RIEM Cosmos Annual Report 19-20

ANNUAL REPORT 2019-20 hfghdh RIEM COSMOS RIE MYSORE

COSMOS Club-Annual Report Being a kid,everyone wonders about moon and stars. Twinkling of stars and smiling of moon, the most beautiful fantasies of the little mind. When we grow up only a bunch of people finds it interested. But the beauty of moon,stars and the other worlds are equally fascinating,if not more ,while comparing to fantasies. The exploration to the unacquainted worlds by some inquisitive minds of RIE Mysuru. That is 'RIEM COSMOS'. The passion of this bunch to the other worlds is developed as a club. Carl Sagan, one of the greatest astrophysicist of all times, once quoted, \"The COSMOS is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.\" Yes, we are born to explore the universe. Through this club we want to give an opportunity to everyone to live in the wonderful world of enigma and beauty and to promote scientific temper and curiosity in them. Our goal is to foster an appreciation of astronomy as a natural science. We are trying to promote amateur astronomy as well as trying to nurture interest and awareness on the field of astronomy and space research through our events. Astronomy is fun but it can be even more fun when you do it with other people. The core members for the year 2019-20 are :  S MANI  AJAYROSHAN ROY  MUHAMMAD BIN SHAKIR

 RESHMA K  KARTHIK V PAI  ANJANA LAKSHMI S G  AJUNA C  B SRAVANA SANDHYA  LOHITH C  R KIRTHIK  ANANYASHREE G  LAKSHMI PRIYA SANKRRAJ  VISHAL KUMAR OLI  INITHA M  CHARUMATHI MURUGAN  GOPIKA A K  VAISHNAV SANKAR K In the academic year 2019-20, the club started its activities by screening the movie 'Interstellar' on 26 September 2019. Santhosh Sir agreed to be the club’s teacher-incharge. Vaishnav Sankar k became the president of the club and Muhammad Bin Shakir became the club’s secretary. We organised a total of 10 various interesting events within this academic year,as per our action plan. The Proforma sheets for each event, except for the last event has been duly submitted to the student council representatives present during each events.

The events and details their of, are as follows :- Inaugural session and Screening of ‘Interstellar’ Date : 26 September 2019 Time : 6.30 PM Venue: A.V Hall,RIEM The activities of the club,RIEM COSMOS started with the screening of the movie ‘Interstellar’ in the AV hall of our Institute,on the evening of 26th of September 2019.Vaishnav Sankar invited everyone to the session with a welcome speech,after which the movie screening was started. This particular movie was choosen because it outlines the global problems such as the exhaustion of resources, deteriorating ecology, and problems of intellectual freedom, family relationships and destiny. The movie is a blend of space adventure, family melodrama and it is well known for being scientifically accurate enough than mere fantasy. Interstellar arouses curiosity and love towards the mysteries of space and the potential of interstellar space travel. Due to some technical issues and time restrictions the movie was not completely screened. The session was concluded by S Mani by proposing the vote of thanks.

 Sky Gazing Session Date : 03 October 2019 Time : 6.00 PM - 8.00 PM Venue: Quadrangle,RIEM Have you ever wondered about the scintillating night sky, the secrets that lie cloaked in a shroud of star dust?Well, the Cosmos club of RIE, Mysore, on the 3rd of October gave an opportunity to the people of RIEM to explore the Cosmos through a ‘sky gazing session’ held at the quadrangle of RIE Mysore. The session started with general discussion on the easily spottable stars that are visible in the sky. Vega, the fifth brightest star in all its blue glory was observed. The red giant - Antares, which is 700 times our sun’s radius was also spotted. The participants were curious to know answers to the questions such as how are the stars formed? What are nebulas?What is a constellation?,etc. We answered them and discussed about orion nebula,about the stars that are capable of revolving around each other forming binary star systems ,though there are multiple star systems with three,four or more stars and about the method ancient people used to remember and identify stars using constellations. Constellations such as Ursa major and Ursa minor were also identified. The Moon and the Copernicus crater was observed and discussed about. Following the moon, the gas giants of our solar system,Saturn and the gigantic Jupiter, along with its four Galilean moons namely Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto were observed. Jaw dropping facts were shared by the core members of the club to the sky gazers throughout the session . The session was concluded around 8pm with a brief discussion on astrophotography.

