforting way? When the world gets too noisy for me to handle I just look up at the dark night sky. Sometime there are stars other times it is just darkness. But it doesn’t really matter, the tiny dots in the sky or the endless darkness it just gives me a deep sense of peace. Looking up at the sky makes me feel like I am just a small speck in this big universe which makes my worries seem lighter and my dreams bigger.

What is the “Cosmic Perspective”?

Now you will think cosmic perspective means the way each individual views the cosmos. But it is not just that, it is the feeling we get when we realize how tiny we are compared to the vastness of the universe. It is the realization that Earth is just a tiny dot compared to this enormous universe.

The term “Cosmic Perspective” was popularized by Carl Sagan, the renowned astronomer, who described Earth as a “pale blue dot” suspended in the darkness of space. Neil deGrasse Tyson further explained the idea, saying it inspires humility, unity, and curiosity. The roots of this perspective go back to Edwin Hubble, who first showed that the universe is far bigger than we imagined. Together, these scientists helped us see that looking up can change how we live down here.

How looking at the stars can change us?

1. Makes us feel humble
2. Makes us curious
3. Encourages Unity
4. Brings a deep sense of peace

Why this perspective matters today?

Let’s face it- in today’s world everyone is busy getting caught up in stress, competition, negativity and the occasional identity crisis. We stress over the slow-paced Wi-Fi, worry about our Instagram captions and argue over pineapple on pizza. But then from time to time you look up and realize the stars don’t care about your to-do list, nor do they care about deadlines you keep stressing over or the plans you keep postponing. They are just there, always shinning bright and giving us a glimmer of light in our busy and sometimes dark lives. They remind us that it is ok to take a breather sometimes, that it is ok to just live because in such an enormous universe the fact that we exist is itself quiet a miracle.

The Perspective that grounds us

The stars and the cosmos may seem distant but somehow it is able to make us feel like we are home. The universe is vast, silent and ancient. It has not told us to do anything nor is it appreciating anything. And yet here we are thinking, wondering about this massive masterpiece. Now that is a beautiful irony: That we feel everything for a universe that doesn’t owe us anything.

Next time you see the stars, take a moment to really look. Let their light travel through your thoughts. Remember that you are part of a vast, beautiful universe — full of mystery, wonder, and possibility.

Okay, this one honestly blew my mind.

We all know light, right? It’s fast, it doesn’t weigh anything, and you can’t really “touch” it. But now, for the first time ever, scientists have made light behave like both a solid and a liquid, at the same time and they didn’t even have to freeze it.

Yeah. They pulled this off at room temperature.

So, What’s a Supersolid?

Imagine something that flows like a perfect liquid no resistance, no friction — but also holds a stable, repeating structure like a solid. Sounds impossible, right? That’s a supersolid. It’s a weird quantum state where matter does both things at once. Until now, supersolids only existed in labs at ultra-low temperatures colder than space. You’d need crazy equipment just to get close.

But This Time… They Used Light

Here’s where it gets unreal.

Instead of super-chilling atoms, they trapped light inside a semiconductor made of gallium arsenide stuff already used in solar panels and lasers. They etched it to create tiny ridges, basically building a kind of maze that keeps photons from escaping.

Then they hit it with a laser. The light didn’t just bounce around — it actually merged with the material, forming these strange half-light, half-matter particles called polaritons.

When they adjusted the energy just right, those polaritons started lining up into repeating patterns — and flowing at the same time. That’s a supersolid. And it was made from light. At room temp. Wild.

Why This Actually Matters?

This isn’t just some lab trick. Supersolids could be a huge deal for quantum computing, because they’re stable and flexible perfect for holding quantum bits without breaking them. This kind of breakthrough could make future tech more powerful, efficient, and maybe even cheaper.

The Bottom Line

They made light act like a solid and a liquid at once. Without freezing it. Just let that sit for a second.

It’s weird. It’s beautiful. And it’s one of those moments where science quietly cracks open a door to the future.

The good folks over at WIRED have a recurring series called #wiredsixword where they ask people to form a six word story on the basis of a prompt , The prompt’s deal with a wide range of fascinating concepts and Ideas.

So we at Astrophilia thought why not have the talented writers over here tackle one such prompt. The prompt we decided to go with was: The Quest to make a Digital Replica of your brain. This is what one of our fine writer Saraschandrika Bhavani Vajjala came up with.

There is nothing. Only warm, primordial blackness. Your conscience ferments in it — no larger than a single grain of malt.

— Ancient Reptilian Brain

After watching your “jewel in the crown” character from a movie, sitting in front of a mirror, talking with his or her own reflection, struggling with thoughts, have you ever wondered if it is possible to do so in real life? Imagine yourself conversing with your own replica physically! Sounds unfeasibly enthralling, but the fact is scientists are formulating different ways of creating a digital replica of human brain, which can think like you.

