Anil Kumar Das

Anil Kumar Das FRAS, FNI (1 February 1902 - 18 February 1961) was an Indian scientist, astronomer. During the International Geophysical Year, observatories in Madrid, India, and Manila were responsible for monitoring solar effects. The Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in South India performed this monitoring using their recently built solar tunnel telescope. Das was the director of the Kodaikanal observatory at this time. In 1960 he was responsible for installing a tower/tunnel telescope at the facility that would be used to perform some of the first helioseismology investigations. The crater Das on the far side of the Moon is named after him.

After graduating (Master of Science) from the University of Calcutta, he studied spectroscopy with Charles Fabry at the Sorbonne in Paris. After obtaining his doctorate he was in Göttingen where he worked with Max Born at the Institut für Theoretische Physik and subsequently with Gustav Augenheister at the Geophysikalisches Institut and for a short period at the Solar Physics Observatory in Cambridge. He later worked at the Indian Meteorological Department in 1930 and then moved to the Kodaikanal observatory in 1937 as assistant director and director since 1946 and where he remained until his retirement in 1960.

Most of his scientific contributions were in the field of solar physics mainly as an experimenter in the spectrophotometric study of sunspots and the chromosphere. He contributed significantly to the development of the equipment present at the Kodaikanal Observatory and to the growth of numerous young researchers.