Prediction for the July 2 solar eclipse. Image courtesy: http://www.cessi.in/solareclipse2019/Eclipses provide an excellent opportunity to study the Sun’s ‘crown’- the corona (otherwise invisible due to the blindingly bright sunlight) which has kept astrophysicists puzzled with its million-degree temperature for a long time. And the next such opportunity is nearby, on July 2, when a total solar eclipse will occur.
Although this solar eclipse will not be visible from India, scientists at the Centre for Space Sciences at IISER-Kolkata have tried to predict what the upcoming eclipse will look like, and what its distinctive features might be. This group of researchers, led by Dibyendu Nandi, who also is an associate professor at the Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), has predicted that two large ‘petal-like’ structures (called helmet streamers) might appear on the left and right side of the sun on the day of the eclipse.
“These petal-like streamers consist of closed magnetic loops that connect opposite magnetic polarities on the sun’s surface,” Nandi told The Indian Express.
Nandi said the helmet streamers were predicted by the computer models they had used to simulate the expected magnetic field on the sun’s corona on the day of the eclipse.
“The eclipse will give us an opportunity to test our computational models. If our model is correct then we can use it to predict the structure of the solar wind and the possibility of solar storms due to the restructuring of the coronal magnetic field,” he said.
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth, so that the visible disk of the Sun is covered by the Moon. The duration of the eclipse on July 2 will be relatively long, lasting 4 minutes 33 seconds.
The maximum coverage during the eclipse will occur in the South Pacific, about 1,080 km north of Easter Island. It will be visible during sunset from a thin swathe that passes the South Pacific Ocean and South America across the Andes, including parts of Chile and Argentina.
Nandi’s team that includes his colleague at IISER-Kolkata Nirmalya Ghosh, and PhD students Soumyaranjan Dash, Prantika Bhowmik, and Athira B S, has published its findings from the computer simulation in the research notes of the American Astronomical Society.
Dr Sourav Pal, director of IISER-Kolkata, said they have been successfully trying to develop these computational models and tools towards better prediction and controlling events during solar eclipse. “We also work with IUCAA,” he added.
