Anil Bhardwaj

Anil Bhardwaj

                                                                  

Anil Bhardwaj
Born	June 1, 1967 Mursan, Aligarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India
Residence	India
Nationality	Indian
Fields	Space and Planetary Science
Alma mater	Lucknow University Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Doctoral advisor	Prof. R. P. Singhal
Doctoral students	Marykutty Michael
Known for	Solar System X-ray Emission SARA/Chandrayaan-1 Indian Planetary Exploration Program
Notable awards	Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, 2007

       

Anil Bhardwaj is a senior scientist and the Head of the Planetary Science Branch of the Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ISRO, Trivandrum, India. He is the recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 2007. He was awarded NRC Senior Research Associteship by US National Academy of Science in 2003. He worked atMarshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, during January 2004 to October 2005. He was awarded fellowship grant by United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs, Vienna, Austria, in 1996. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi; and Indian Geophysical Union, Hyderabad. He was also awarded ISRO Team Excellence Award for Chandrayaan-1 Science and Mission in 2008. He is a member of International Astronomical Union. Currently, he is the member of INSA-ICSU Committee for COSPAR, SCOSTEP and URSI.

Academic and Research Achievements: Dr. Bhardwaj is a planetary mission experimenter, a multi-spectral (X-ray, ultraviolet, visible, radio wavelengths) observational researcher, and a theoretical modeler. His research activities are in areas of planetary atmospheres, ionospheres, and surfaces and their interaction and coupling with solar radiation, solar wind, and planetary magnetospheres. He has been the Principal Investigator (PI) of SARA (Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer) experiment on the first Indian Lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, which has revolutionized our understanding on the interaction of solar wind with the Moon through several new findings and discoveries. He is the PI of CHACE-2 (Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer) experiment on Chandrayaan-2 mission and of MENCA (Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer) experiment on the Mars Mission. He has also made several landmark contributions in the field of Solar System X-rays, including discovery of X-rays from the rings of Saturn, X-ray flares from Jupiter and Saturn, pulsating auroral X-ray hot-spot on Jupiter, and X-rays from Mars’ exosphere. He conducted the first GMRT observation of radio emission from Jupiter. His research findings have led to five Press Release by NASA and two Press Releases by European Space Agency. He has around 100 refereed publications and chapters in books including a Chapter in the “Encyclopedia of the Solar System”, and has edited 5 books. His research articles have made the cove page of American and European journals.