{"id":74714,"date":"2025-10-13T16:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T07:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/oct\/13\/astro-ambassadors-stargazers-himalayas-hanle-ladakh-india"},"modified":"2025-10-13T16:00:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T07:00:14","slug":"the-universe-has-opened-up-for-us-meet-the-astro-ambassadors-who-welcome-stargazers-to-the-himalayas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=74714","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The universe has opened up for us\u2019: meet the astro-ambassadors who welcome stargazers to the Himalayas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A tourism initiative in India\u2019s first dark sky reserve has brought new hope to a community as employment means they can stay close to their roots and culture<\/p>\n<p>The snow-flecked peaks surrounding the village of Hanle are bathed in golden light as the sun sets. In the valley, 28-year-old Tsering Dolkar secures a telescope to its tripod and focuses the lens beneath a clear sky.<\/p>\n<p>Zipped into warm jackets the visitors gather around Dolkar, gazing upwards as the sky darkens into a breathtaking tapestry of stars. She points toward a bright star in the western sky and announces: \u201cThat is Venus.\u201d Someone says excitedly: \u201cThere\u2019s the Milky Way!\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/oct\/13\/astro-ambassadors-stargazers-himalayas-hanle-ladakh-india\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A tourism initiative in India\u2019s first dark sky reserve has brought new hope to a community as employment means they can stay close to their roots and cultureThe snow-flecked peaks surrounding the village of Hanle are bathed in golden light as the sun s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[301,59,62,299,61,297,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-global-development","category-india","category-science","category-south-and-central-asia","category-space","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74715,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74714\/revisions\/74715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}