‘The universe has opened up for us’: meet the astro-ambassadors who welcome stargazers to the Himalayas

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. 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: “That is Venus.” Someone says excitedly: “There’s the Milky Way!” At 4,500 metres above sea level, remote Hanle in Ladakh offers some of the clearest night skies on Earth and became India’s first dark sky reserve in 2022. Dolkar is among 25 villagers – 18 of them women – trained as astronomy ambassadors to boost Hanle’s tourism and offer livelihoods to villagers. The programme is also aimed at safeguarding the conditions essential for the nearby Indian Astronomical Observatory by raising awareness of light pollution. Tourists pay about £1.70 a person to stargaze, guided by Dolkar and her fellow ambassadors, most of whom also host visitors in their homes. “They are the interlocutors between the sky and the tourists,” says Niruj Mohan Ramanujam, outreach head at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, the main research partner at the observatory. Since the 2-metre Himalayan Chandra telescope was installed by the institute in 2000, three more telescopes have been added on the mountain peak of Digpa-ratsa Ri or in its foothills, transforming Hanle into a world-class astronomy hub, and giving formerly nomadic communities a reason to settle permanently. After the government designated the area around Hanle’s six hamlets as a dark sky reserve, officials instigated a project to involve the community in the management of the reserve so they could share in its benefits. The ambassadors, receive a week’s training and are given access to telescopes. The astro-tourism initiative draws thousands of visitors, and homestays have expanded from a handful to 70, reviving the local economy and luring back those who had left for city jobs. In 2023, Dolkar turned her single-storey five-bedroom house into a homestay for tourists, charging about £17 a night for each person, with home-cooked meals of lentils, vegetables and rice. “During the day, I cook meals and clean the homestay, and then until midnight, I help tourists with stargazing and deep-sky exploration using my telescope,” says Dolkar. On an average day, 20 tourists come for stargazing, but on busy days, she has had more than 50. Padma Chamchot, 25, says her role as an astro-ambassador has opened up opportunities for women like her. “I am a college graduate, and my only options were to wait for a government job – which is difficult to get – or move to a city,” she says. Chamchot now earns more in a week than she could in a month working in a city as an assistant at a travel agency, even with an annual five-month hiatus in tourism when snow closes roads to the outside world. “This is a dream job: I learn about the stars every day, support myself and my parents, and meet tourists from around the world – all while staying connected to my roots and promoting my culture,” she says. “By becoming an astro-ambassador, the universe has truly opened up for us.” The initiative is also preserving Ladakhi culture. “Our elders relied on stars for timekeeping and navigation while traversing grazing fields with their herds, but we had completely lost touch with the skies over time,” says Kesang Dorjey, a former observatory labourer who has become one of Hanle’s leading astronomy ambassadors. “This programme has transformed our lives. It provides respectful, decent income while reconnecting us with science and our heritage.” The astro-ambassadors turned to their elders to record stories. “We’re finding striking parallels between scientific findings and our elders’ constellation knowledge,” says Dolkar. “One elder taught me to watch for certain stars as harbingers of summer planting. Now I’ve learned that this pattern is called the ‘summer triangle’.” Even the acting head monk of Hanle’s 17th-century Buddhist monastery has signed up as an ambassador. “Astronomy has long been central to Buddhist practice – monks once used stars to mark festivals and sacred timings, but that tradition has waned in modern times. I became curious to revive it,” says Nawang Tsoundu, 30. “By day, I meditate and teach at the monastery; by night, I guide visitors through my telescope.” For the past three years, the observatory and dark sky reserve, in collaboration with local authorities, has organised an annual star party, which brings together astronomy enthusiasts from across India, allowing participants to see the facility and attend classes on dark skies and astrophotography. For 24-year-old Hashika Raj, an energy-systems engineer from Chennai, this year’s star party was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”. “I’ve never seen a sky as clear as this,” she says. While Dorjey celebrates his village’s revival and the benefits the project has brought, he is concerned that Hanle’s “Bortle 1” skies (the darkest possible), may be at risk from light pollution. Border tensions with China have brought a heavier military presence, and when the village diesel generator cuts out at 11pm, lights from the military camp continue to shine through the night. Even some tourists drive up to the observatory with headlights blazing, ignoring the dark sky reserve notices. Dorjey says it took him time to appreciate Hanle’s extraordinary skies, but with rising tourism, he fears commercial interests may overpower efforts to protect them. He has briefed military commanders on the importance of minimising light pollution – most comply, but there are frequent officer rotations. “I sleep uneasy,” he says, “haunted by the fear that these skies may be lost.”