More than 200 solar physicists from India and abroad have come together in Bengaluru this week to discuss research in areas like solar magnetism, solar-stellar connection and space weather at an international conference on the occasion of 125 years of solar physics research in India.
The conference on ‘Sun, Space Weather, and Solar-Stellar Connections’ has been organised by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory.
The Observatory has been providing invaluable insights into the Sun’s behaviour and its impact on Earth through its repository of photographic images, and was the harbinger of the birth of solar astrophysics in the country.
The observatory’s unique location, coupled with its state-of-the-art equipment, has enabled it to make significant contributions to our understanding of sunspots, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other solar phenomena.The conference is being organized as a testament to KSO’s enduring legacy, between 20–24 January.
DST Secretary, Prof. Abhay Karandikar, spoke about initiatives like the digitization of KSO’s historic records, IIA’s significant contribution to Aditya-L1 mission through the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph, and underlined upcoming ventures like the National Large Solar Telescope proposed to be built at Merak, on the banks of Pangong Tso in Ladakh, through a video message.
He said that the efforts promise to open new frontiers of discovery in solar astrophysics.
Mr A.S. Kiran Kumar, former ISRO Chairman, and the chair of the Governing Council of IIA, while highlighting the efforts of the solar physics group at IIA during his address at the inaugural, pointed out that ISRO has all the capabilities to help the solar physics research from space and challenged the community to come up with ideas for new instruments that ISRO can launch.
With a vibrant scientific program put together by the international Scientific Organizing Committee of 20 eminent solar astronomers, with leads from the Solar Physics group of IIA, leading solar physicists from around the globe are discussing the latest advancements in the field and exploring the connections between solar and stellar phenomena. It has attracted 205 participants, half of them being students and a third from outside India.