While the approaching annular solar eclipse, that is scheduled to take place on Friday, has excited the common man with scientists declaring it as the longest one in 1,000 years, the science community in Bangalore is planning to study the sun’s structure for academic purposes.
Scientists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bangalore are heading to Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India, to observe the bangle-shaped sun when it is shadowed by 91.9%.
“We are planning to conduct photometry experiment where we take images of the sun’s outer atmosphere and study the structure from the images,” said an IIA faculty member, Jagdev Singh, who is part of the team heading to Kanyakumari.
And at Gauribidanur, 100km from here, the radio astronomers from IIA have set up a large disc measuring 12 metres, taken from Raman Research Institute, to study the sun during the event to find if any new features appear on it. “We are conducting two experiments: one to study the sun’s outer atmosphere — that is the surface — using low frequency astronomy and another experiment to study the inner part of sun at a high frequency,” said a team member, Edwin Ebenezer.
The study aims at the active magnetic spheres on the sun that will throw light on new features formed on the sun. “The intensified magnetic spheres on sun indicate that sun is hotting up which is normal cycle. Since the activity has been delayed by at least one-and-half years, we are worried that we might be entering Maundel maxima which occurred in the sixteenth century,” Ebenezer said.
The period between 1632 and 1670 is known as ‘Maundel Maxima’ and during this time sun spots or magnetically active regions generated did not appear. The scientists now suspect that sun could be returning to same phenomenon. “From our continuous observations, we have predicted that the eruptions will occur in the polar region. Hence expecting new features,” Ebenezer added.
The experiments are being considered niche as never before have they been conducted on such a large-scale. During the total solar eclipse of 1995, a similar experiment was conducted but with the aid of a much smaller telescope with 1.2 meter disc. But this is the first that such a larger disc is being used, Ebenezer said.