The making of artificial humans, dates back to the period of ancient Swiss people where Paracelsus, a Swiss born alchemist believed that by placing sperm of a man in horse dung and feeding it with human blood, the mixture can become a living infant in forty years! By 19th century, artificial men, thinking machines became a common plot for many fiction novels and movies. Some realistic human like automatic machines also known as automata were developed by craftsmen from every civilizations, which were believed to be imbued with real minds

And now, in this modern era, we refer to this technology as Artificial Intelligence, which is based on the fact that the rational thoughts or the rational observations we perceive, could be formulated as mathematical equations and algorithms. When we express these algorithms in the form of zeroes and ones (binary language), we come up with machines able to perform certain tasks. But the question is “can we come up with machines that can converse and think like humans?” or more precisely to say “to what extent, we can develop algorithms and deduce equations”? To answer this question, we need to solve a conundrum “what is thinking”? The perception of thinking in accordance with human brain is “processing the external stimuli”. If a machine is able to converse like humans or can come with facts or conclusions, we can say that “the machine thinks” although not exactly as the great encephalon.

It was in the year 1952 where some handful of scientists developed an urge for creating machines that could think or to produce the virtual copies of brain. Fundamentally, it is the electronic network of neurons that generates neurotransmitters for transmitting information. The external environment produces the neuron fire which give birth to the thoughts. This compound fusion of electric and magnetic fields developed inside the brain when studied deeply under MRI scannings and electroencephalography, a mathematical model of the brain could be stimulated in the computer. This model could be used to predict the stimulation of the treatments for various neurological disorders, and can also be used to develop new treatments.

But we come back to the same question we started from. Can our neuro twin think like us? This is an inscrutable question, but not hard to answer. The fundamental difference between a human brain and its digital replica is generation of thoughts and processing of thoughts. There is a difference between idea and information. Digital replicas and future supercomputers come up with enormous amount of information but its the idea that makes a difference. It’s a delusion that AI’s are perfect. The actual perfection is in making mistakes which is prone to only human brain or “brains with life”. We tend to make mistakes, break the rules, fail multiple times and come up with new theories which a digital replica cannot. An intelligent version of ourselves cannot replace the human brain because intelligence alone cannot be parameter to rule the world. If our replica is able to experience things, it’s the human brain that understands it. A replica would define a chair as an object with four legs, and a seat but it’s the human brain that understands the fact that chair is an object on which we can sit due to which we can create new designs according to our comfort levels. We do deep understanding whereas a replica does deep learning, and learning can be unlearned but understanding is permanent.

The future is aleatory. The technology which was nevertheless than wizardry spell a century ago, is now ubiquitous and things which appear to be dream today may be possible in coming years. But one thing that can be assured is a digital replica could be used for technical aid and experiments but its completely irrational for lifeless object to replace the human brain. The nexus of neurons will remain the most omnipotent and vivacious element that earth has ever witnessed.

Brain in a Jar:

A beautiful day of sentience

Sitting still, lost in reminisce

Sometimes giggling, sometimes chuckling

Suddenly shifting to despondence

Of changing notions and cogitations

I was in deep ambivalence

Rummaging through these plethora of thoughts

The one that stayed in my mind was

How capricious the brain is

A panorama of transient emotions

Stimulating different sensations

A nexus of neurons,

Highly intellectual, highly inquisitive.

It created a civilized orb

Which a decade ago

Was a mere thought, difficult to absorb

At times I genuinely envisage

Can the quest of this giant bryn

Lead the mankind to a passage

Where we can meet our neuro twin?

The Quest for a Digital Brain : Entry 1 was originally published in SRM Astrophilia on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Science, as to how we practice, is known for being driven by “empiricism” — the view that concepts hold only upon their experiencing. Scientists have waited for years before their hypothesis counts as scientific literature. For example, Peter Higgs thought of the “Higgs Boson” in 1960’s and waited for over 50 years for CERN to discover it. While empiricism cannot be argued against as anything less than the key feature of the scientific method, as something that makes science stand out from religion (a colloquy for later), it becomes for the sake of us being thorough academicians not to undermine the other steps. They are:

(a) Lisa observes,
(b) Develops a hypothesis or conjecture or postulate to explain what she observed,
(c) Collects evidence to support her hypothesis,
(d) Makes the inference from the observations, and
(e) Shares the results with her peers.

