Zee Jaipur Lit Fest 2019 Stories

Mapping the Heavens

Mapping the Heavens

Priyamvada Natarajan introduced by Veena Venugopal

By Arinnya Mukherjee, Official ZEE Jaipur Literature Blogger

Magic happens around us all the time. Some we get to witness and be amazed by, and some we don't. Whether or not we participate in it, some invisible magical phenomenon keeps repeating across the universe.

Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan, Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University, delivered a mesmerising session at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, on her book, Mapping The Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal The Cosmos.

Simplifying the advancements made in the field of cosmology, from pre-Copernican geocentricism to the twenty-first century, she ensured the audience was left enriched and in awe. She unravelled some of the interstellar magic that usually goes unnoticed, but is actually responsible for holding the entire universe together, and galaxies to their respective particular paths. Dr. Natarajan emphasised, "how significant we are and how insignificant we are in the cosmos," considering the marvels that are constantly happening, and the fact that the universe does not fall apart.

The discovery of 'Dark Matter' in 1998, according to Dr Natarajan, brought clarity to the earlier concept about 'ether' being a medium through which light travels. The discovery of 'Dark Matter', Dr. Natarajan said, shed new light sotospeak, as to how "any matter creates a pothole in space time".

Because of all these potholes, light from distant galaxies gets deflected, thus creating diffraction patterns for light in transit, in a process called 'Gravitational Lensing'. This causes problems for astrophysicists on Earth, as there could be multiple images of the same galaxy because of dark matter. Dr. Natarajan pointed out that "we never see the universe as it is but as it was," because of the constant expansion of space-time, which results in light having to travel longer in non-linear directions through space.

Dr. Natarajan took the audience on a vivid intergalactic journey, utilizing beautiful visual imagery of stars and galaxies. She emphasised the importance of humility in all scientific exploration. In reference to dark particles and 'Black Holes', which physicists have now been forced to accept, "we don't know what this is, we don't know what it is made of". She said she is looking forward to her future with NASA, working with the team behind LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), a satellite observatory that aims to detect gravitational waves emanating from cosmic collisions in deep space.

The future is full of possibilities that are yet beyond our reach but the pace of progress has already been enormous. A magician's hat can render an audience into a state of wonder, but the rabbit that comes out of it doesn't understand what's going on. Similarly, the heavens are full of objects that are blissfully unaware of the magic they cast on us, but magicians like Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan are there to make us collectively gasp in amazement.