India's 1st Space Museum to Open in Kolkata in January

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Next year i.e. 2022 will be the 75th year of India's independence and on this occasion of platinum jubilee of India's Independence, the country's first space museum is being launched in Kolkata. The first of its kind space-based museum will open its doors for the general public in January, next year. The museum could have been launched by the end of this year but the work of the same was occasionally halted due to the Covid situation.

The space museum is being built on one floor of a 5-storey building being constructed on a part of  Indian Centre for Space Physics (ICSP) 's 36,000-square-foot land on the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, a stone's throw from the Jyotirindra Nandi metro station. Indian Centre for Space Physics (ICSP) is an Indian non-profit research organisation dedicated to carrying out advanced research in astronomy, astrophysics and space science. It is a sister institute of the University of Calcutta.

The West Bengal government has provided Rs 4 million for the construction of the museum land and its infrastructure.

Earlier in late last month, the government has announced that it will be setting up Science Museums across the country to promote scientific temper, particularly among children and the younger generation. 

Speaking to Anandabazar Online, Sandeep Chakraborty, a professor of astronomy at the Indian Center for Space Physics (ICSP) in Kolkata, said that he has spent part of his earnings and savings to build the first space museum in India to procure rare, precious parts of the body of the moon, rare rocks of Mars and various asteroids scattered around the earth at different times.

The upcoming space museum in Kolkata will be full of space objects. Sandeep has mentioned a few special ones in his collection. One of them is a part of the rock of Mars, which crashed in 2016 in North-West Africa. Sandeep collected the part weighing 5.6 grams of that rock. One of the components is oxides of iron and titanium. 

The museum also houses a huge meteorite that struck 50,000 years ago in the Arizona desert of America. The meteorite struck a huge hole in the Arizona.

The museum also houses the rock fragments of the moon that hit Mali in Africa in 2016. Weighing 111 grams, the moon rock's body is made of materials like iron, nickel, aluminum.

Recently, in an addition to museums in the country, state government of Meghalaya is planning to set up a Museum on Climate Change to sensitize people and to inspire action on the climate crisis through this museum.

News Source - anandabazar.com

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