Lisa is then a scientist. We see that while (c) is the empirical step, it is not the first step. While (a) is, since it is devoid of any voluntary participation — prima facie (which is to say that if Lisa observes a falling ball, there is hardly anything about that verb she can do under the context of being credited as a scientist), the first thing that Lisa could do is to develop her hypothesis, (b). To excel, it is only best for a theorist to practice (b) dismissing (c), and same goes the other way around for an experimentalist. This is to say that Lisa should develop her hypothesis considering that it does not bother empiricism to validate it. This would require her to make a perfect marriage of thought and logic (mathematics), devoid of angles potentially wrong. Shouldn’t such a marriage only be a result of a rigorous effort? What if I say that both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, the two pillars of modern physics, birthed from guesses! Wouldn’t that be the paramount irony in the philosophy of science? Would it not undermine all the effort and money we put in conducting science methodologically?

Now, I will present the above suggested guesses. As one still requires the rigorous training to make them, I will henceforth use the German term “ansatz,” which translates loosely to “wise guess.”

In the June of 1905, Einstein published his seminal paper, “on the electrodynamics of moving bodies,” that presented a promising challenge to Newtonian physics (NP), the convention at the time. This paper laid the grounds for General Relativity which then demolished NP from its roots. In 1905 paper, Einstein defined the second of his two principles as, “any ray of light moves in the ‘stationary’ system of co-ordinates with the determined [speed] ‘c’ [speed of light], whether the ray be emitted by a stationary or by a moving body.” In non-esoteric words, basically, he set the upper limit to the speed that any object could attain as “c.” Why did he do that? Well, the immediate answer would be “because considering ‘c’ fixes the then incomplete physics.” True that — but the essence of my question lies: “what enabled him to use ‘c,’ specifically.” The answer, as the introduction suggests, is nothing! Now you might say that “c” wasn’t a random number after all. Maxwell’s equations in 1865 and Michelson-Morley's experiment in 1887 knew it as the speed of light. Nonetheless, “c” was disposed to Einstein just like any other constant. Thus, its consideration by him was an ansatz!

One further reason to think so is that he didn’t mention any reference to support the principle. This reminds me of an episode from my time at MIT — Dave Kaiser asked me to referee Einstein’s manuscript, to which I recommended revision as it did not support the principle and had redundancies, only to discover later that it was accepted by none other than Planck, whom I will mention as the father of Quantum Mechanics in a while, in none other than “Annalen der Physik,” the leading German physics journal at the time. Just a side note: much later, after the empirical validation of his General Relativity, Einstein himself commented on his 1905 paper as poorly written and that the two principles were, in fact, one. Until now in this article, I have shown how Einstein made ansatz lead to the formulation of General Relativity. Now I will show how Planck does the same for Quantum Physics.

By the end of the 19th century, Physics was considered solved apart from a few problems, one among which was the Ultraviolet Catastrophe or the Blackbody Radiation Problem. Background: Objects radiate over the spectrum of wavelengths with different intensities of individual wavelengths, forming the plot type mentioned. It turns out that the mean of the plot can be maneuvered to left or right only by changing the temperature of the object. This is to say that the radiation intensities depend only on the temperature of the object and not its composition — a strange discovery in physics — yet not the problem. Problem: While the then physics (Maxwell’s laws) estimated the intensities as observed for the longer wavelengths, it failed to estimate the left-to-mean dip suggesting the abundance of ultraviolet radiation, thus the “ultraviolet catastrophe.” Planck solved the problem in 1900. He had been working on it for years; he might have lacked conventional approaches to proceed, which would have inspired him to try substituting “n x E” instead of “E” in his calculations (where “n” and “E” represent an integer and energy, respectively), which then worked! “n” implies that the energy is quantized by nature, thus the “Quantum Mechanics.” Thus, its consideration by him was an ansatz.

One further reason to think so is that he kept humble throughout his life about taking the credit. If an apparent example is required, again around the birth of Quantum Mechanics, what best could be than the statistical formulation of the Copenhagen Interpretation (CI) by Max Born in 1926! It is worth noting here that the birth of Quantum Mechanics wasn’t a single-person job; it was a collective effort from physicists such as Planck, Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and Paul Dirac. Background: In 1925, Heisenberg and Born formulated Quantum Mechanics in its matrix version. Soon, Schrödinger independently formulated a version based on his wavefunction, which he took as the description of the particle. While the two versions were realized to be equivalent in no time, what remained an enigma was the meaning of the wavefunction. From Schrödinger’s equation, the nature of the wavefunction was, in fact, imaginary. The very real existence of a particle questioned how a wavefunction could be its description, as after all, the wavefunction solved for the particle. Born suggested that it was the square of the wavefunction that indeed determined the probability of discovering the particle in certain states. Why only square, why not cube or anything else? Squaring by him was an ansatz!

In this article, I have presented three ansatze, one about the birth of General Relativity and two about that of Quantum Mechanics. Apparently, the takeaway does not seem healthy — if significant science is supposed to happen by guess as well, the effort and funding we dedicate to it are undermined. Can you object to this? If you can — I can, you will realize that the essence of science comes from its strength to defend itself.

