Current Events Current Affairs Analysis
The Cosmology Education and Research Training Center (COSMOS), Mysuru, of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics recently observed ‘Zero Shadow Day’.
About Zero Shadow Day
It is an interestingcelestial phenomenonthat occurstwice in a yearwhen thesun is directly overheadand thusno shadow of any vertical object can be seen.
This event happensfor locationssituatedbetween the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
The ZSD phenomenon transpireswhen the Sun's declination becomes equal to the latitude of the location
On this day, as the sun crosses the local meridian, its rays fall exactly vertically relative to an object on the ground, making it impossible to observe any shadow of that object.
This isdue to the tilt of the Earth's axis and its rotation around the sun, causingtheangle of the sun's rays to change throughout the year,which in turnaffects the lengths and directions of shadows.
When does it occur?
oThere aretwo zero shadow days every year,observed in placesthat liebetween the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
oOne falls during the Uttarayan(when theSun moves northwards), and the other is duringDakshinayan (when theSun moves southwards).
oIt will clearly bedifferent for different placeson earth.
oItlasts for a small part of a second, but theeffect can be seen for a minuteto a minute-and-a-half.
Thesouthern part of India,roughlybelow the latitude of Bhopal, willexperience the ZSD
The states that can see this event are Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Maharashtra, Odisha, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, most of Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, and the southern parts of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura, and Mizoram.
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