3–5 Nov 2021
Asia/Tehran timezone

Astronomy in Iran, an update, 2021

3 Nov 2021, 10:30
30m

Speaker

Prof. Yousef Sobouti (IASBS-Iran)

Description

What I present here today to this august body of audience is an update of what I have done in
2006 in the IAU Special Session for Astronomy in the developing world.
In spite of her renowned pivotal role in the development of astronomy on the world scale during
the 9th to 15th centuries, Iran’s rekindled interest in modern astronomy is a recent happening.
Since late 18th and early 19th centuries amateurs and philanthropists were promoting the
modern astronomy by their writings and translations of astronomical literature. Small telescopes
were available for watching the sky, if not for any scientifically planned project.
The University of Tehran (UT) is established in 1935. Celestial mechanics was taught in its
Mathematics Department. Solar physics and special theory of relativity were the regular courses
in the Physics Department. I myself learned the basics of the special theory of relativity in our
classical mechanics course and the rudiments of the Riemannian geometry and curved
spacetimes in my math physics courses.
A breakthrough in the introduction of space physics to the Iranian Society came with the
creation of the Geophysics Institute (GI) of UT in 1950's. A modest solar observatory equipped
with a small solar telescopes and appropriate H, IR, and UV filters was established. The late Dr.
Alinush Terian, a gracious Iranian Armenian lady Was in charge of the operation of the
observatory. In late 1950, with the sponsorship of Prof. H. Keshi Afshar, Director of GI, Iran
became a member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). In the early years, Dr. Terian
was representing Iran in IAU.
Serious attempts to introduce astronomy into university curricula and to develop it into a
respectable and worthwhile field of research began in the mid 1960’s. The pioneer was Shiraz
University which should be credited for the first few dozen of astronomy- and astrophysicsrelated
research papers in international journals, for training the first half a dozen of professional
astronomers and for creating the Biruni Observatory (BO). Here I take the opportunity to
acknowledge the valuable advice of Bob Koch and Ed Guinan of the University of Pennsylvania
in the course of the establishment of this observatory. The Observatory celebrated its 40th
anniversary in 2017. It is renovated under the directorship of Dr. Moin Musleh. Presently, BO is
the only operating astronomical observatory in the country.
At present the astronomical community of Iran including cosmologists consists of about 550
professionals, roughly half university faculty members and half MSc and PhD students.
According to the Web of Science, scientific contribution of its members in 2021 exceeded 4500
papers in reputable International journals. This is slightly lower than one percent of the scientific
contribution of Iran, ~48000 in 2020.
Among the existing observational facilities, Biruni Observatory with its 51cm Cassegrain, OCD
cameras, photometers and other smaller educational telescopes, is by far the most active place.
A number of smaller observing facilities exist in Tabriz, Meshed, Isfahan, Zanjan, Tehran, Babol
and other places.
In addition to the optical observatory, the first cosmic ray observatory was established by Jalal
Samimi in the 80s at the Sharif University of Technology (SUT). The observatory is working
based on plastic scintillators and Cherenkov radiation. More than 10 Ph.D. students finished
their thesis working with these instruments. Recently the University of Semnan also developed
its own astroparticle detectors.
The cosmology group of SUT is an internationally recognized research team. Initiated by R.
Mansouri and followed by his students, the group works mainly on structure formation and early
universe.
Also, since 2008 S. Rahvar of SUT and his students are collaborating with an international
observational project on exoplanet detection.
In the past 20 years, astronomers of Iran have staged an intensive campaign to have an Iran
National Observational (INO) of their own. The initial planning was for a 2-m class telescope
with CCD- based instrumentation. Thanks to Reza Mansouri of Sharif University the plan was
updated to 3.4 m Cassegrain. We hope to have its first light in about 10 months time. The
present Director of INO is Habib Khosroshi, PhD from IASBS-Zanjan. The site selection for INO
was done by an international team of advisor and a team of ... experts from the Institute for
Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences headed by S. Nasiri, PhD, Shiraz University.
The astronomical society of Iran (ASI), though some 45 years old, has expanded and
institutionalized its activities since 1990’s. ASI sets up seasonal schools for Novices, organizes
annual colloquia and seminars for professionals and supports a huge body of amateur
astronomers from among high schools and university students. Over 30 of 420 ASI members
are also members of IAU and take active part in its events.
Last but not the least, “Nojum”, the Farsi word for astronomy, is the only astronomical monthly
magazine of the Middle East. Nojum is founded by Reza Mansouri and a team of Nojum lovers
from among his circle. Nojum celebrated its thirtieth the last sprig.

Presentation materials