Divyansh Mansukhani is the Cofounder Consultant for Astrophilia. He holds a master’s in Philosophy from the University of Glasgow, and is an avid writer about the History and Philosophy of Science.

“In the article, I raise a question against the reputation of science only to inflict within the minds of my readers a defence for science — so that they realize the strength of science.”

Science: method or guess? was originally published in SRM Astrophilia on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Exploring into the Darkness…

Scientists work on the boundaries of the darkness, where every new piece of information forms a path into a void of uncertainty.

In a series of breakthrough papers, theoretical physicists have come tantalizingly close to resolving the Information paradox that has entranced and bedeviled them for nearly 50 years.

Throughout history, paradoxes have threatened to undermine everything we know, and just as often, they’ve reshaped our understanding of the world. Today, one of the biggest paradoxes in the universe threatens to unravel the fields of general relativity and quantum mechanics is the black hole information paradox.

To understand this paradox, we first need to define what we mean by “information.”

Information

Typically, the information we talk about is visible to the naked eye. For example, this kind of information tells us that a ball is round and shiny.

Information is nothing tangible. It’s typically understood as a property of the arrangement of particles.

What does this mean?

Imagine a bunch of carbon atoms.

“Arrange them in a certain way and you get coal.”

“Arrange them in a different way, and you get a diamond.”

The atoms are the same, what changes is the information. The basic building blocks of everything in the universe are the same. Without information everything in the universe would be the same.

But physicists are more concerned with quantum information. This refers to the quantum properties of all the particles that make up that object, such as their position, velocity and spin.

Every object in the universe is composed of particles with unique quantum properties. This idea is evoked most significantly in a vital law of physics :

“The total amount of quantum information in the Universe must be conserved.”

It might change shape, but it can never be lost. For example if you burn a piece of paper, you get ash. That ash will never become paper again.

But, if you were able to carefully collect every single carbon atom in the ash, and measured the exact properties of the smoke and heat radiating from the fire, you could, in theory reconstruct the paper.

The information of the paper is still in the universe. It’s not lost, it’s just hard to read.

Even if you destroy an object beyond recognition, its quantum information is never permanently deleted. And theoretically, knowledge of that information would allow us to recreate the object from its particle components.

If you could somehow measure every single atom and particle and wave of radiation in the universe, you could see and track every bit of information there is, hypothetically you could see the entire history of the universe right back to the Big Bang.

“Conservation of information isn’t just an arbitrary rule, but a mathematical necessity, upon which much of modern science is built.”

But around black holes, those foundations get shaken.

Black Hole

Black hole is a cosmic body of extremely intense gravity. A region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing — no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light — can escape from it and so we perceive them as spheres of blackness.

A black hole appears when an extraordinary amount of matter is concentrated in a tiny space. At their center, gravity is almost infinitely strong and whatever gets too close is ripped into its elementary particles.

When an object enters a black hole, it seems as though it leaves the universe, and all its quantum information becomes irretrievably lost.

However, this doesn’t immediately break the laws of physics. The information is out of sight, but it might still exist within the black hole’s mysterious void.

Alternatively, some theories suggest that information doesn’t even make it inside the black hole at all.

Seen from outside, it’s as if the object’s quantum information is encoded on the surface layer of the black hole, called the event horizon.

Event Horizon

The Event Horizon is the boundary defining the region of space around a black hole from which nothing (not even light) can escape.

At the event horizon, the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light.

You can imagine this as swimming in a river that ends in an enormous waterfall. You could swim to safety, until without even noticing it, you cross the point of no return. No matter how fast you try to swim now, the stream will pull you towards certain death.

Nothing can escape a black hole waterfall once it gets too close.

This border completely separates black holes from the rest of the universe– we can’t access them unless we’re willing to never return.

But whether information is conserved inside the black hole or on its surface, the laws of physics remain intact– until you account for Hawking Radiation.

Black holes radiate their mass away, like a hot pot on a stove losing its water as steam.

This is called Hawking Radiation.

Hawking Radiation

Discovered by Stephen Hawking in 1974, this phenomenon shows that black holes are gradually evaporating.

Hawking radiation is black-body radiation that is predicted to be released by black holes, due to quantum effects near the black hole event horizon.

Black holes constantly lose an extremely tiny amount of their mass, a process that’s unbelievably slow. It will take a solar mass black hole will evaporate over ¹⁰⁶⁴ years which is vastly longer than the age of the universe.

Critically, it seems as though the evaporating particles are unrelated to the information the black hole encodes–suggesting that a black hole and all the quantum information it contains could be completely erased.

The destruction of information would force us to rewrite some of our most fundamental scientific paradigms.

This creates the information paradox, and this is a serious problem.

The Paradox

The Black hole information paradox is a puzzle resulting from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Calculations suggest that physical information could permanently disappear in a black hole, allowing many physical states to devolve into the same state.