 India Towards Moon Date : 31 October 2019 Time : 5.45 PM – 7.15 PM Venue: T-16,Tech Block Since it has been 11 years since India launched its first ever moon mission in October 22,The core members of the club organised a multimedia presentation on India’s mission to moon also called Chandrayaan programme or the Indian Lunar Exploration Programme. The presentation was started by Gopika A K(1st year,MSc Ed Chemistry) by giving a brief introduction about ISRO and its objective with the help of a powerpoint presentation. It was then continued by Vaishnav Sankar K with a presentation on Chandrayaan 1. All the main aspects, objectives as well as the achievements of the mission that made India proud were explained. R Kirthik(1st year MSc Ed Physics) then presented about Chandrayaan 2. Its aims and objectives,about the Orbiter,Lander and Rover and how it was all supposed to work were explained. S Mani then concluded the event with a slideshow and a brief explanation of different astrophotographs we had with us. Some of those photographs included photos that our club members took from within the campus with the help of the telescope that S Mani had.

 Sky Gazing Session Date : 8 November 2019 Time : 5.45 PM – 7.15 PM Venue: Quadrangle,T-Block The cosmos club organised and conducted yet another sky gazing session at the quadrangle of RIEM on 8th of November 2019. During this session we focused on the moon and its craters along with Saturn. Due to cloudy skies the number of celestial bodies visible was way too limited. The session was made interesting with talks and discussions by the core members. The session was initiated by Mani, talking about sky gazing and different types of telescopes and sharing information about the telescopes used by the Cosmos Club. We used two telescopes for this event. Next spoke Vaishnav, who shared interesting facts about Venus which, named after the Roman goddess of love, is the second brightest object in the night sky after the Moon. Often it’s called the Earth’s twin or sister due to similar size , mass and proximity to the sun. Plausible reasons behind why Venus rotates anticlockwise were also discussed. Moving on to next, Gopika talked about Jupiter being the fifth planet from the sun and it being a humongous gas giant and it’s atmosphere conditions ,and the infamous red spot was also mentioned. Not forgetting to talk about Jupiter’s moons,Reshma from spoke in detail about the four Galilean moons, the largest moons of Jupiter- Io, Europa , Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter has 53 named moons, and 26 awaiting official names i.e. in total 79. Next, Karthik - spoke about a planet that is adorned with a dazzling system of icy rings; Saturn, a gas giant. The sixth planet from the sun and

is the second largest planet and is named after the Roman god of agriculture and wealth. Following this was, Lakshmi - who spoke about Saturn’s moons. It is home to a vast array of intriguing and unique worlds. From the haze – shrouded surface of the Titan, the largest moon which could possibly support life in its massive liquid water ocean to the crater riddled Phoebe. Each of Saturn’s 82 moons ( 53 named and 29 awaiting confirmation ) tells another piece of story surrounding the Saturn. We can’t get over Saturn without talking about its rings. Ajay spoke about Saturn’s most striking feature-its rings. Saturn had thousands of rings divided into four major ring groups named alphabetically in the order they were discovered. We had the participation of not only RIE students but also the faculties. Raman Sir and Santhosh Sir joined us in sky gazing and shared some valuable insights too. The objects we planned to gaze upon that included the moon,jupiter and its four moons,saturn and vega.Unfortunately,the weather was unpredictable and became all too cloudy and we were able to see only Saturn and Moon. We had active participation and the session was ended by the speculated time as planned.

