Current Affair 1:

News:

Indian astrophysicist Prahlad Chandra Agrawal, who has been involved with major Indian space programmes including the AstroSat space telescope and the Chandrayaan 1 lunar mission, has been awarded the COSPAR Harrie Massey Award 2024.

Mr. Agrawal received the award at the opening ceremony of the 45th COSPAR Scientific Assembly in Busan, South Korea, on July 15, 2024.

The award recognises outstanding contributions to the development of space research, especially through a leadership role. Along with a medal and citation, the awardee is honored by having a minor planet named for them, in this case 20064 Prahladagrawal.

About AstroSat:

Approved by the Department of Science & Technology in 2004, AstroSat was built on a Rs 400 crore budget. It has the unique ability to view celestial objects in multiple wavelengths at the same time, thanks to its suite of four co-aligned instruments and an X-ray sky monitor.

It was developed in a collaboration between the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, and ISRO’s U.R. Rao Satellite Centre.

Planned as a five-year mission, AstroSat is still producing useful data, most recently resulting in a significant discovery of a black hole binary source.

AstroSat’s observations have been cited in more than 500 scientific papers and have resulted in more than 30 PhD theses. AstroSat’s data is open source and available to researchers worldwide.

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