A yellow-white dwarf star in the constellation Sextans, located 340 light years away, was named after an Indian woman – Bibha, which means “a light beam” and refers to Bibha Chowdhuri, a pioneering Indian scientist who was the first woman researcher-faculty at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1949.
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Bibha’s exoplanet was christened Santamasa, a Sanskrit word that means “clouded”, which refers to the nature of the exoplanet’s atmosphere. US space agency Nasa defines exoplanets as planets that orbit around stars outside our solar system. The names of the two astronomical bodies were announced by the Paris-based International Astronomical Union (IAU) along with the names of 111 sets of exoplanets and host stars. Bibha and Santamasa symbolise what the physical and lighting conditions of the HD 86081 system could be, according to astrophysicists.