It’s fundamental for all our laws of physics that information can never be lost. Existing, not existing. Without information, everything is relative.

When it comes to our understanding of reality, we need absolutes.

But fortunately, in science, every paradox is an opportunity for new discoveries. Researchers are investigating a broad range of possible solutions to the Information Paradox.

Theorized Solutions

There are a few possibilities of the outcome of such an event.

1. Information is lost. — Irretrievably and forever.
2. But there’s a third option: Information is safe after all, not lost or hidden Perhaps we’ve just been looking at this whole thing the wrong way.

Some have theorized that information actually is encoded in the escaping radiation, in some way we can’t yet understand.

This is a bit like taking a paper back, and turning it into an e-book, two things that look completely different.

But their content is the same — it’s just encoded and memorized in another way.

It turns out a black hole grows its surface by a tiny pixel for each bit of information we throw into it.

As the black hole’s mass increases, the surface of the event horizon increases as well. So it’s possible that as a black hole swallows an object, it also grows large enough to conserve the object’s quantum information.

Considering that theory, even the smallest black hole would store more information on its surface than all the data ever produced in human history.

They do this by storing information in a type of pixel that is unbelievably tiny.

This solution is what is referred to as the Holographic Principle.

The science behind it is complicated and really weird, with the existence of Quantum Gravity to the working of String theory and a lot of math which I will reconsider to decode for some later blog.

Regardless of what the true nature of the universe really is, we just know that it’s strange and complicated, and we have to accomplish a lot more physics to understand it.

Until then, Keep Exploring the Impossible…

Written by Akshad Kolhatkar, member Astrophilia

Article republished with consent of the original writer Akshad Kolhatkar

Revisiting the Information Paradox was originally published in SRM Astrophilia on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Needless to say, the subject at hand is quite delicate and needs a very diligent analysis before one can come to a conclusive understanding of the same. We’re about to understand, in a comprehensive and concise fashion, the operation of research grants in the country, project sanctions, governmental control and budget allocations which operate at different levels.

Politics in the Indian subcontinent is an incredibly complex topic to explore. India has a diverse social base with multitudes of communities and interest groups, and the country has an interesting history of space research as well, with the inception of our premier space agency, ISRO. From innovating with limited resources in the 1960s to launching a record 104 satellites in a single mission recently, an anti-satellite weapon and a second mission to the moon that will involve a soft landing on the south portion of the moon, we have come a long way.

We are definitely not in the dark about the extent to which politicians may go when it comes to mudslinging and vilifying each other when it comes to credit wars. However, we may acknowledge that the development of space science related technologies in the country has steadily seen an incremental growth irrespective of the party that has been in power. Space research in India began in the 1920s with studies conducted by scientists SK Mitra, CV Raman and Megahnad Saha. However, it was only from the 1940s and 50s that institutionalized probe into space-related activities gained nationwide attention. The history of space activities in India, however, reached its first milestone when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the year 1962 established the Indian National Commission for Space Research, or the INCOSPAR. Consequently, India’s first rocket launch took place in 1963.

In 1969, the INCOSPAR grew to become the Indian Space Research Organization. India’s 2014 Mangalyaan mission made ISRO the world’s fourth agency to reach Mars and notably the least expensive Mars Mission till date. As we know, ISRO is charged with the responsibility of steering India’s space program. Every Budget, finance ministers allocate money to it: in 3 of its 10 years, the UPA spent less than what it budgeted at the overall level. After the NDA came into power at the Centre, variance over the budgeted amount has been insignificantly marginal. Though in its first year, the NDA struggled to get going on ministry wise spending, it did significantly better in the subsequent years, with 60% allocation. The UPA had allocated a sum of just 5165 crores for the ISRO, and had also brutally revised it down to 4000 crores in the same year. However, the NDA government, after coming to power in 2014, increased the government grant by 50% raising it to 6000 crores in the very same fiscal year. The budgeted expenditure for DRDO was just 11,960 crores in the interim budget of 2014–15, and it has seen a massive 58.4% jump in 2019–20, at 19,021 crore rupees. In the interim budget of 2019–20, the allocation for ISRO reached 10,252 crores of rupees, thereby, on an average, the money allocated to ISRO increased by more than 1000 crore per rupees per year. The Department of Space saw a hike in its budgetary allocation from 11,200 crores in 2018–19 to 12,473 crores in 2019–20. The Head of Space Technology, however, has seen a hike of 1400 crore. Needless to say, this is also possible because the overall economy has been showing steady growth.

Also, the industry participation in the space sector is seeing a revived interest following the present government’s initiatives in attracting private players into the sector. New Space India Limited, a recently announced commercial arm of the Department of Space, is a new public sector undertaking that experts expect will be the crucial look for the sustainability of commercialization of space and satellite technology.

