World's largest solar telescope planned near Ladakh's Pangong lake

India is expected to start building the world's largest solar telescope on the icy mounts of Ladakh to study the sun's atmosphere and understand the formation of sun-spots and their decay process. The Rs 300-crore project is expected to come up at either Hanle or Merak, which is very near to the Ladakh's Pangong lake along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.

Currently, the world's largest solar telescope is the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope with an aperture size of 1.6 metres located in Kitt Peak National Observatory at Arizona in the US. "Fabrication of the National Large Solar Telescope is expected to begin in late 2013," Siraj Hasan, principal investigator for the project, told reporters on the sidelines of the 100th Indian Science Congress here. The telescope, with an aperture size of two meters, is planned to be completed by 2017 and will be the largest such facility in the world at least till 2020 when US is expected to commission its four-meter telescope at Hawaii.

The main objective of the facility would be to study the formation and decay of sun spots, their subsurface structure and why do they have a penumbra and how is it formed, Hasan said. Most of the back-end instruments of the telescope would be made in-house and the instrument for night time observations would be developed in collaboration with Hamburg Observatory in Germany. NLST is expected to be a unique research tool which is likely to attract several talented solar astronomers to the country and provide a superior platform for performing high quality solar research.

 

Warren Buffet's latest investment in solar energy

Food , water and shelter was once known as the basic needs for human. This century we added one more to this list "Energy". Energy from hydro power or coal is not sufficient as our energy needs have increased many folds. So if you ask what next, then we will have to rely on the most abundant energy source on earth which is solar i.e. energy from the sun. Enough sunlight falls on the earth every minute to power the world for an entire year. If a small fraction of Sahara desert was covered with solar panels, we could power the entire world. Man has got used to many a luxury many of which needs energy as the primary source be it transportation, entertainment or communication. Imagine what all would you have to give up if there was no energy to power up your phones, TV, internet and AC. We would be living the 1920's. So investing in energy is not a bad idea. Not just your money even your thoughts. One of the greatest investors of our time has again made a significant investment in the energy industry a few days back. Here is a snippet I picked from the internet about this investment.

MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of Mr Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment company, has struck a deal with SunPower to acquire and build two projects in California’s Antelope Valley.

The deal, which will see MidAmerican pay between $2 billion to $2.5 billion, marks the third time in little over a year that Mr Buffett has ploughed cash into solar energy.

He last year created a unit within Mid American to support an increasing number of solar and wind investments.

Work on the projects will begin within the next few months and construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

SunPower, which is 66 pc-owned by France’s Total, will remain involved in the construction and operation of the projects.

Spend some time working on some solar projects, its interesting and it is worth the time.

Invest in solar, who said the sun god cant help you make some money....

We are closer to the sun today

Good Morning....

It is my pleasure to launch my blog site today when earth happens to make it to its closest point to the sun. Earth comes closest to the sun today i.e. Wednesday, January 2 at 10:10 AM Indian Standard Time. Considering my special interest in solar technology and todays special ocassion I decide that my first post should be about the master of the solar system.

What a coincidence, today we are closest to the sun, this means earth would position itself at the perihelion at about 146 million km from the sun. Perihelion is the point on the earths orbit that is closest to the Sun.The word “perihelion” is Greek words peri meaning near, and helios meaning sun. The picture below shows perihelion at 2 and aphelion at 1. 3 is the Sun. The aphelion is at 152 million km from the sun. The earth would be at the aphelion in July and at the perihelion in January. The perihelion and aphelion does not fall on the same day every year.

The earth would be moving at its fastest pace on its orbit today at about 29.8 kilometers per second. the gravitational pull between the Earth and Sun causes the Earth to travel around or "orbit" the Sun at a velocity of 29.8 km/sec. At the same time, the Earth also turns on its axis causing the daily cycle of day and night. This "rotational velocity" is approximately .47 km/sec. That means that at the same time we're hurtling through space at nearly 67,000 mph, we're also spinning around in circles at over 1000 mph!

Today is the best day to say your prayers to the sun god as you will not get closer to him than this in this year.

We are going to have a Sunny day and let your smiles be as bright as the sun today and everyday :) Wishing you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year 2013.

It is 5:45 AM in the morning here which means it is time for me to play badminton. I will write more about what this blog site intends to do in the coming days. Catch you later. Happy reading. Dont forget to enjoy the Sun on this special day.

Thanks to the websites that helped me get the numbers correct.