Winding back the clock 20 years ago, as a child, she was starstruck by nature’s dazzling sky in her small village. On July 22, 2019 (Monday) when ISRO launched the biggest space mission, Chandrayaan-2- she was blissfully pleased as punch after seeing it on TV.
Yes, it was a dream come true moment for Megha Bhatt, a young scientist from Ahmedabad who is deeply connected to the mission. The Hindi-medium girl is now a renowned lunar scientist. It is a great moment of pride for the government-run Hindi-medium Kymore Higher Secondary School where she pursued her studies.
Megha’s Physics teacher recalls that she is a class apart from most other students in the class. The teacher said Megha always showed a deep interest in space science.
“It was quite extraordinary in those days for a child in a small village to talk about space with her teachers. All the models, projects and essays she would make and write reflected her passion for space,” recalls Nema.
In an exclusive interview to SheThePeople.TV, lunar scientist Dr. Megha Bhatt spoke about her research and the importance of Chandrayaan 2.
A scientist working in the Planetary Sciences Division at Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad spoke about her contribution to the space mission which will come into play after the complete data from Chandrayaan-2 is available to the scientists.
“It takes some time because the data-set has to be cross-calibrated and validated before providing it to the scientific community,” she added.
In fact, this is the first time India will send a lunar lander to the surface conveying a six-wheeled roving robot—a lunar probe, an achievement that has only been made by the US, Russia and China earlier.
She was an unexpected entrant into the world of scientific research, but her profound interest in space steered her scientific journey to explore the universe.
She specified that her family is her backbone to her progress in her scientific career. Talking about her parents, she said that even during her childhood days, her parents motivated her and her siblings’ passion for whatever they wished to do in their career.
“In our home, my parents always stressed on education, as my mother was a teacher and father an instructor in a cement firm, and they had faced a lot of struggles.
My mother’s parents, in fact, let her study Microbiology in a city far off from their village, as in those days only one college in entire Gujarat offered the course. My grandparents sent my mother to live in a hostel to study. Similarly, my parents wanted us to do better than them,” she added.
“I think the reason I could reach up to this level was because I have always been very dedicated and sincere. I knew that if a person with a brilliant mind can solve a question in about two hours, probably I would need three hours for the same. But I have always been ready to put in as many hours as required,” she narrated the story of her progress.