The Astronomy Resource Center (ARC) has been established at IST to provide scientific data on possibility of moon-sighting in various parts of the country on a regular basis and to share information regarding significant astronomical events like solar and lunar eclipse etc. with the public.

IST’s Space Science department is involved in research in various domains of astronomy and astrophysics. These include the following.

Astrophysical Plasmas: Ionosphere, Solar coronal reheating, galactic magnetic fields, astrophysical jets
Galaxy and black hole mergers: N-body simulations, gravitational waves from supermassive black holes
High energy astronomy and astrophysics: Gamma-ray bursts, Active Galactic Nuclei, Atmospheric showers, Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes
Gravitational wave data analysis: Bayesian inference, Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms, spatial and geostatistics
Extra solar planets and binary stars: Contact binaries, semi-detached binaries, photometry
Spacecraft environmental interaction: Spacecraft charging, astrophysical dusty plasma
Experimental plasma techniques: Plasma thruster, experimental plasma technique, electron cyclotron emission

Researchers at IST are also member of the future gravitational wave detector LISA consortium.

The IST observatory has 10 and 16 inches telescopes used for carrying out observations of various astronomical objects, as well as teaching and demonstration purposes. The observatory also arranges observations of the Moon, planets and other astronomical objects and carries out public outreach activities.