Shiladitya Ray
Shiladitya Ray is a veteran journalist, data storyteller, and astronomy aficionado with nearly a decade of experience covering geopolitics, policy, and science in high-pressure digital newsrooms.
Across his tenures as an Assistant Editor at Mint and Chief Sub-Editor at Deccan Herald, Shiladitya has reported on everything from complex international conflicts to landmark scientific breakthroughs.
At Starlust, Shiladitya narrows his focus exclusively to a lifelong passion: understanding the cosmos. He oversees the site's coverage of deep-sky discoveries, planetary science, and the commercial space race, drawing on his extensive experience of covering major achievements and events in astronomy. Furthermore, his background as an academic editor for Cactus Communications brings a strict, peer-review-level rigor to Starlust's scientific reporting.
A data storyteller at heart with a focus on crafting engaging visual narratives, Shiladitya is a standout fellow of the Google News Initiative (GNI) Data Journalism Lab, where he utilized NASA's extensive exoplanet dataset to build an interactive deep-dive featuring habitability analyses and spatial maps of the 5,000+ discoveries to date. He has also served as a speaker at GNI's AI Skills Lab, instructing senior newsroom editors on the use of generative AI for complex data visualization—expertise he now brings to Starlust.
Shiladitya grew up poring over the astronomical canon of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, and today, seeks to modernize science communication through interactive storytelling, evoking the sense of wonder and awe that only the cosmos can inspire.
Latest From Shiladitya Ray
China's LandSpace joins elite club with SpaceX, Blue Origin after Zhuque-3 booster recovery on land
LandSpace is only the third private firm across the world to have successfully recovered an orbital-class rocket.
Nearly 12-billion-year-old merger: Meet LKH, the earliest known galaxy to have collided with the Milky Way
This is the first evidence of a galactic merger preceding the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus collision.
Astronomers confirm first 'black hole star,' explaining Little Red Dots seen by James Webb Telescope
The object completely outshines its surrounding host galaxy, revealing "pure" black hole star light.
Total solar eclipse 2026: When and where to livestream the spectacular event on August 12
Afraid of missing the total solar eclipse of August 12? Worry not, there are many livestreams available.
China's Long March 7A rocket explodes moments after liftoff; Elon Musk reacts. Watch video
The incident marked only the second failure of Long March 7A, which has been a workhorse for China.
What is the Extremely Large Telescope and what makes it special? All about the most powerful telescope ever made
The massive Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will outclass Hubble and the JWST and usher in a new era in observational astronomy.
Starship Flight 13 delayed again—why did Space X scrub the launch? New launch date and other details
This is the second delay to the second flight test of SpaceX's Starship V3. New launch date has been announced.
Starship Flight 13 to launch today—liftoff time, livestream details, objectives and more
Flight 13's launch was scrubbed at the last moment on July 16. Here's what today's test will entail.
Blue Origin's rocket explodes on launch pad in Florida—a look at New Glenn's troubled past
Prior to Thursday's explosion, New Glenn had faced a number of issues, from delays to failed tests.
Massive star clusters destroy their birth clouds faster, James Webb and Hubble find
Fresh insights into star clusters advance our understanding of galaxy and planet formation.
'A dark, hot rock': Astronomers directly study exoplanet surface for the first time using JWST
JSWT's direct observation of LHS 3844 b's surface is a massive stepping stone for exoplanet geology.