The National Aeronautics Space Administration’s first ever mission to the Sun is riding on an Indian.
Scientist heads NASA’s mission to the big orange star
JAIPUR: The National Aeronautics Space Administration’s first ever mission to the Sun is riding on an Indian.
Delhi University astrophysics student Madhulika Guhathakurta is leading NASA’s challenging mission to study the behaviour of the star and measure its impact on human beings NASA’s lead programme scientist for the mission “Living with a Star”, told DNA that the solar probe is scheduled to visit the Sun in 2015.
A heat-resistant spacecraft is being designed to plunge deep into the sun’s atmosphere where the spacecraft’s carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400o C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft. The probe is solar powered.”
Her own journey from India to the US is an exciting ride in an adventure capsule. Madhulika was born in Kolkata to parents who had migrated from Bangladesh.
“It was during the time of partition though I was born in Kolkata,” Madhulika said. Her parents then moved to Mumbai and subsequently to Delhi where her interest in space adventure was driven by her yearning for knowledge about the vast unexplored beyond the earth’s periphery.
“I finished my high school and graduated in Delhi,” she said. In 1977 she graduated from the Hindu College. Madhulika completed her MSc in Astrophysics and General Theory of Relativity in 1979 and followed it up with MPhil in 1980.
“Before that I went to the Vidyabhavan high school. I was in the national merit scheme and also clinched the National Science Talent Scholarship from 1974 to 1980,” she told DNA over the phone from Washington.
Madhulika returns to Mumbai often to visit her sister and her mother. “I have two sisters one in Mumbai and one in Australia and my mother is still living with my sister in Mumbai. “My last visit was in February this year. I might be visiting in November this year,” she said.
Madhulika’s tryst with America began when she enrolled for her doctorate in 1980. She completed her doctorate from the University of Denver in Colarado. She is married to American mathematician Robb Gilford.
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