TNPSC Current Affairs March 2017,23 for group 1 & group 2 mains

TNPSC Current Affairs March 2017,23 

GRAPES-3 experiment Telescope upgraded to detect solar storms

GRAPES -3 muon Telescope at Cosmic Ray laboratory located at  OOTY, Tamil Nadu. It has upgraded to detect solar Storms from Lagrange Point.

About Upgraded Facility: 

• The upgraded detector will have increased coverage and improved capacity to determine the direction of  solar storms. It will play important role in understanding the propagation of storms from sun to L1 point and its impact on Earth.
• The upgraded detector facility can now cover the wider field of view from present 37 % to 57% and has more chance to detect the solar winds.
• The early detection of solar storms is crucial because the solar storms have the potential to produce major disruptions to infrastructure.
• Solar winds will takes 20-40 minutes to reach earth depends on the speed from L1 point

About Lagrange Point or L1

 L1 or Lagrange point 1 is the neutral Gravity point between Earth and sun which is approximately one million miles from the Earth. It is a good position to monitor the sun , because the solar wind from the sun reaches one hour earlier than Earth in Lagrange point or L1 .

  

Impacts of Solar Storm 

• Solar storms occurs when the Sun emits huge bursts of energy in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These phenomena send a stream of electrical charges and magnetic fields toward the Earth which is refer as solar storms.
• The largest recorded solar storm is in Carrington event of 1859, which disrupted telegraph lines on earth for several hours.
• If a similar solar storm hit Earth, it would cripple all the VLSI-based communication systems, smart devices, mobile phones, computer networks and satellites etc. 

About GRAPES -3

GRAPES -3 muon Telescope at Cosmic Ray laboratory located at  OOTY, Tamil Nadu in 2000. It is established with a collaboration of Indian Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Japanese Osaka City university and Nagoya Women’s university Japan.

It is designed mainly to study the cosmic rays with an array of air shower detectors and a large area muon detector.