 ISROyaan Date : 11 November 2019 Time : 6.30 PM – 8.00 PM Venue: T-16,T-Block The legacy of ISRO is something every Indian should know and be proud of. ISROyaan is literally the path of ISRO over the past 50 years. We planned to include main important aspects of ISRO into our event. We made use of the still models of satellites and the rocket,PSLV in the session.The session were divided into parts which consists of the main milestones of ISRO from its initial days to the present day, the main launch vehicles of ISRO, the famous scientists and astronauts related to india and space.and then the planned future missions of ISRO. S Mani presented about the milestones of ISRO, he spoke about how the initial days of ISRO was and how it grew to the current level with all the achievements and expertise it has. Ananyashree then spoke about the rocket launching vehicles that are currently and about to be in the arsenel of ISRO. Muhammad Bin Shakir ,explained and acquainted the audience with the eminent personalities in the history of space science in india like Kalpana Chawla,Rakesh sharma,Vikram Sarabhai,Tessy Thomas etc.The use of prezi to make the presentation interesting was indeed a clever move. The planned future missions of ISRO was presented by Reshma.She spoke how India is planning for a space station and how ISRO is intending to extend its features and acvhievements. The session ended within the speculated timelimit and a photo session was held with the still models.

 App,Website launching and Screening of ‘Apollo13’ Date : 12 November 2019 Time : 6.00 PM – 8.00 PM Venue: AV Hall,T-Block What makes something different? Uniqueness-the quality of being particularly remarkable. We the members of Cosmos Club on the 12th of November 2019 achieved another milestone by launching our very own unique android Application “ Cosmos “ along with our Website and You Tube channel. Before the launch, the movie ‘Apollo 13’ was screened. At around 6.15PM, The movie screening was started. Apollo 13 is the only Apollo mission by NASA,that took man to moon’s orbit and returned back to Earth without landing on Moon. The movie revolves around that particular lunar mission and the reasons for the events that happened onboard Apollo 13. The movie is based on reality and is sort of a documentary . After the movie,the App ,Website and YouTube channel was launched. Since the app and website were designed and made functional by Vaishnav Sankar and Ajayroshan Roy,they spoke about the various elements of those online platforms and the basic know-how of how to use them. Soon after, the links of the app and website was published in the official whatsapp group of the club. Before dispersing off, a quick moon gazing session was held nearby AV Hall ,in the quadrangle. The participants had a wonderful opportunity to view and take pics of the bright Full Moon. Moon craters were

observed ,especially the Fra Mauro crater which was supposed to be the landing site of Apollo 13 mission.  Screening of the movie “Clara” Date : 24 January 2020 Time : 6.30 PM – 8.00 PM Venue: AV Hall,T-Block We screened another “high concept” sci-fi movie on the evening of 12 November 2019. The movie “Clara” is a story of exoplanets, existential longing and more importantly Real Science. Clara's main themes, which are \"life's big questions\": the nature of existence, human purpose, and \"our need to connect with others.\"The film asks us to consider the infinite, \"but not before looking inward.\". To convey an idea or in particular,knowledge, we believe that stories and visualisations help a lot than inanimate lectures. That is exactly why we chose this movie. The movie speaks about science and spirituality and in it, they use real NASA instruments in this process, like TESS and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope and explains it vividly. We are really in a new, exciting age of planet-hunting right now. These are things that we as a human race can all agree on as amazing and inspiring—especially with astronomy. With Clara, we wanted to get the word out that, hey, we are actually looking for habitable planets around other stars right now—and maybe people who are immersed in other worldy things will then tune in to the next telescope launch or press conference announcing new results. It’s meant to be a celebration of science that brings audiences closer to that reality.

 Eclipses Date : 05 February 2020 Time : 6.30 PM – 8.00 PM Venue: T-16,T-Block There was a magnificent solar eclipse on December 26 of 2019 and a lunar eclipse on January 10 of 2020. Moreover, two more eclipses were about to occur in June 2020. So we thought its a perfect time to do a session on eclipses and explain it in detail so that the many blind believes and unfamiliarity regarding eclipses will be reduced to a great extend. On 5th February 2020, The Astronomy Club of RIEM - COSMOS held a session on the topic “Eclipses- it's an interesting stuff” at 6pm in T-16 classroom. And indeed it's an interesting stuff! The session consisted power-point presentation, discussions, demonstration using working models and doubt clearing session covering almost all the major topics under Eclipses like syzygy, why the sun and moon looks similar in size, phases of moon, lunar eclipse, solar eclipse and so on. This event was open to all and was dealt by our President of the club- Vaishnav Sankar K and Secretary - Muhammad Bin Shakhir. It was a wonderful ‘duo presentation’.The duo, with utmost enthusiasm and excitement presented about eclipses and how to view them safely. It also included a quick slide-show of the photographs of the eclipse that was on December 26th. We were able to conclude the session within the estimated duration and the participants were allowed to check out the working models. We are

