BANGALORE: Announcing that a Mars programme at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium would come up by the end of the year as an addition to the Venus and Moon programmes currently running, Prof UR Rao, former ISRO Chairman on Tuesday said that people in the country need to put their faith in science instead of fields like astrology.
“Despite major contributions by Indians in space science, even today radio and TV channels broadcast hour long programmes on astrology,” said Prof Rao while lamenting the lack of interest in science amongst the masses who would rather pin their hopes on astrology. “We can never become a great scientific nation this way,” he said. Prof Rao was speaking at the launch of a new programme at the planetarium called ‘Venus Transit- a Small Eclipse’.
The programme inaugurated on Tuesday begins with an explanation of the constellations and the movement of planets through them. It takes the viewer on an imaginary journey to Venus and back, thus explaining the transit. The importance of observing the transit of Venus and its importance in the determination of the astronomical unit is also explained in the programme with animations and graphics.
The transit of Venus can be witnessed in the city early morning of June 6. This transit will be the last of its kind in this century. Transit of Venus occurs as a result of Venus aligning with the sun and earth and appearing as a black spot passing on the face of the sun.