About
The Indo-Belgian bilateral project entitled “Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy and Astrophysics (BINA)” is being supported by the International Division of Department of Science and Technology (DST; Govt. of India) and the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO; Govt. of Belgium). The objective of BINA is to increase the interaction between Indian and Belgian astronomers by organizing workshops in India and Belgium. Such close meetings give unique opportunities to allow face to face discussions in order to strengthen on-going collaborations and to initiate new ones.
The BINA project also allows short visits of Indian scientists/technicians to Belgium and vice versa to discuss scientific and instrumentation projects for the new observing facilities at Devasthal observatory, namely the 3.6-m DOT and 4.0-m ILMT. The data collected with these telescopes unveil many key questions related to the cosmos such as the origin of the galaxies, the life-cycles of stars, the internal structure and evolution of stars, asteroseismology of pulsating stars, search and study of new exo-planets akin to Earth, probing the powerful and elusive black holes, search for the first stars and galaxies in the Universe, use of gravitational lenses to probe the structure of the most distant objects as well as to test cosmological models, etc.