indeed glad that we received good reviews and appreciation for our event.  Moon Watch Date : 09 March 2020 Time : 6.15 PM – 8.00 PM Venue: Playground,RIEM There was a Super Full Moon on 9th March 2020, taking full advantage of that opportunity we organised a sky gazing session named \"MOON WATCH\" at RIEM playground at 6.15 PM on that day. As this session was conducted in the vicinity of people (i.e playground unlike other session that takes place in RIEM quadrangle or classrooms), we were able to attract huge number of participants including athletes, teachers,staffs, parents, small kids along with the regular participants of our events . We used multiple telescopes to watch the sky and it's beauty. They distributed printed sky charts and introduced the participants to some sky gazing apps and helped them to locate stars in the sky and spoke about various constellations too. The session started by gazing at the beautiful and magnificent Super Full Moon. Then we saw different constellations like Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Taurus etc. We discussed about the brightest star in the sky \"Sirius\", \"Betelgeuse\",a star from Orion and certain other stars too. We then viewed Venus as well. We had discussion on how these stars becomes supernova when they die and about why we see only one side of the moon etc. The huge number of participants, the long queue during this session and all the fun and things we learned made it a memorable event. The happiness and

wonder on the face of small kids was amazing, when they watched the beautiful Moon through the telescope. Thanks to the core members of the Club,we were able to successfully conclude this event without any troubles .Had it not been their active management,managing the crowd and making the session an interesting and exciting one would have not been possible.  Parallax Date : 04 May 2020 Time : 6.15 PM – 8.00 PM Venue: Playground,RIEM World Astronomy Day was approaching and due to the Covid-19 the country was in a state of lockdown. We then thought of doing a completely online activity which everyone, connected through the internet can take part from anywhere. Ajayroshan Roy did a wonderful job in organising and successfully conducting this event. On May 4th, RIEM Cosmos conducted an online 'Treasure Hunt' competition named \"PARALLAX\". Amidst the boring lockdown, this online treasure hunt was a brainly break. On May 1st the teaser was launched on our official Instagram handle and our YouTube channel. Then on May 2nd, on account of the World Astronomy Day, the storyline of \"Parallax\" and its poster was launched and the registration for the competition started. The registration was open till 7.00 AM (IST) May 4th. A total of 124 people registered out of which 120 people participated in the hunt. At 6:55 AM (IST) on May 4th, the first Whatsapp broadcast was released to the registered participants and then reminders were given at regular intervals. At

exact 8' O clock the treasure hunt began with 120 hunters given the first clue -Alpha. There were 9 clues named after the Greek alphabets. 10 hours was the time limit of the treasure hunt i.e 8 AMto 6 PM (IST). At 3:33 PM, Akshay Simha of RIEM found the treasure and won the PARALLAX hunt. The first runner up is Aditya, NIT Thiruchirapalli and second runner up is Haashika Raj S from Ethiraj college, Chennai. Parallax reached many people in and out of RIEM and captured many hearts from in and around India. Not only people from all around India, but also people from outside India have participated in this event. The review from participants was overwhelming indeed. For the proper organising and smooth running of all the above mentioned club events,we spent Rs 2280 in total.{Rs 580 for the events,and Rs 1900 for the prizes we gave to the competition winners.} Summing up,I would like to mention that the year 2019-2020 has been really a wonderful and important year for the club. And the club aspires to reach greater heights and further development with its new events and better planning.