ISRO is one of the world’s most efficient space agencies of the world. It has elevated our nation as a special space power in the global platform, launched 103 spacecraft missions and 72 launch missions so far. The organization has also launched 10 student satellites for the purpose of educational welfare. It has helped India to project its soft power in the countries of the world.

When ISRO successfully launched Chandrayaan 2, the Congress sparked a major controversy by tweeting what appeared to politicize the achievement of the country’s space agency. Meanwhile, BJP leaders including PM Modi, Late. Sushma Swaraj and Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman lauded the historic launch of this ambitious mission and expressed their pride in the prowess of the scientists at ISRO who made it possible for the country to scale new frontiers of science.

It is absolutely unnecessary to politicize the achievements of ISRO, which stands as a staunch testament to the scientific temperament and the infinite technical and imaginative potential that lies dormant, waiting to be kindled in the intellectual fiber of the country. We must pay attention to the facts and facts alone, as to how each party prioritizes the importance of space-related projects and ventures, and not allow our premeditated biases to jump in. Let’s keep in mind what’s best for ISRO, which irrefutably is on the breakthrough lines of fresh innovation and boundless enterprise that is a potent source of pride to every Indian. We hail the determination and the tenacity of the scientists, their patience and grit and their unending, incessant willpower to project India as no less than any other. ISRO deserves a healthy percentage of the national GDP so that we can continue making momentous strides in the future of space technology and space development programs and projects. I end my presentation applauding ISRO and the entities it is constituted of, especially taking a moment to observe respect and the sincerest of esteem for the brilliant fire-brains of the nation working there to demonstrate the country’s outreach in space exploration.”

We wish Vasudev best for his career in science delivering, and hope that he keeps on inspiring his audience.

To contact him, click here.

Interrelation between Indian politics and space science-based projects was originally published in SRM Astrophilia on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
 — Albert Einstein

What makes a genius tick? Is it higher IQ, or is it something to do with their crazy style of thinking? What makes the brains of artists, scientists, writers and sportsmen different? Our obsession with brains led us to research the brain of, considerably, the smartest man that ever lived.

“Let’s make a list of some of the most bizarre robberies. Tons of beach sand, a steel bridge, Einstein’s brain, a statue and a front lawn. Yes, you read that right. Einstein’s brain.

When Einstein died, the on-call pathologist Thomas Harvey stole the brain, much against how Einstein wished his body to be cremated after his death and his defense was using the brain for scientific purposes and important research. Harvey then carved the brain in 240 pieces and preserved it in celloidin. This story gets weirder as Harvey stored it in a beer cooler and later proceeded to send chunks of the brain to researchers around the world. With all these efforts, was a compelling explanation ever given? Let’s find out.”

-Rajat Kulkarni

“30 years after Einstein’s brain was stolen by Harvey, he finds out about the work of a woman named Dr. Marian Diamond. She studied the plasticity of rat brains and found that they had more glial cells in relation to their other neurons. She decided to take a look at Einstein’s brain and see if the same was true.

Glial cells basically clean up these potassium ions. Potassium is discharged by a neuron when it fires. So with time, the potassium kind of builds up. It is a waste product and if it builds up enough, a neuron can’t fire properly and shuts down. By logic, the more glial cells you have, the smarter you should be because the cleaner your neurons are. And this is exactly what she found out- Einstein had enough ratio of glial cells to other neurons and, she hypothesized that, consequently, he had more rapidly firing neurons than other people.”

-Abha Jambhulkar

“There have been other facts in other studies though. Even though Einstein’s IQ was way higher, the weight of his brain was 1.22 kg which is smaller when compared to the average 1.36kg. His brain, surprisingly also lacked signs of aging. It lacked a substance called lipofuscin, a pigment that accumulates in the brain over the age and yet at the age of 76years, Einstein’s brain was completely void of it.

A lot of the daily tasks we do require use of multiple parts of brain on different sides and to work together they’ve got to communicate through corpus callosum to do it. Einstein’s corpus callosum had extremely thick connections between the pre frontal cortex which controls abstract thinking, the parietal lobe which controls motor function and the visual cortex. This can be related with neural plasticity, meaning more the part of a brain you use, the thicker its connections become.

So this may guide us to that point that to think like Einstein we need to do activities that keeps the corpus callosum active and use both the brain hemispheres at once. Fun fact, Einstein was a violinist and studies show that musicians tend to use their ‘whole’ brain more often.”

-Rajat Kulkarni

“Well, according to me, it was not just his intellect, but his imagination, curiosity and the discipline to perceive things differently. These qualities are not embedded in you by birth but are developed as you start living, start exploring and start asking questions about what find odd around you. As we all know, Einstein was able to get many of his famous works by imagining that he sat on light and is travelling around the world. He was successfully able to explain the phenomenology of ‘The Photo-Electric Effect’, for which he eventually won the Nobel, merely because he was curious about the after-movement of light particles colliding with different objects around.

