Introduction:
@theastrogeekcomics: "Hello! I hope you are reading this from a safe space. I am the creator and owner of the The Astrogeek Comics.
I have a bachelors of Science (honors) degree in physics from the University of Calcutta, India. I have always been interested in space, striving to learn the secrets it holds. I spent the last two years as an astronomy educator and science communicator.
A passion I strongly have is the urge to spread astronomy education and awareness amongst all and make it more accessible and understandable. The Astrogeek Comics is the fruit of the above passion. A way to make astronomy more fun and easy for everyone alike. Astronomy education is still not so prevalent in the Indian Education System, and I am trying to fill that gap through my comics and videos. My love for science and art is quite clear. I also love reading non fiction to keep learning, but also derail to fiction once in a while. If you want to read something to start astronomy with, read Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Also, my favourite word is ‘Qualia’, and I truly hope you read about it. To give you an essence of this word, a red apple for me isn’t the same as the red apple for you."
A comic made by @theastrogeekcomics featured in the #JWSTART initiative started by Nasa Webb team to explain the working and objectives of the James Webb Space Telescope.
What is your story in pursuing astronomy?
Well, I was born in Dehradun, a small town in northern India. The skies here have always been free of much light pollution compared to cities. My mother had the habit of stargazing as a kid, and I grew up doing the same with her.
We spent nights making our own constellation in stars, and I struggled seeing the face of the lady on the Moon. We often used to confuse passing satellites as shooting stars due to lack of knowledge. While she didn’t pursue the subject professionally, I had my mind set since childhood to spend my life understanding the cosmos. All this love and fascination of the Universe, I credit to my mother.
She gifted me my first telescope, a 50mm refractor just before I graduated school, and then I pursued Physics honours as my Bachelors, where I took my understanding of the Universe ahead. I bought my second telescope in my first year of college, an 80 mm refractor. As of today, I still look up as the very same curious and excited kid.
Why combine art with astronomy?
Art has always been my stress buster. Even in the school days, when most of my classmates passed the subject as something of a free time, I always tried to impress my art teacher. I am kinda a sucker for praise.
I am self-taught in art, and every now and then when life gets too hectic, I try to take a step back and sketch; I mostly sketched as a kid since I am a terrible painter.
Due to quarantine I got some free time in my hand, and my close friends started motivating me to start an astronomy education related initiative to share my fascination. And while planning for the same I realized that art gives any topic a less complex, more insightful, easy-to-comprehend, and non academic appearance, which makes astronomy fun and easy even for people from non-science backgrounds who don’t actively look for ‘boring’ complex science on social media.
Sciart, a term I learned after this initiative, enabled me to combine two of my favourite things together.
What is the best fact you learned in astronomy? Why?
Ah, now that is a tough one honestly. There are so many to choose from, so if I am allowed I will go for two. These are the ones in my mind right now:
I will begin with a sadder fact: since there will come a time when all the hydrogen is used up by stars and no new stars will form; the existing stars will all burn up, collapse, and slowly cool away to the lowest state possible. The last black holes evaporate, and as the Universe keeps expanding, taking the stars and galaxies away from us. There will come a time when we will have no stars in the sky. The nearest star will be so far that we won’t see it even if it explodes into a supernova. And as all of these stars die, so will the Universe in the sense that nothing will happen. It's calculated to happen in 10^32000 years. But much before that, with no stars in the sky to see, people will know nothing of the amazing science of astronomy. We are living in a golden age to study the Universe.
The second fact I choose to share is a very well understood one, and of common knowledge, but nevertheless makes me think of all things philosophical when I stargaze. Light, though fastest, takes some definite time to travel between two points. So the light reaching us from all the stars and galaxies left them a few couple years to a billion years old. And when we look up we are looking back at the past, and travelling in time.
What has been a seminal experience for your science-art passion project? Why?
One of the best things to happen is being validated by groups and individuals I look up to. It was very motivating for me when Seti Institute followed me back (they are looking for Aliens! And is the result of efforts by people including Carl Sagan, one of my favourite science communicators), followed by my posts being shared by Asteroid Day and Nasa Webb.
These small victories had encouraged me to start making videos on youtube to explain deeper concepts, and collaborate with other science communicators. This actually opened doors for me to some upcoming collaborations I am excited about and hope they work out. I definitely cannot ignore the unexpected response I received online for the project, through comments and dms on a scale I didn’t expect so soon.
Given your love for science and illustration, what is your career goal? What is your goal for your passion project?
One thing I always have in my bucket list is to complete my professional education by successfully pursuing my masters and Ph.D. I am not so great when you put me under the clock in a test situation which makes me so anxious that I hardly perform well in my exams.
So while that is something I am working on, I have set my mind to educate myself in astrophysics by myself if needed. In the same respect, I plan to make my passion project The Astrogeek Comics into my means of earning through youtube and merchandise.
I have discovered through my two years as an astronomy educator and communicator that I do have a knack for science communication and I aim to put that to good use. I am very passionate about educating people about this amazing subject, and I love talking about it endlessly. So even if I may not be able to get a higher degree, I plan to work on my knowledge and find ways to share it.
In terms of art, I am planning to soon sell tees, posters, and similar art based on astronomy comics. This will help me be a full time astronomy educator and communicator, and dedicate myself completely towards my passion for talking about stars.
What are some major obstacles you encountered working on your passion project?
The first step is the hardest: It took a lot of planning to come up with an idea behind the passion project.
