It’s planning moon carnival to give virtual views of touchdown

The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and Nehru Planetarium in the Capital will be celebrating ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 Mission inching towards a location 70 degrees south and on the far side of the moon, a location so far unexplored, with an overnight moon carnival. .

The planetarium has planned an evening skywatch of the moon on September 6 with telescopes followed by sky theatre interaction related to the moon. During the interaction, they will show full-dome immerse visualisations which will give ringside virtual views of those nail-biting moments of the touchdown.

“Before the launch of Chandrayaan-2, the planetarium had also made available a completely in-house full-dome planetarium show titled “Back to the Moon” — a retrospective look at moon studies from ancient and medieval times to the first lunar exploration excitements onwards to the Chandrayaan missions. Viewing of the show will be a part of the moon carnival,” said Planetarium Director Nandivada Rathnasree.

Mail to register

She added that interested people may send a mail to nehruplanetarium@ gmail.com to register and participate in the ringside virtual views as seating is limited.

Ms. Rathnasree added that the nation will reach a milestone with this soft landing on the moon, demonstrate technological capabilities for soft landing on an extra-terrestrial body, obtain and transfer in situ data from the far side of the moon, robotic manoeuvering on a celestial body, and navigation. Even from the point of view of global interests in moon science, the mission has crucial explorations of distribution of water-bearing minerals and other useful minerals on the moon.