-Tanamay Kothari

Till date, there has been no concrete evidence or explanation of Einstein’s smartness based on his brain composition. Einstein spent ages in figuring out the great things he discovered. It is imperative we realise that the ideas did not just pop into his head. He sat down, worked on complex mathematics and physics, which took time. He worked really hard. Einstein was not only a smart man, but also a very wise man. He understood the public’s obsession with him and his distinctiveness and knew that given a chance, scientists would hover all over his brain and make peculiar conclusions on his intelligence which, he knew would be delusive and vague.

-Rajat Kulkarni

One thing that Einstein always did was he always followed his passion and did what he absolutely loved. This perhaps was one major reason for his success and exceptional genius. Not everyone will be genius in Physics or academics in particular. But, everyone is definitely a genius in some or the other thing and if we follow our passion, we will be recognized as a genius in our corresponding domains.

As Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.””

-Tanamay Kothari

What’s in your mind, Mr. Einstein? was originally published in SRM Astrophilia on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The project InSight, primarily designed to study the deep interior of the planet Mars, was launched on 5 May 2018 at 11:05 UTC. At approximately 19:52:59 UTC on 26 November 2018, and after a journey of 485 million km, the robotic lander successfully landed Mars at the Elysium Planitia. The project is contemplated as Mars lander and MarCo(cubesats), with the former as the primary.

MARS LANDER

InSight was initially known as Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS). Its name was changed in early 2012 following a request by NASA. Not long back, the mission placed a single stationary lander on Mars to study its deep interior and address a fundamental issue of understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner Solar System. The rocky inner planets share a common ancestry that begins with a process called accretion. As the body increases in size, its interior heats up and evolves to become a terrestrial planet, containing a core, mantle and crust. Despite this common ancestry, each of the terrestrial planets is later shaped and molded through a poorly understood process called differentiation.

Objectives and payload:

The primary objective of the mission stands to study more on it. Following are the four instrumentation modules associated with it.

SIES : Also called as the Seismic Experiment for interior structure, it constructs towards primary instrument of InSight. It is extremely sensitive that it can pick up even as slightest as wind vibrations, which perhaps contributed in the fall of the missions Viking 1 and Viking 2. This tripod-mounted seismometer bears the objective of precisely measuring the ‘Marsquakes’ and other such to study the planet’s internal structure. The deductions shall be matched and strengthened by further studying the meteorite impacts. Atmospheric waves and gravimeter signals from the moon Phobas, up to as high as 50 Hz, will fall in the scope of recording.

HP3 : The Hear flow and Physical Properties Package features a self-penetrating probe to determine heat currents inside Mars. It is expected to reveal whether Mars and Earth formed from the same material and determine how active the interior of Mars is today. Together with the seismometer, it is built to claim the size and state (liquid or solid) of Mars’ core. Through it, NASA would be attempting an altogether novel approach to dig as deep as 5m below the surface and from there, employing the heat sensors for recording purposes. Hence, it is justifies that it is referred as “self-hammering nail”. Also, it has the nickname of “the mole”. For displacement, the mole uses a motor and a roller that periodically loads a spring connected to a rod that functions as a hammer; after release from the cam, the hammer accelerates downwards eventually hitting the outer casing and causing its penetration through the regolith, whereas a suppressor mass travels upwards and its kinetic energy is compensated by gravitational potential and compression of a brake spring and wire helix on the opposite side of the mole.

RISE : Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment is a radio science module on-board the lander. It is designed to use the spacecraft communication system to provide measurements of the rotation and wobble of the planet. This study will help scientists understand why Mars has a comparatively weak magnetic field than that of Earth. It works the following way. Soon after landing, the lander reflects a signal from Earth and notifies itself about its exact location and motion in space. With each emission of similar bursts, the lander infers a different frequency while intercepting it. This deviation in frequency is explained by the Doppler shift. Through this, scientists understand how much Mars wobbles around the Sun, and thereby, nature of its iron-rich core.

TWINS : It abbreviates for Temperature and Winds for INSight. It is a meteorological suite of instruments containing thermometers, anemometer, InSight FluxGate magnetometer (IFG) and barometer. An anemometer is used to measure the wind speed and direction. A magnetometer is used to measure the magnitude and direction of magnetic fields. The corresponding data would be used to understand the local wind behavior at the landing site to help interpret to SEIS data. Further, the lander will use its cameras to document cirrus clouds that develop high above Elysium Planitia, any instances of fog that appear along the ground, as well as dust devils.

