Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) conducted ‘Zero Shadow Day’ outreach programme.
Over 100 people participated in the ‘Zero Shadow Day’ outreach programme held by IIA on April 25.
Several people who are interested in astrophysics visited IIA to learn about this natural phenomenon.
Despite a school holiday, teachers along with the students interested in astrophysics came to observe it. Rakesh, a student from Shantiniketan School said, “This was a great experience to learn from, the volunteers explained us about the ‘Zero Shadow Day’, how does it occur and how it has been used over the years to understand the locations on earth.”
Parents along with their children enthusiastically participated in the experiments setup by IIA to measure the sun’s shadow.
Niruj, Head of Outreach programmes at IIA said that parents were more excited than children to observe the zero shadow.
Venugopal, a parent who came along with his two daughters for the public event said, “It is all about curiosity when it comes to such events. I believe such programs are extremely important in helping the children understand the studies related to geography.”
The first event by IIA was seen as a success by organisers. Niruj said, “IIA, Bangalore has conducted such an outreach programme for the first time and we have received a great response. We will be conducting many such events soon.”
Wageesh Mishra, Assistant Professor working in Sun and Solar System Department at IIA said, “The Zero shadow day occurs twice every year, in April and inAugust. It occurs on geographical location within 23 degrees north and 23 degrees south – precisely 23.5 degrees. We know that the sun goes to the northern solstice. As today is the ‘Zero Shadow Day’, at 12:17 p.m. we will have no shadow, as the sun will be exactly overhead.”
He added that the purpose of this outreach program is to demonstrate this natural phenomenon through experiments to the students and other enthusiasts so that they can understand how the earth rotates, what is its inclination and how zero shadow day occurs in the tropics.
Ravinder, a scientist at IIA said that these simple experiments were first conducted around 2000 years ago by a Greek mathematician, Eratosthenes in Egypt. “Despite having no advanced scientific tools, his experiment had just 3 percent error, that means it was almost correct,” he added.
