It’s 10pm and bitterly cold in Hanle. Strong winds sweep across this remote village in India’s Himalayan Ladakh region, but no one seems to mind. Dinner is over, yet, instead of bed, many people are gathering outside. The reason is above them.
At 14,764ft (4,500m) above sea level, Hanle is known for its exceptionally clear, dark skies. Wrapped in thick jackets, woollen caps and gloves, tourists and visitors gather to see the Milky Way and look through telescopes at planets, the Moon and distant stars. Among them are four young women: Palzes Angmo, Tsering Dolker, Tsering Yangdol and Padma Chamchot. They are Hanle’s astro-ambassadors, trained to guide visitors through the night sky.
By day, they cook meals, clean rooms and look after guests at their family-run homestays. By night, they set up telescopes, trace constellations with laser pointers and explain what visitors are seeing in the dark skies. These women – all in their late 20s – grew up watching these stars, but it was only a few years ago that they learnt to study them through a telescope. “The sky here has always been twinkling like this,” 28-year-old Dolker says.
The difference today is that people travel hundreds of kilometres to see what locals have long regarded as an ordinary part of life. Hanle’s remote, high-altitude location, dry air and lack of light pollution make its skies prized by astronomers. The cold desert offers suitable observing conditions on around 260 nights a year. Hanle is also home to the Indian Astronomical Observatory, run by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, and is a major centre for astronomical research.
In 2022, it became India’s first Dark Sky Reserve, helping protect its pristine skies from artificial light and putting Hanle on the astronomy tourism map. Visitor numbers have since surged: from about 3,000 a year five years ago to nearly 30,000 in 2024-25, according to government figures. As visitors grew, so did opportunities for locals. In 2022, the Ladakh administration and Indian Institute of Astrophysics trained 24 young people from Hanle and nearby villages in astronomy.
These four women were among them. Over 15 days, they learnt to identify stars, planets and constellations, navigate the night sky, operate telescopes and photograph the Milky Way on their phones. Becoming astronomy guides was never part of their plans. They were nervous when they first handled the equipment, fearing they might break something.
Gradually, they learnt how it worked and grew confident using it. Four years on, they are confident astronomers, with evenings beginning around 9pm. They position telescopes for the night’s planets and constellations before guiding visitors from local homestays. They show them the Moon’s craters, Saturn’s rings, Vega – the brightest star in the night sky – and other planets, using laser pointers to trace constellations and objects visible to the naked eye.
Then comes the Milky Way. At 11pm each night, the village switches off its lights, plunging Hanle into darkness as visitors scramble to photograph the now-brilliant galaxy. “When people look through the telescope and capture a photo alongside the Milky Way, they experience immense joy. We also help them with their mobile phone settings so they can capture the Milky Way,” Padma Chamchot says.
It often starts with helping one visitor take a picture and ends with a long queue. The women take pictures for their own social media too, comparing notes on the stars and other sights they captured that night. But by day, life is more ordinary. Hanle has few hotels and no resorts, so visitors mostly stay in family-run homestays, often extensions of their homes.
Chamchot’s family runs one too. “Taking care of guests, cooking meals, cleaning rooms, and managing household chores fills our day,” she says. “From nine in the evening, we begin setting up the telescopes for the night’s stargazing sessions.” Their families’ homestays remain the main income source, but the women earn about 25,000 rupees ($260; £193) a month from astronomy, charging 200 rupees a session. Income dips during the harsh winter, when few tourists visit, but the earnings have given them greater financial independence: they no longer need to ask their parents for money.
“We can save our earnings and spend them on things we want – including new phones,” Padma says. For the astro-ambassadors, the transformation has been personal as much as financial. “Before taking on this work, we lacked confidence,” they say. However, the growing popularity of Hanle comes with risks.
The same tourism that supports local livelihoods could also threaten the darkness that makes Hanle unique. Visitor numbers have surged, fuelled partly by social media posts about Hanle’s night skies and its location on the route to Umling La, which is among the world’s highest motorable mountain passes. But more tourists also mean more traffic, construction and artificial light – all threats to the darkness they come to see. Sonam Jorphail, a senior engineer and head of outreach at the IAO, says tourism is creating jobs and driving development in Hanle, but growth must be managed to protect its dark skies.
“They bridge the gap between the science community and common people – locals and visitors,” Jorphail adds. But longtime residents say Hanle’s night sky is already changing. Padma’s father, Dhuntup Chamchot, in his 70s, remembers when the skies were even darker. “Back then, when the weather was good, people would often sleep outdoors under the open sky,” he says.
The young women often take their families stargazing too. “We frequently show the night sky to our families through the telescope. They enjoy looking at it now,” says Yangdol, one of the astro-ambassadors. “If one of us takes even a single day off, the families ask why the telescope was not set up,” she jokes.
The women say they have no desire to leave Hanle or its dark skies. They hope for advanced training and better telescopes and eyepieces to enhance visitors’ experience. Four years ago, the equipment was unfamiliar; now, they are building a future around the stars.