LaRRI : Laser RetroReflector for InSight is a corner cube retro-reflector mounted on InSight’s top deck. It will enable passive laser range-finding by orbiters even after the lander is retired, and would function as a node in a proposed Mars geophysical network.

IDA : Instrument Deployement Arm is a 2.4m robotic arm that will be used to deploy SIES and HP3 instruments to Mars’ surface. It also features the IDC camera.

MarCO (cubesats)

The lander was accompanied by MarCo on its journey for a flyby. The main mission of the cubesats was to test a new miniaturized communication and navigation technology. These were the first cubesats to go outside the Earth’s vicinity. In addition to serving as comm. relays, the components’ endurance and navigational capabilities was tested in deep space. These tests provide reliable technology upon which the future missions could be based on, rather than sticking to the conventional tech., which is indeed expensive.

First Author: Snehangsu Biswas

To contact the author click here.
Second Author : Soumya Shekhar

Project InSight was originally published in SRM Astrophilia on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was on Dec 13, 2018, that a paper entitled ‘Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair’ was uploaded on ArXiv. Although Stephen Hawking didn’t stand as its first author, this paper marks fame accounting from the celebrity culture and most importantly — because Hawking was dead already!

I, Adhitya Shreyas SP, showcase a short light pulse on what encompassed in his last paper. Later, I propound his concerns towards where humanity is proceeding.

This paper is essentially a ‘review paper’ which Hawking co-authored with Sasha Haco, Malcolm Perry, and Andrew Strominger. This work addresses the black hole information paradox, which he formalized years back. He said that black holes — by compressing matter and energy into an infinitely dense singularity — create seemingly insurmountable information paradox. Like many other physics conundrums, this paradox emerges from the lack of coherence between quantum theory and classical theory (general relativity)*. One assertion of the paradox is that the information could permanently disappear within the volume of the BH, allowing many physical states to devolve into the same state. The famous ‘Hawking Radiation’ comes out under the same argument where he asserts that this information is indeed be deleted from the BH via physical radiations.

Hawking and his colleagues introduced a model with the keyword ‘soft hair’, that might withhold the black hole information paradox. The idea is that trails of photons encircle the event horizon, and store enormous entropic information about the matter that falls into the black hole. This goes as follows. (1) Falling object increases the temperature of the Black Hole. (2) This temperature change causes the entropy to change. Hawking shows in ‘ Hawking-Bekenstein formula’ that (3) entropy is related to the Black Hole surface area. Hence, (4) the photons at the horizon record the dynamical information happening within the Black Hole volume. They call this sheen of photons “soft hair”.

*As a side note, let me tell you that Hawking is considered to be the first physicist to take advantages of quantum theory in classical fields.

Hawking’s left us with his speeches encompassing valuable warnings, which — from him- are justified as ‘nervous concerns of a celeb philosopher’.

1. Humanity is on a path to either disaster or the stars

“Although the chance of a disaster on planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, becoming a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years”.

We see Hawking predicts that our destiny is to become a space-faring species. “By that time, we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so it would not mean the end of the human race … however, we will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period”. Hawking’s fears over the risk’s human planetary migration are not new. In this century, he’s spoken critically about where developments such as nuclear weapons and genetically engineered viruses may be leading us. “Science and technology are changing our world dramatically, so it’s important to ensure that these changes are heading in the right directions … in a democratic society, this means that everyone needs to have a basic understanding of science, to make informed decisions about the future.”

2. We need to get up and move around a little more

Hawking made his mark in science by studying things with enormous masses — black holes. Guess what, he also spoke about obesity too.

“Today too many people die from complications related to overweight and obesity”.

Hawking said this in an advertisement promoting a Swedish non-profit company called GEN-PEP. “We eat too much and move too little.” Mobility for half-an-hour or so must be desirable. “It’s not rocket science,” Hawking claimed.

3. Artificial intelligence will replace us all

Stephen Hawking fears it may only be a matter of time before humanity is forced to flee Earth in search of a new home.

“If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that improves and replicates itself … this will be a new form of life that outperforms humans.”

4. Aliens probably won’t want to be our best friends

While we’re keeping trim, working on our environmental problems, keeping AI relatively unintelligent, and putting our feet on Mars, we should also try to keep quiet. Hawking was convinced aliens were out there somewhere.

“If so, they will be vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria”.

5. We’re in The Middle of a “Global Revolt Against Experts”

With fake news becoming big news, Hawking responded to questions on the state of the media by encouraging us to listen to the advice of those who devote their time to study problems. Hawking was referring to environmental challenges such as deforestation and climate change, and the unwillingness of many world leaders and members of the public to follow the advice of scientists.

We wish Adhitya best for his career in science delivering, and hope that he keeps on inspiring his audience.

Briefly on BH Information Paradox & ‘Soft Hair’ and elaborately on his WARNINGS was originally published in SRM Astrophilia on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.