Reports about a 14-year old girl from Aurangabad in Maharashtra being selected as a panelist on NASA’s “MSI Fellowships Virtual Panel” is a hoax, the Astronomical Society of India has said. The reports suggested that she was selected to the panel based on her research paper that was published in a journal and later accepted by NASA.
The Astronomical Society of India, however, pointed out several discrepancies in the documents furnished by the girl, including purported emails and a certificate sent by an entity posing as NASA.
“There are too many bad journals lurking in the back alleys of academic publishing, looking to exploit unsuspecting authors,” the Astronomical Society said in a release detailing the discrepancies in the documents. “…This is called ‘predatory publishing’ in academic circles.”
The matter was first tweeted about by news agency ANI on August 19.
“I wrote a theory on black holes and god,” ANI had quoted the girl as saying. “It was…