Space jam: These rural astrolabs are helping students reach for the stars

In December, 12-year-old Kashish Parveen from Bijnor in UP saw the moon, sun and Venus through a telescope for the first time. “I had only seen these things on TV,” she says. “That we could see it so close, with our own eyes, made me really happy.”

Hari Raj, 15, a Class 8 student from Najibabad, UP, saw Jupiter, a planet he had only read about in his school textbook, “with my own eyes”. It looked just like it does in the pictures, he says.

The labs are part of an initiative launched by aspiring astrophysicist Aryan Mishra, 23, who grew up in a hutment in the Kusumpur Pahari slum in Delhi. His father Birbal Mishra has worked a range of jobs (security guard, vegetable vendor, newspaper vendor). His mother Shashi Mishra is a homemaker.

Then, on trips to his family’s village in Jaunpur, UP, his dreams of studying the skies acquired another layer. “I come from a humble background,” Mishra says. “But I realised early on that kids studying just 60 km away were not getting half the experiences I was getting. That is what gave me the idea to start something like the astrolabs.”

In 2018, he began pursuing the dream and launched Spark Astronomy, wooing investors and investing money he earned by speaking about astronomy as a passion and hobby, at paid events. The company set up scores of small labs in rural schools, but then folded over investor trouble.

He learnt from that experience and decided to try again.

In 2022, while studying for a graduate degree in physics from Ashoka University (he graduated earlier this year and is now applying to universities abroad, for a Masters in astrophysics), Mishra launched Astroscape, this time collaborating directly with gram panchayats and district administrations who commission him to set up the labs. Each lab costs about ₹2.5 lakh to set up and requires about 450 sq ft of space on school premises.

Though they’re referred to as astrolabs, and each one has its own 6-inch-aperture telescope, the spaces also house a range of other equipment and experimental models. There are models of the human body and the atomic structures of compounds; magnets; concave and convex lenses. Since power cuts are common, most of the equipment is chosen for its ability to run without electricity.

Mishra works with a team of two who help him set up the labs. He conducts training workshops for the teachers, on how to use the equipment.

Alumni of the JJ School of Art in Mumbai help decorate the interiors. This turned out to be a crucial element. There is always a collective gasp as children walk in for the first time. When Hari Raj first entered, “it was like stepping into space,” he says. The walls are painted the colour of the night sky, strewn with stars and colourful (if exaggerated) astronomical features such as planets, spiral galaxies and nebulae.

The astrolabs are for the village too. Teachers periodically hold a Khagol Ratri or Open-Sky Night, when anyone can look through the telescope. Each school is given a calendar of upcoming astronomical phenomena, so that these nights can be scheduled accordingly.

“I think the main purpose this lab serves is in explaining concepts and showing children how to learn by doing and observing,” says Sujata Kerketta, principal of the girls’ high school in Hazaribagh where Safina Parveen studies. “It has been useful in the three science subjects (physics, chemistry and biology), but most importantly, it is helpful in understanding the geography of space, the solar system and the universe.”

For Hari Raj, an aspiring mechanical engineer, it has opened up new worlds of possibility. “I love science,” he says. Before the lab, his teacher gave him access to some reference material kept in a cupboard at the school. “I’ve read Indumati Rao’s Learning Science – Part 1. I would read and try to remember things,” Raj says. “Once I stepped in here, everything I read felt a lot more real, and suddenly there was so much more to know.”