Congratulations to Mr. Kshitij Chavan, the recipient of the New Discovery Award for the year 2023.

Congratulations to Mr. Salil Mulye, the recipient of the New Discovery Award - Special mention for the year 2023.

1. About the award

The aim of this award, instituted by the Astronomical Society of India, is to motivate non-professional astronomers to make astronomy and astrophysics related discoveries. The award need not be given each year.

The award consists of a cash prize of Rs.10,000/- and a citation of honour.

The ASI Executive Council has decided that the the nominees will be non-professional astronomers such as amateur astronomers or students (excluding those pursuing PhD in Astronomy/Astrophysics and related areas).

2. Nomination Criteria

The nominees will be non-professional astronomers such as amateur astronomers or students (excluding those pursuing PhD in Astronomy/Astrophysics and related areas). The discovery could include any aspect of Astronomy and Astrophysics – observational, theoretical, work based on analytic, semi-analytic and numerical modelling etc. There is no age limit for this award.

3. Application

All nominations for the award must be received by the ASI, by the deadline as indicated on the website of the ASI. Nominations must be submitted via the online interface on the ASI website. Nominations can be made by professional astronomers or other eminent members of the ASI.

For the award year 2023, we should receive the nominations by 27th Nov 2023 (Extended deadline).

Nominations must include the following material:

  1. Name of Nominee
  2. Details of Nominee
    1. Affiliation
    2. Address
    3. email id
    4. Mobile phone number
  3. Nomination letter with signature and date
  4. A statement clearly outlining the merits of the work of the nominee
  5. A short biography and CV of the nominee
  6. Details of Proposer
    1. Name
    2. Designation and Affiliation
    3. Address for correspondence,
    4. Email id
    5. Phone number

Online form is closed.

4. Selection Process

A three/five member Award Selection Committee (ASC) is constituted by the ASI ensuring technical and gender representation. Each member of the ASC receives all nominations along with the supporting material. The ASC will communicate the result of its deliberations to the ASI council within three month following the submission deadline.

5.Announcement of the Award

The successful nominee will be informed of the decision of the ASI council and be asked to receive the award during the following ASI meeting.

The list of past awardees is as follows -

Year Awardee Discovery
2023 Mr. Kshitij Chavan A giant radio galaxy with three cycles of episodic jet activity" using the LOFAR Radio Survey data
2023 Mr. Salil Mulye Discoveries of the Sun grazing comets using the SOHO data
2020 Dr. Kanak Saha (IUCAA) and Team the detection of Lyman continuum emission from a z = 1.42 galaxy using AstroSat
2020 (Special mention) Kunal Deshmukh, Harsh Kumar and Kritti Sharma, a team of students from IIT Bombay Discovering multiple Near Earth Objects
2019 Not Awarded -
2018 Prof. Joydeep Bagchi and team Saraswati Supercluster
2011 Mr. Shishir Deshmukh comets using SOHO data
1996 R. Rajamohan (Leader), J. C. Bhattacharyya, K. Kuppuswamy, A. Paranjpye, V. Moorthy, R. Vasundhara Discovery related to asteroids