Satya Prakash is a retired Senior Professor from the Physical Research Laboratory

Physical Research Laboratory

The Physical Research Laboratory is a national Research Institute for space and allied sciences, supported mainly by Department of Space, Government of India. This research laboratory has ongoing research programmes in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Sciences and Aeronomy, Earth Sciences,...

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He currently resides in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...

, Gujarat in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. He is most notable for his contributions towards India's first space satellite, the Aryabhata. He has been a well-known figure during the fledgling days of the PRL, and still write articles about changes in the Ionosphere. He has received the Hari Om Ashram Prerit Senior Scientist Award, and Padma Shri

Padma Shri

Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...

 Awards for his work.

Prakash attended Allahabad University on a scholarship. He later attended Caltech and graduated with his PhD under Henry Victor Neher. He was in charge of the Geo Camera on the AryabhataSatellite, which analyzed the soil of the earth and helped predict where the best places to farm. Prakash is a frequent publisher of scientific studies that deal with various fields of geophysics, including studies with the Ionosphere

Ionosphere

The ionosphere is a part of the upper atmosphere, comprising portions of the mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere, distinguished because it is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an important part in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere...

, and the Stratosphere

Stratosphere

The stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere, and below the mesosphere. It is stratified in temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down. This is in contrast to the troposphere near the Earth's surface, which is cooler...

. His works have appeared in the American Scientific Journal and Geophysical Research Letters

Geophysical Research Letters

Geophysical Research Letters is a semi-monthly peer reviewed scientific journal published by the American Geophysical Union that was established in 1974...

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Selected publications

• The Nature of Electric Field in E-Region Close to Morning and Evening Reversals (June 1976)
• Evidence of Two Types of Electron Density Irregularities in the Electrojet Over Thumba, India (June 1974)
• Quantification of new production during a winter Noctiluca scintillans bloom in the Arabian Sea (April 2008)
• Role of the equatorial ionization anomaly in the development of the evening prereversal enhancement of the equatorial zonal electric field (February 2009)
• E and F Region Electric Fields Over Dip Equator (April 1979)
• Production of electric field perturbations by gravity wave winds in the E region suitable for initiating equatorial spread F (January 1999)
• Irregularities in the Equatorial E Region Over Thumba (April 1969-Not accepted as fact)