I guess the obstacles have just been a gap to learning something new and finding the best way to communicate to an audience. I learned how to make these ‘whiteboard’ videos I post on youtube. These take a lot of time and planning. Using the right way to illustrate something, make it humorous while also educational. I am still learning. There are other artists and science communicators I follow whose way of art inspires me, but I have to be careful to maintain my way and not copy.
Somedays you just don’t know what to post. The biggest obstacle now, after having taken the first step, is managing time and making sure I deliver effective science. One of my senior colleagues told me this really nice thing once: that an obstacle is an opportunity to learn and build your skillset and hence your value.
By @theastrogeekcomics: We all love Pluto. This comic was an effort to make sure we understand why it’s not a planet and also clear out misconceptions about it being destroyed by a black hole-- a theory I was introduced to by one of my students.
How has your passion project benefited your life?
It has done a lot of good things. Firstly, I learn, which is a huge benefit.
I have this weekly post called ‘Astronomy Last Week’ through which I as a communicator I am myself aware of the latest happenings. Before posting a comic, or a video, I do some research, and read from multiple scientific sources to make sure I deliver the right thing, and that helps me reaffirm and check my understanding of the subject.
Even though I might know certain information already, reading about it still makes me come across something new.
Another thing is that I have gotten connected to many amazing people. Artists, science communicators, students, and curious humans, with whom I have made good friends, talked about collaborations, or been inspired by their own brainchild projects.
This healthy network keeps feeding me with trivia from other fields like medicine, micro biology, psychology, art, and other subjects. I am a sucker for non fiction. If it wasn't for astronomy, I would have pursued psychology or neuroscience, and all these other science communicators help me learn more.
The last but important thing is I am happier. I feel I am doing something useful for both my audience and myself. Also, it helps me build a name and value for myself as an individual and science communicator. Something that can in the long run help me pursue this professionally as a science journalist, or educator. Whenever someone drops a nice comment or message, it validates the hard work. I hope my future projects under this umbrella of The Astrogeek Comics receive the same love.
By @theastrogeekcomics: One of my favourite things about my passion project is #QuoteInPictures, where I try to represent a quote, or its essence, through a simple picture.
What advice would you give to any STEM student?
This is hard. I am still in the stages of learning, so I will just share something I learned since the last two years which was very important for me and where I am today.
I have always been someone who likes planning ahead of time. Atleast to the best I can, I want to make certain I have control over things that happen. I had always planned it like this: Bachelors in Physics , then going right for Masters in Physics and Astrophysics, and then pursuing a doctorate in the same.
No breaks, no failures. I studied hard, and seriously. I have already mentioned my problem with exam anxiety. I wasn’t a topper in my undergraduate but I did well, and passed, but when I appeared for entrances for the Masters course in the universities I was eligible for, I failed. I failed to get into universities I was so certain about that I was considering them as a fall back option.
I hadn’t for once thought of the possibility of not getting into any. I still don’t know how I had miscalculated or what I did wrong. It was my biggest low till now, I was hit hard, and bad. I was extremely depressed. Out of a sudden, I didn’t know what to do. All this time everything was planned, here I was stuck with something I didn't imagine and didn't prepare for mentally or emotionally. I was so depressed I was convinced I am no good for the subject of Astronomy and overestimated myself. I even decided to stay away from home to avoid eyes of judgement (which there were none but only in my imagination).
I moved to New Delhi and took up a job as an astronomy educator. This was just supposed to be a year long ‘break’ so I could apply again. I already knew Astronomy to a good bit by self educating myself. But two years since then up to my last month in the job, I experienced and learned things which I wouldn't have otherwise. I learned science communication and teaching, it's one thing to know something and completely another to explain it to someone. I met students who idealised me. I saw amazing meteor showers, eclipses, did deep sky observations and learned new skills, and if it wasn’t for failure, I wouldn’t have this passion project of mine.
Astronomy for me has been mostly self taught, but science communication is something I learned with my last two years experience, and today I can say I am not sad about it. I have left the job now to prepare again for masters, but nevertheless, I am reading and studying academic texts myself to learn. While nothing can substitute formal education, I believe something is better than nothing at all.
So for my advice, if you fail, it's totally okay, take time to get up, and use the time in hand to build your skills and learn new things, and try again. Keep trying to achieve your set goals, but while you are doing so, make sure you work on your own education too. Teach yourself as much as you can, and learn to grow through the resources you have. It’s okay to change plans based on new experiences, and it's okay to fall, get up and try a new route towards the same goal. All the best!
By @theastrogeekcomics: This comic was for one of my favourite news related to Luna. Something that made me very hopeful for the future of exploration, and also eager to share with others.
Interviewer's Takeaway:
The reason this interview was so inspiring is the vulnerability of the interviewee.
Vulnerability isn't always a bad thing; it shows the humanity and relatability of a person, and makes that person much more inspiring when they achieve success. One of the inevitable events of life is failure; despite that, people often find themselves wallowing up in self-pity in these situations, thinking that they're alone.
@theastrogeekcomics has experienced failures in the past, but he eventually brushed off the sadness and adjusted his path from experience. Through this, he discovered the endless possibilities that STEM fields entail, winning seemingly small victories here and there until they ultimately cumulate and portray a star-like reputation.
So, failure really isn't the end of the world. Do not be discouraged by failures; once you become discouraged, so many opportunities fly past you head because you are too focused on the past. Change your mindset; be optimistic, and your world will be a better place.
Thank you @theastrogeekcomics for this amazing interview! Please check out and support his:
Website: www.theastrogeekcomics.com
Youtube: The Astrogeek Comics (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfLd-w56SgnFOUiw2njD68w)
Instagram: www.instagram.com/theastrogeekcomics/
Twitter: @AstrogeekComics
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