Celestial Hour
One hour. One astronomer. One universe to explore
A live webinar series for everyone who has ever looked up and wanted to know more, hosted by the people who do.
Prof. Somak Raychaudhary
Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University
Prof. Somak Raychaudhury is the Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University. He has undergraduate degrees from Presidency College, University of Calcutta and University of Oxford. After his PhD from the University of Cambridge, he worked at Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, where he also was part of the team that built the Chandra X-Ray Observatory for NASA. After teaching for over a decade at the University of Birmingham, UK, he returned to India as Dean of Sciences at Presidency University, Kolkata, and went on to become the Director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune.
Prof. Raychaudhury is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. His research involves a wide range of topics in Cosmology and Astrophysics, from the ground and from Space.
Webinar
Black Hole Hunting Across The Universe
Black holes are the most extreme environments in nature, where the force of gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. Since we observe the rest of the Universe through light, black holes must be directly unobservable. However, in the last two decades, direct evidence of black holes has been found in many ways. I will discuss how our theoretical understanding of the nature of black holes is being used to find them, and the connection with present and future observational facilities in India and across the world.Date: 5 June 2026
Time: 5:00 pm IST
Register Today. Limited seats available.
Free to attend but registration required.
Conversations That Bring the Universe Closer
The universe is 13.8 billion years old, and it is full of mysteries. At Starscapes Experiences, we believe the best way to fall in love with the cosmos is to hear about it from the people who have devoted their lives to it. That’s why we are introducing Celestial hour, a free, live webinar series where eminent astronomers, astrophysicists, and space scientists join us to share their discoveries, and their stories.
Whether you’re an enthusiastic stargazer, a student of science, or simply someone who has looked up at the night sky and felt the pull of something vast, these conversations are for you. Each session is an intimate, unhurried dialogue: part lecture, part storytelling, part live Q&A. No jargon walls. Just real science, real passion, and the kind of perspective that only comes from spending a career looking outward.
From dark-sky expeditions to deep-field imaging, from black hole research to the search for exoplanets, our speakers bring the frontier to you.
Upcoming Webinars
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