Heena Sharma Blog

The first solar eclipse or Surya Grahan of 2020 will fall on June 21. This will be an annular solar eclipse where moon will cover the sun from the centre leaving the outer rim visible, thus creating a ring of fire. The annular solar eclipse of June 2020 will start at 9:15 am on June 21 according to Indian Standard Timing (IST). The full eclipse will start from 10:17 am with the maximum eclipse occurring at 12:10 pm. Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) will live telecast the eclipse. “Astronomical events such as eclipse are exceptional opportunities to excite and instruct the youth and indeed the society at large about science and to instill scientific temper,” said Professor Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST. Read More

Skygazers are in for a visual treat, with lunar eclipse set to appear today. The phenomenon can be viewed in most parts of Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, South America, Pacific, Indian Ocean and Antartica. Astronomers across the world have termed today's lunar eclipse as ' Strawberry Moon Eclipse '. Lunar Eclipse: All you need to know What is lunar eclipse or chandra grahan? A lunar eclipse occurs when Earth places itself between the Sun and the moon. There are three types — total, partial and penumbral — with the most dramatic being a total lunar eclipse, in which Earth's shadow completely covers the moon. Today's lunar eclipse will be a penumbral lunar eclipse. Read More

The Milky Way galaxy is still enduring the effects of a near collision that took place sometime in the past 300-900 million years and set millions of stars moving like ripples on a pond, scientists say. The European Space Agency (ESA)'s star mapping mission, Gaia, discovered the pattern of movement in stars in the Milky Way disc -- one of the major components of our galaxy. The pattern was revealed because Gaia not only accurately measures the positions of more than a billion stars but also precisely measures their velocities on the plane of the sky. For a subset of a few million stars, Gaia provided an estimate of the full three-dimensional velocities, allowing a study of stellar motion using the combination of position and velocity, which is known as 'phase space'. Read Complete Article Article Source >> Business Standard