Her two pigtails dangling to the sides, Dr Hashima Hasan, who was still a preschooler then, remembers tip-toeing behind her grandmother to the backyard of their home in Hazratganj, Lucknow, on the warm night of October 4, 1957. The Soviet Union had launched its first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, and her grandmother had assured her a sighting. To this day, Hasan can recall how the Sputnik I shot like a star in the sky, leaving behind a glittery tail. It was a moment cast in history. Little did she know then that she would someday redefine the way we see the universe.

A young Dr Hashima Hasan, now Deputy Programme Scientist on the James Webb Telescope, worked at TIFR and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai in the 1980s