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Ananda Hota (born 1 April 1975) is an Indian astronomer and educator whose work includes citizen-science research in astronomy.[1] He is a University Grant Commission faculty member at the UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (CEBS), Mumbai, and the founder of the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory, a citizen-science research initiative in India.
Hota was born and raised in Sonepur (Subarnapur) in the western part of Odisha state of India. He completed his B.Sc. (Hons.) in Physics in 1995 from Sonepur College, Sambalpur University, and went on to earn an M.Sc. in Physics from Sambalpur University in 1997. He obtained his Ph.D. in physics (Astronomy & Astrophysics) in 2007 from the Joint Astronomy Programme of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in collaboration with the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, TIFR, Pune. His PhD thesis, titled "A radio study of gas loss processes in nearby galaxies", was conducted under the guidance of Dr D. J. Saikia.[2] He has used both radio continuum imaging and HI 21cm line observations, using both GMRT and VLA radio telescopes, to investigate the physical processes behind galaxy evolution like AGN-feedback and ram pressure stripping.
Career
After completing postdoctoral work (including a five-year fellowship at Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Taipei) and short stints at NCRA and IUCAA, Hota joined UM-DAE CEBS in December 2012 as a faculty member. He has been involved in teaching astronomy and astrophysics to M.Sc. level students, mentoring them for MSc projects, organising astronomy workshops, and guiding PhD students.
Hota's research focuses on multi-wavelength observational studies of black hole–galaxy co-evolution, active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback, starburst and Seyfert galaxies, radio galaxies, ram pressure stripping in cluster galaxies and galaxy evolution.[1][3][4] His research uses radio observations to investigate the interaction between radio jets, produced by accretion onto supermassive black holes, and the cold gas in galaxies, and how this interaction influences star formation over time. Radio data are used to estimate the age of the plasma in the jets, while observations at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths are employed to study the star formation histories of the host galaxies.[5]
Speca Discovery: One of his important publications, leading an international team of astronomers, was the discovery of an episodic radio galaxy hosted by a spiral (disk) galaxy named Speca. Earlier understanding was that almost all hosts of radio galaxies are ellipticals. Speca discovery firmly established that the host of a radio galaxy can also be a spiral/disk galaxy. This suggested that a major galaxy merger is not always needed but a passive evolution can also grow a galaxy and its central supermassive black hole to be capable of launching multiple episodes of radio jets up to million light years long. This finding was published in the Letters of the leading international journal MNRAS.[6] Immediately this discovery was press-released by the Royal Astronomical Society of UK (as MNRAS is the publisher), NRAO of USA ( as VLA data was used),[7] and NCRA-TIFR of India (as GMRT data was used).[8] Since then the field has significantly grown and by now over three dozen such Speca-like spiral-host radio galaxies are known (see the List of spiral DRAGNs). Soon after this discovery, in 2012, he returned India to initiate citizen science research in astronomy using the GMRT radio telescope.
In 2013, Hota founded the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory, a citizen-science research platform in astronomy based in India. The collaboratory trains science-educated citizens and University-students (referred to as “e-astronomers” or “i-astronomers”) across India, enabling them to contribute to research using publicly available astronomy data, including follow up observations with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT).[9] Under his leadership, RAD@home has trained participants, helped them discover radio sources and become co-authors in peer-reviewed international research publications.[10] RAD@home has conducted citizen-science research workshops in collaboration with several research and educational institutions in India.[11][12]
ORC Discovery: Dr Hota led the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory team that discovered RAD J131346.9+500320, the most distant and most powerful odd radio circle known to date, as reported by national and international press. [20] According to NDTV and The Indian Express, Hota described the ORC as providing new insights into galaxy and black hole co-evolution (through AGN feedback). The real origin of ORCs is still a puzzle. It was proposed in their paper that bipolar superwinds, from a Speca-like spiral-host radio galaxy, expanding in to the large relic radio lobes may be able to form twin ORCs. His work appears in a 2025 paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a leading astronomy research journal.[21] This was also the first ORC discovered through citizen science process.[22][23][24][25]
Recognition to RAD@home: Hota has appeared in various discussion forums and media reports on citizen-science in astronomy research. Nature Index, independent scientific media, spoke to him for highlighting success stories of RAD@home and two other leaders Muki Haklay of University college London for Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) and Graham Edgar of University of Tasmania for Christmas Bird Count.[26] RAD@home and Radio Galaxy Zoo-LOFAR, two citizen science projects in radio astronomy, have been mentioned as a preparation of the international community in the key document "SKA Phase-1 Construction Proposal ".[27] During the 3rd Shaw-IAU meeting, in the citizen science session, he was invited to speak and participate in the panel discussion along with Marc Kuchner representing NASA, Molly Simon of Zooniverse and Masayuki Tanaka of Galaxy Cruise (Japan).[28] His opinions has also been considered for making future policies for citizen science research in India through multi-stake holder round table discussions as conducted by the Department of Science and Technology Centre for Policy Research of the Indian Institute of Science.[29] RAD@home also featured in the Mega Science Vision 2035 (astronomy and astrophysics) initiated by the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt. of India.[30] Some of his notable research publications, both with and without citizen science, follows.
Selected Publications and related Press Releases
The spiral-host episodic radio galaxy named "Speca".
Hota, A. et al., 2011, "Discovery of a spiral-host episodic radio galaxy" named Speca[6][7][8]
Hota, A. et al., 2012, "NGC 3801 caught in the act: a post-merger star-forming early-type galaxy with AGN—jet feedback"[5][31][32][33][34]
Ohyama, Y. & Hota, A. 2013 "Discovery of a possibly single blue supergiant star in the intra-cluster region of Virgo cluster of galaxies" farthest star SDSS J1229+1122[35][36][37]
Hota, A. et al. 2022 "RAD@home citizen science discovery of an active galactic nucleus spewing a large unipolar radio bubble on to its merging companion galaxy"[13][14][38][15][16][17][18][19]
↑Hota, Ananda; Dabhade, Pratik; Machado, Prasun; Kumar, Avinash; Avinash, Ck.; Manaswini, Ninisha; Das, Joydeep; Sethi, Sagar; Sahoo, Sumanta; Dubal, Shilpa; Bhoga, Sai Arun Dharmik; Navaneeth, P. K.; Konar, Chiranjib; Pal, Sabyasachi; Vaddi, Sravani (2025). "Ten Years of Searching for Relics of AGN Jet Feedback Through RAD@home Citizen Science". In Ghosh, Shubhrangshu; Rao, A. R. (eds.). The Relativistic Universe: From Classical to Quantum. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings. Vol.61. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. pp.293–306. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-90186-7_23. ISBN978-3-031-90186-7.
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