Mumbai, August 7: Bindu Rani, a astrophysicist from India, is working with US space agency NASA. She works as an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. According to NASA, Bindu Rani is helping researchers study stars, planets beyond our solar system, and black holes billions of times more massive than our Sun. She studies supermassive black holes using both space-based and ground-based observations.

Rani joined Goddard Space Flight Center in 2016 through NASA’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program. She loves trying to understand the dynamics and nature of physical processes that happen in the vicinity of a black hole. Let's know who Bindu Rani is. Signs of Life Found on Mars? NASA Perseverance Rover Finds Rock Which Indicates Red Planet May Have Hosted Life Billions of Years Ago (Watch Video).

Who Is Bindu Rani?

Rani got a bachelor's degree in science from Government College Bahadurgarh in 2005. In 2007, she received her master's degree in physics from the Department of Physics and Astrophysics, Delhi University. "In 2013, I got a doctorate in astrophysics from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany. From 2014 to 2016, I was a post-doctoral fellow at Max Plank," she said in a recent interview published on NASA's website. Cosmic Penguin and Egg: NASA’s James Webb Telescope Share Stunning Images of Merging Galaxies To Mark the JWST’s Second Anniversary of Operations.

From 2020 to 2022, Rani worked at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute in South Korea as a staff scientist. She returned to Goddard as the Swift Guest Investigator Program lead scientist in 2022. She likes to run and practice yoga. She enjoys reading books in Hindi, by an Indian author called Munshi Prem Chand, who wrote about social fiction.

Why Did Bindu Chose Astrophysics? What Drives Her?

"When I was doing my master’s, I got interested in black holes and neutron stars. I was so fascinated that I decided to pursue this field," Rani said. After having lived in India, South Korea, Germany, and now the US, she credits her parents as her inspiration and said: "Most of my inspiration comes from my own curiosity and from the fact that I am very determined. My family is my true inspiration, especially my parents."

What Does Bindu Do at Swift Guest Investigator Program?

As a lead of the programme, Bindu Rani's work entails managing the proposals, staffing the program, conducting reviews, and supporting the users. She said: "Swift is an amazing mission because it provides X-rays and ultraviolet to optical observations of all different kinds of astronomical objects. Our work is super interesting which itself is motivating."

Swift observes radiation from many black holes which are laser-like beams of lights with its telescopes. Rani said the most exciting discovery during her work was when the brightest gamma-ray burst (BOAT GRB) was jointly discovered by Swift and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on Oct. 9, 2022.

What Is Bindu Rani’s Vision?

On her journey to Goddard, Bindu said, "I am a girl who came from a small village in India and am now at Goddard." and that her "big dream" is to be an astronaut, which she became interested in while pursuing her Masters.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 07, 2024 07:31 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).