GRAPES-3 to detect solar storms
2017 what is new?
23
GRAPES-3 to detect solar storms
The GRAPES-3 experiment at TIFR’ s( Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Ootacamund in Tamil Nadu is getting upgraded to detect solar storms. GRAPES-3( Gamma Ray Astronomy PeV EnergieS phase- 3) experiment had detected the effect of a solar storm that hit the earth in June 2015. GRAPES-3 has an important role in understanding the propagation of storms from the L1 point( Lagrange point 1) to its impact on the Earth. The upgraded detector will have an increased coverage and improved capacity to determine the direction of incident cosmic rays. It will play a major role in getting precise information about the propagation of storms in the last million miles( from the L-1 point) of their journey from the Sun to the earth. Background The Sun is at a distance of 150 million kilometres from the earth. Satellites are placed at a distance of nearly 1.5 million kilometres, at the so-called L1 point( between Earth and Sun), where they orbit the Sun along with the Earth. The satellites act as an early warning system as the charged particles from a solar storm first impact the satellites before hitting the earth. The GRAPES-3 experiment is located at Ooty in India. It was started as a collaboration of the TIFR and the Japanese Osaka City University, and now also includes the Japanese Nagoya Women’ s University. It is specially designed to study cosmic rays with an array of air shower detectors and a large area muon detector. It aims to probe acceleration of cosmic rays in the four astrophysical settings.
Astronomers discover Venus-like planet orbiting a dim star Kepler-1649
Astronomers using NASA’ s Kepler space telescope have discovered a Venus-like planet orbiting a dim star called Kepler-1649. The newly found planet is one-fifth the diameter of our Sun and is only slightly larger than Earth. It is located 219 light years away from Earth. The Venus-like planet tightly embraces its low-temperature star Kepler-1649 by encircling it every nine days. The tight orbit around the star causes the flux of sunlight reaching it to be 2.3 times as great as the solar flux on Earth. For comparison, the solar flux on Venus is 1.9 times the terrestrial value( on earth). The discovery will provide insight into the nature of planets encircling around M dwarf stars, by far the most common type in the universe.
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth’ s“ sister planet” because of their similar size, mass, proximity to Sun, and bulk composition. It has no natural satellite. But it is radically different from Earth in other respects. It has densest atmosphere of four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96 % CO2. The atmospheric pressure at its planet’ s surface is 92 times that of Earth. Note: Venus is by far the hottest planet in the Solar System, with a mean surface temperature 462 ° C even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Kepler Space Telescope( KST) is an unmanned space observatory launched in 2009 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration( NASA). It is tasked with determining how commonly, Earth-like planets occur throughout the Milky Way galaxy. KST works by observing a dimming in the light of a star, known as a transit, each time an orbiting planet passes in front of it. It has been designed for a statistical mission and not to probe into the environmental conditions of planets that exist in the so-called Goldilocks zone( Habitable zone) of their stars.