Expert: Ed - 9/26/2007

Question
sir,
    we are students of IT-BHU, India and our college is going to conduct an astronomy fest this January. but this is the first time that our college is including astronomy as part of its technical fest and we are not sure what all we can include in out fest to make it interesting and noteworthy.
1) from your experience do you know of any other university/ institute or club that has an astronomy fest?
2) can you suggest any event that can make the festival appealing?
3) please suggest some current hot topics for popular lectures and any experts if you know any.
4) also could please suggest a name for our astronomy fest?
thanking you,
vinit

Answer
Vinit,
I'm sorry I'm late answering this question.  I had to travel for a few days, and now I'm late for everything in my life.

I have looked at some of the answers that other AllExperts have given to your question.  I think some of them look very helpful.

One idea might be to have a lecture or seminar about the great Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.  It sounds like you are looking for ideas to make astronomy accessible and interesting to young Indian people.  Chandrasekhar won the Nobel Prize, and was a truly inspiring person.  The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is named after him.  Maybe you could locate people in India who knew the man, and have them talk about ways to continue his legacy.

Also, maybe you could try to connect current trends in astronomy to Indian science fiction.  Young people often enjoy science fiction, and there has been science fiction written in India for a long time.  Bangla science fiction, in Bengali, has a very long history.  It was being written even before H.G. Wells wrote his famous books.  Perhaps you could try to hold a lecture or workshop, in which young people are encouraged to create their own science fiction stories based on the things that are happening in astronomy right now!  Or, if your students enjoy the history of 19th century science fiction, seek out some older science fiction in whatever languages your students speak, and get them thinking about how it was significant for India in the past, and how it could be significant to THEM, NOW, TODAY.

I think that one of the most exciting topics in astronomy today is the discovery of new planets.  They have already discovered over 200 new planets, orbitting distant stars.  Within your lifetime, we will have learned about tens of thousands of planets in the galaxy... maybe even millions, depending on how quickly our technology improves.  Google "Extrasolar planets" or "exoplanets" to find out more.  http://exoplanets.org is a good website.  Maybe you could look for astronomers who work on that topic, to come to your fest, and discuss their work.

I think other AllExperts have already been very helpful to you, so I will stop here.  But please e-mail me again, if you would like to talk about anything.

good luck, and Keep Looking Up!
--Ed