Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated COSMOS-Mysuru, India's first planetarium built with an LED dome, on the University of Mysore campus in Karnataka. The facility was developed by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, which sits at the foothills of Chamundi Hills overlooking the city.
The centrepiece is a 15-metre dome tilted at an angle and covered with about 6,150 LED panels, which together hold roughly 4.2 crore individual lights. Unlike projector-based planetariums, each LED can be controlled in real time, allowing the sky shown to the audience to be adjusted with greater flexibility. The Sky Theatre is set to present astronomy shows in Kannada, English and Hindi.
The inauguration drew several senior figures, including Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Karnataka Governor Sudha Yadav, Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and Mysuru-Kodagu BJP MP Yaduveer Wadiyar. Modi watched one of the shows and spent time with astronomers and scientists who had travelled from Ladakh.
Beyond the dome, the complex is planned to include exhibition halls, an astronomy museum, a lecture hall and a training centre. Outdoor interactive exhibits are also part of the plan, along with an in-house film tracing the history of astronomy in Mysuru. The aim is to support education and training in the field.
The institute says the planetarium complements its telescope operations across India and in space, and will help guide future facility development and national outreach programmes. For a country investing in astronomy education, the project offers a public window onto research that is otherwise carried out far from most classrooms.
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