Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi
The Nehru Planetarium in New Delhi is
situated in the sprawling surroundings of the Teen Murti House, earlier
the official residence of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal
Nehru and now a museum in his memory. Conscious of the fact that an
understanding of the spirit and method of science was crucial for
children to become responsible citizens, Nehru liked every opportunity
to be provided to them in this endeavor. In 1964, the Jawaharlal Nehru
Memorial Fund was set up to promote his ideas and subsequently it
undertook to build the Nehru Planetarium with its primary aim being the
promotion of astronomy and space education.
Inaugurated by the then Prime
Minister, Smt.Indira Gandhi, on 6th February,1984,the Planetarium has
come a long way in disseminating knowledge about astronomy to the
general public and astronomy enthusiasts and students in particular.
The Planetarium building gels archaeologically with a nearby
monument, the Kushak Mahal. This is a 13th century hunting lodge built
by the Lodhi rulers.
The air-conditioned sky theatre of the
planetarium has a dome-shaped screen made of fibre glass with 26 curved
segments and one million hand-drilled holes for clear accoustics.The
sky theatre with a capacity of seating 270 people is essentially meant
for screening taped and live public shows on various aspects of
astronomy. In the centre of the theatre is a well, housing the Carl
Zeiss Spaceflight Master projector placed on a hydraulic lift which
enables it to come up during the shows. The gallery around the sky
theatre helps in locating the slide and special effects projectors.
Besides the sky theatre, the Planetarium also has an exhibit area which
displays many interactive models and pictures. Visitors have the rare
privilege of looking at the historic space module Soyuz T-10 which
carried India's first cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma to space, alongwith his
space suit and mission journal. Event-based photo exhibitions are also
mounted from time to time.
The Planetarium has been constantly
improvising and innovating programmes for its visitors. Plans are afoot
to upgrade the existing Planetarium equipment to bring it at par with
other planetaria in the world.
