I am a space physicist working at the intersection of radio science, planetary science, space weather and data-driven research. I use spacecraft radio signals to study the solar corona, the solar wind, interplanetary plasma and planetary ionospheres. With observations from the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission, Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3, Akatsuki and Venus Express, I apply signal and time-series analysis to measure solar-wind speed, coronal electron density, plasma turbulence and the effects of space weather on planetary environments.
I submitted my PhD thesis, Exploring Space Weather and Its Effect on Planetary Atmospheres Using Radio Occultation, at IIT Indore in May 2026, supervised by Prof. Abhirup Datta and supported by the Prime Minister's Research Fellowship. I am now a student visitor at the Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (ISRO), Thiruvananthapuram.
Before that I built AI/ML and orbital-mechanics algorithms at ERETS Space London, and data pipelines for space-debris analysis at Armstrong Space Australia. That work pulled me towards space situational awareness, scientific software and making complex datasets easier to use.
| citations | h-index | publications | first-author papers | talks & posters | outreach videos |
| 🏅 Prime Minister's Research Fellowship | Ministry of Education, Government of India | Jul 2023 |
| 🏆 Early Career Researcher Award, best poster | 6th Indian Planetary Science Conference, IIT Roorkee | Mar 2025 |
| AGU Fall Meeting 2025, New Orleans | Dec 2025 | |
| 🛰️ ISpA Affiliate Member | Indian Space Association | Feb 2026 |
| Theme | What I do | Papers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☀️ | Solar wind and corona | Solar-wind speed and coronal density from the spectral broadening of spacecraft radio signals near solar conjunction (MOM S-band, Akatsuki X-band, across solar-activity levels). A turbulence-index-independent framework and a generalised Kolmogorov retrieval. | ApJ 2025 · MNRAS 2025 · MNRAS 2026 · ASR 2026 |
| 🌌 | Interplanetary medium | Separating the interplanetary contribution from planetary radio-occultation signals using Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3, Venus Express and Akatsuki data. | Icarus 2026 |
| 🌕 | Lunar plasma environment | Electron-density turbulence around the Moon from Chandrayaan-2 two-way radio science, comparing the solar wind with the terrestrial magnetotail. | JGR: Planets 2026 |
| 🪐 | Exoplanet atmospheres | Member of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community ERS team: first JWST spectra of WASP-39b (CO₂, CO, photochemical SO₂), WASP-18b and WASP-43b. | Nature 2023 · Nature 2023 · Nature 2024 · +6 more |
| 🔭 | Mission concepts | Co-author on three white papers for the 2024–2033 Heliophysics Decadal Survey, including the COMPLETE flagship concept. | BAAS 55(3) |
| Mission | Agency | Radio link | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mars Orbiter Mission | ISRO | S-band | Coronal radio sounding at solar conjunction |
| Akatsuki | JAXA | X-band, one-way | Solar-wind speed across solar-activity levels; interplanetary baseline |
| Chandrayaan-2 | ISRO | S-band, two-way | Lunar plasma turbulence; lunar occultations |
| Chandrayaan-3 | ISRO | S-band, two-way | Interplanetary fluctuations outside the lunar ionosphere |
| Venus Express (VeRa) | ESA | S/X-band, one-way | Interplanetary-only reference measurements |
| JWST | NASA / ESA / CSA | Infrared spectroscopy | Exoplanet transmission and emission spectra |
 Python · MIT · Windows, macOS, Linux DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23215291 |
 Python · MIT · Windows, macOS, Linux DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23322367 |
Python · MIT · Windows, macOS, Linux DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23329841 |
 Python · MIT · Windows, macOS, Linux DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23634486 |
Python · MIT · Windows, macOS, Linux DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23801369 |
Released code: RO-SPICE (radio-occultation geometry with NASA SPICE) · Akatsuki_open (Akatsuki open radio-science pre-processing) · Sun (MOM solar-wind speeds, ApJ 2025) · India Station Map (Indian state boundaries and observation stations from a CSV file)
Toolbox
- A study on the contribution of the interplanetary medium in radio occultation experiments, Icarus (2026). doi
- Plasma turbulence in the lunar environment across solar wind and magnetotail conditions: Observations from Chandrayaan-2 Radio Science experiment, JGR: Planets (2026). doi
- A turbulence index independent framework for deriving solar wind speed and coronal electron density from radio spectral broadening, MNRAS (2026). doi
- A generalized method for estimating solar wind speeds and densities using spectral broadening for a Kolmogorov turbulence spectrum, Advances in Space Research (2026). doi
- On the estimation of solar wind velocity under varying solar activity conditions using Akatsuki measurements, MNRAS (2025). doi
- Insights into solar wind flow speeds from the coronal radio occultation experiment: Findings from the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission, ApJ (2025). doi
➡️ Full list with search and filters: jovian-explorer.github.io/publications
| When | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 🎤 7th Indian Planetary Science Conference (IPSC 2026) | IIT Indore |
| Feb 2026 | 🎤 National Space Science Symposium (NSSS 2026) | Umiam, Shillong |
| Jan 2026 | 🖼️ ISRO–ESA Workshop | Thiruvananthapuram |
| Dec 2025 | 🖼️ AGU Fall Meeting 2025 · AGU Student Travel Grant | New Orleans, United States |
| Dec 2025 | 🖼️ The Variable Sun | Thiruvananthapuram |
| Sep 2025 | 🖼️ ASI Symposium 003, Astronomical Society of India | JECRC University, Jaipur |
🎤 talk · 🖼️ poster · all of them on the talks page
- Probing the solar wind with spacecraft radio occultation signals, EGU Blogs (Feb 2026)
- Insights into solar wind flow speeds from the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission, The Science Archive (Feb 2025)
- New breakthrough on solar wind unveiled by India's Mars Orbiter Mission, New Wave Particle (2025)
- 🔭 Outreach: public astronomy events, 31 videos and 12 classroom documents in English and Hindi, made with fellow students at IIT Indore
- 📺 YouTube: Jovian Explorer and ✍️ writing: video summaries of my papers, and articles on space missions on Medium
- 📷 Photos and travel: albums from conferences and trips, night-sky photographs, and maps of the places I have visited
jovian-explorer.github.io · CV
Numbers and lists refresh weekly from jovian-explorer.github.io. Citations from Google Scholar, Oct 2026.