Abdul Ahad - His works of astronomy and space science

Abdul Ahad

Astronomer & Space Science Researcher
* * * Born in Bangladesh * * *

"...there can be no goal in the human heart more noble and higher aspiring than to reach for the high frontiers of Space." - Abdul Ahad on Usenet (March 2004)

Ahad, Md. Abdul (b. 1968) Astronomer, author and space science researcher.
Md. Abdul Ahad was born in the Sylhet district of Bangladesh on 15 December 1968. When he was 9 years old, he moved across to the UK accompanying his mother and two sisters to join his father, late Haji Abdur Rahman, and has been mainly resident there ever since. Ahad obtained his secondary school education in the United Kingdom and graduated from the University of Luton in 1994 with a Higher National Diploma in Business & Finance. He has since held a number of executive and management posts in industry, developing a wide business career within multi-national bluechip companies, across such functions as operations planning, supply chain process management and brands marketing.

His interests in astronomy took off in the early 1980s at the age of 12, when he showed a notable leaning toward mathematical and positional astronomy. When he was just 15, at the dawn of the present era of home computers, Ahad compiled his own celestial mechanics algorithms for the precise computation of positions of planets, comets and minor planets from orbital elements.

Abdul Ahad's scientific interests later branched out into such fields as space technology, spaceflight simulations and models, space science missions and robotics. In January 2002, he founded the 'AA Institute of Space Science & Technology', a conceptual research institute dedicated to his own creative works and research projects. He has since undertaken a NASA-inspired program of self funded, self initiated pursuits in areas like rocketry and aerospace and remote sensing via tele-robotics. In August 2002, he joined the California based, Planetary Society to further his participation in and outspoken advocation of global space exploration. Ahad is a member of the British Astronomical Association and his spare time interests include astrometric measurements of visual binary stars and proper motions of nearby stars, observation of deep sky objects and study of variable stars. In 2004, he was the first person in scientific history to define an analytical approximation of the cosmic night sky's total integrated brightness ("Ahad's constant" of circa 1/300th of a Full Moon equivalent). Ahad put forward a hypothetical human interstellar spaceflight proposal ("Ahad's virtual bridge to Alpha Centauri") for reaching our nearest star, by systematically relying on the safety of overlapping Oort clouds for possible mining/refuelling. He conceptualised the mechanics for excavation, capture and interior habitation of an asteroid - the "Celestial Titanic".
In that article, he offered a compelling third option for future human spaceflight that would supplement a base on the Moon and one established later on Mars. Using the 4-km diameter main belt asteroid #887 Alinda for illustration, Ahad showed how such a construct could initially serve as a permanent Earth-orbiting colony that could subsequently be also used as a propelled platform for long term Solar System-wide, and even interstellar, exploration.

In his epic sci-fi novel and would-be feature film "First Ark to Alpha Centauri" (published online in 2004), he envisioned the world's first life-like human colony starship and spaceflight concept for sending a community of people from our planet to the nearest stars in the year 2275 AD. In his own words: "An epic fantasy voyage carrying the hopes and dreams of everyone who ever was, everyone who ever is and everyone who ever will be... on a journey spanning 2,000 generations and lasting for no less than 50,000 years into the future!" He designed that entire ship architecture, simulating its gravity, weather and life support and thought through the countless multi-generation mission obstacles, devising the best solutions through his own imaginative thought and research efforts. As a result, the article proved immensely popular across the world's online science and science fiction communities, and was viewed in over 50 countries.

He was the first person in scientific history to draw an imaginary sphere around the Sun of approximate radius 11,500 Astronomical Units (known as the "Ahad Radius" of "Ahad's Sphere of Solar Illuminance") which marks a boundary of equilibrium between solar flux and the net integrated flux produced by the surrounding cosmic night sky.

Ahad determined a net integrated brightness of -5.0 for the Milky Way's glow stretching across the whole night sky. He derived a magnitude model for estimating the visual brightness of an extra-solar planet shining in the habitable zone around its parent star. Abdul Ahad was also the first person to point out and demonstrate analytically that a particulate ring system around planet Earth could not possibly remain stable in the complex Earth-Moon-Sun gravity interactive environment - quashing previous world opinions to the contrary. Many experts had hitherto believed that past climatic effects on the Earth were due to a thin ring system existing around our planet for hundreds of thousands of years. Ahad's dynamical calculations showed that those ideas were flawed and his paper will change the future course of orbital engineering programs and the way in which near Earth spaceflight is conducted, forever.

Contributions to Space Policy & Amateur Astronomy

Over the years, Abdul Ahad has led a wealth of discussion topics, often challenging existing knowledge and offering new paradigms and perspectives to areas of theoretical astronomy, astrophysics and spaceflight. He has been mainly active on the sci.space and sci.astro forums. A few of his more notable topics of inquiry were:-

Intelligent signals from globular clusters?, where he first hypothesised globular clusters as being hotspots for prospective extraterrestrial civilizations, contrary to hitherto popular opinion of the SETI community.
What makes an ideal Moon base?, in which he gave specific direction as to where on the face of the Full moon a future manned base would be best sited and set out his vision of a unified World Space Agency to best achieve that dream.
Interstellar propulsion idea using an asteroid and a few comets, his futuristic blueprint for the first human voyage to Alpha Centauri.
Escape timelines for my interstellar ark, wherein he exemplified the propellant mass and propulsive effort that would be needed to launch a human colony starship to the stars from high Earth orbit.
Sun<=>Alpha Centauri gravity interactions, wherein he argued that there ought to be a greater abundance of Oort cloud bodies on a voyage headed toward Alpha Centauri, compared to all other directions going radially outward from the Solar System.
Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans?, a light-hearted speculation about possible origins of particles scattered in the Solar System’s ecliptic plane.

Amateur Astronomy

In the late 1980s, Ahad compiled a "Catalogue of the reddest stars in the night sky", later publicising it in 2004 wherein he was the first to identify the variable star CE Tauri (coining it the "Ruby Star") to be the second reddest naked eye star to shine consistently at a magnitude level brighter than 5. When he was just 15, at the dawn of the modern era of home computers, Abdul Ahad produced an algorithm for computing planetary ephemerides from mean orbital elements. It was initially centred on Besselian epoch B1950.0, which he converted to Julian epoch and backdated to J1900.0. As a result, his algorithm proved rigorously valid over a 300-year time frame (c. 1800 to c. 2100 AD), with which later in May 1985, he accurately predicted the circumstances of the transit of planet Venus across the face of the Sun due June 8, 2004. Nineteen years later, he successfully observed that astronomical phenomenon from his own back garden in Luton, United Kingdom, confirming his prior predictions and noting the famous black drop effect.

Abdul Ahad's Official Myspace Page!

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VIEW A FULL TREATMENT OF "FIRST ARK TO ALPHA CENTAURI"

Light dominion of the Sun above that of the surrounding Cosmos - "Ahad's Sphere"
[Provisionally published in Journal of Brit. Astro. Assoc., Vol. 115, No. 5 - Oct 2005, page 297]

Above: Abdul Ahad's interstellar ark ship (the 'Centauri Princess') on its silent march through the dark, foreboding territory of the solar Oort cloud, en-route to the distant Alpha Centauri system. [Image courtesy: www.headstartproject.org]

Abdul Ahad's Published Works

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