“Sushant Moon” Set To Celebrate Life of SSR #SushantMoon

January 21, 2023, has been set as the first observance of “Sushant’s Moon,” proclaimed to celebrate the life of the late Bollywood superstar and space enthusiast Sushant Singh Rajput.

The legendary star, known in filmland circles simply as SSR, would have celebrated his 37th birthday on that date. He died under what many believe to have been mysterious circumstances on June 14, 2020.

Sushant’s Moon will coincide with the first New Moon of 2023, unique because it is also the date upon which Luna is at its closest distance to Earth during the entire year.

In January this year, SSR’s fans commemorated his birth anniversary – dubbed “Sushant Month,” culminating with “Sushant Day” – with acts of service and respect performed to honor him.

According to Twitter estimates, more than 5.2-million tweets were sent by his fans with tags including #SushantDay and invoking @itsSSR, his Twitter handle.

Mr. Rajput had been slated to play the lead in “Chanda Mama Door Ke,” a blockbuster film that borrowed its title from a beloved Hindi nursery rhyme and which was scheduled to hit theaters in 2024.

In the film, he was to have played an astronaut, a part for which he travelled to the US for in order to train and interact with a team from the NASA space program at Huntsville, Alabama.

(Following his death, plans moved forward to complete the film as a tribute to Mr. Rajput.)

The proud owner of a top-end Meade LX-600 telescope, Mr. Rajput regularly posted images of space – and the Moon in particular – to his more than two-million followers on social media.

On numerous occasions, he publicly proclaimed himself to be the owner of property in the Mare Moscoviense on the Moon’s far side, and was reputed to own various tracts of land valued at nearly 1.85 crore rupees (₹ INR).

(See Sushant Singh Rajput’s property on the Moon near the crater named in his honour.)

In addition, a scholarship for a worthy graduate student in Astrophysics was established in the Physics Department at the University of California in Berkeley, California, in Mr. Rajput’s name with an endowment of US$35,000. (Read more.)

It is hoped that the “Sushant’s Moon” observance will become an annual occurrence despite not always coinciding with the first New Moon of the year.

#SushantMoon