It was a moonlit night for Bengaluru residents

Jubilation flooded the streets of Bengaluru as thousands of science enthusiasts cheered the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

By 5 pm, a massive crowd had gathered at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. Excited families and students took their seats in orderly rows facing the two screens positioned outdoors. Attendees donned T-shirts featuring the Chandrayaan-3 mission emblem, and numerous children had their faces adorned with the Indian tricolour.

As the countdown for the moon landing began, former Isro scientist BR Guruprasad explained the workings of the Vikram rover and the mission’s objectives in Kannada. Among the audience was Karnataka’s Minister for Science and Technology NS Boseraju, who watched each minute of the landing process with bated breath and erupted in joy when the landing was successful.

Amid shouts of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, people rose from their chairs and captured the feat on their mobile phones.

A retired government engineer could not contain his excitement. “It is an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime. I congratulate all the scientists who worked for the success of this mission,” he said.

Scene at IIA campus 

Families of the staff and hundreds of others gathered at Koramangala’s Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) campus. The institute’s head of the outreach section,  Niruj Mohan Ramanujam, said public screening of a significant scientific event like the moon mission would inspire curiosity and interest among people, especially students.

“We could see the excitement but also a genuine interest in space, science, and engineering. The event has had a huge impact on children and will hopefully push parents and students to develop a love for science not just for a career pathway, but for intellectual growth,” he said.

The second floor of the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum that houses the space technology gallery was kept open for longer than its usual hours on Wednesday evening to accommodate enthusiasts.

“We arranged the screening inside the gallery so that people could visualise everything amid working models of our space missions, including Chandrayaan-1. People started clapping and cheering along with the scientists. It is a proud moment for us,” museum director KA Sadhana said.

The Century Club at Ambedkar Veedhi hosted an exclusive screening event for its members and their invited guests. A large LED screen was erected on the lawns to livestream the landing.

"We were all ecstatic to witness it,” said the club’s elected executive committee member, Abishek BA. “It was all possible due to the hard work of the scientists at Isro... I can hear fireworks going off around me now.”