Mysuru will soon have a Cosmology Education and Research Training Centre (COSMOS) at the University of Mysore’s Sri Jayachamaraja Wadiyar Centre for Higher Learning campus at the foot of Chamundi Hills.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be laying the foundation stone for the COSMOS, which is coming up as part of a MoU between University of Mysore and Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, on March 6 in the presence of Minister for Higher Education C.N. Ashwath Narayan and Minister for C-operation and Mysuru district in-charge Minister S.T. Somashekar.
The proposed COSMOS, which will feature a planetarium, will also function as an education hub and conduct science education outreach and scientific activities for the students.
The Centre will come up on three acres of land.
COSMOS is supported under MPLADs funds of Ms. Sitharaman, the statement said while adding that Department of Science and Technology, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, Government of India, were also extending support to the project.
COSMOS will host India’s first planetarium with a Digistar 7 system and a Domex screen. “This unique real-time planetarium with a playback engine will make it an extremely power tool for education and training for students as well as teachers”, the statement said.
“The Digistar system will allow us to display real-time data from observatories to students within the dome. The project will organise regular teaching courses for school and college students, training on processing astronomical data, coding and hands-on experiments along with systematic documentation of astronomy heritage in Karnataka as well as South India”, the statement added.
COSMOS will also host summer and winter schools for students, besides holding sessions on teacher training and sky-watching, besides having collaborations with science groups from across the State.
