RIP Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the Moon has passed away on 25th August 2012 due to problems relating to the CardiVascular Process

Neil Armstrong will always be remembered for "That ONE SMALL STEP" he took which brought a "GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND"

Akshay's Gyaan Networks pays TRIBUTE to Neil Armstrong,May His soul rest in a peace and his family come out of the grief!







(Image Courtesy- CBS News)

Frequent Above 100 Max monthly SSN ( Smoothed Sunspot No) during Solar Cycle 15-23 AND Solar Activity Update

This week and since a few days earlier, the space weather has been mostly CALM with a remarkable silence from the Sun as no Major Sunspots (Capable of producing a High end Solar Flare) have been noted on the Solar Disc.
Here is a very interesting observation about the Solar Data esp the Max Smoothed Sunspot No from a Solar Cycle 15 to 23

Here is the Smoothed Sunspot No (Monthly basis) during individual Solar Cycle from Cycle 15-23. We had initially thought of Solar Max and Min in a cycle but the non stop high SSN from Solar Cycle 17 to 20 leads us to think whether the solar cycles are related to each other in terms of their max SSN or not.

Solar Cycle Cycle starts Cycle ends Amplitude(yr) Max SSN ( Monthly) Min SSN Spotless days
Solar cycle 15 August 1913 August 1923 10.0 105.4 (Aug 1917) 5.6 534
Solar cycle 16 August 1923 September 1933 10.1 78.1 (Apr 1928) 3.5 568
Solar cycle 17 September 1933 February 1944 10.4 119.2 (Apr 1937) 7.7 269
Solar cycle 18 February 1944 April 1954 10.2 151.8 (May 1947) 3.4 446
Solar cycle 19 April 1954 October 1964 10.5 201.3 (Mar 1958) 9.6 227
Solar cycle 20 October 1964 June 1976 11.7 110.6 (Nov 1968) 12.2 272
Solar cycle 21 June 1976 September 1986 10.3 164.5 (Dec 1979) 12.3 273
Solar cycle 22 September 1986 May 1996 9.7 158.5 (Jul 1989) 8.0 309
Solar cycle 23 May 1996 December 2008 [10] 12.6 120.8 (Mar 2000) 1.7 821

(Source; Wikipedia List of Solar Cycles)

Thus one can infer that since the Solar Cycle 15, the max sunspot no ( monthly) has reached above 100 ( except Solar Cycle 16).

The Solar Cycle 24 so far had the max SSN ( IPS Solar Based) of 96.7 in Nov 2011

The July 2012 SSN has been 66.5 as against the estimated 72.1 . The SSN was 64.5 in June 2012.

Article: Earthquake at 30,000ft above the ground???

I was on my way back to Nagpur on 19th May from Muscat,Oman. The ascend of the flight from Mumbai was pretty smooth. However in the mid way and as we approached Nagpur, the flight experienced a moderate turbulence. Though I am a frequent flyer,that day's turbulence was really a tough one to forget. I was flying in an Airbus A320 aircraft. After a short discussion with my friend Co-Pilot Arpit Gupta who was the Deputy Commander of the same flight,I wrote an article on it.

Already having a meteorological background,it was easy for me to figure out what type of conditions are really needed for such turbulences to occur which makes one feel like Earthquakes even at an elevation of 30,000 ft (Mostly due to the CAT turbulence type or if the flight accidentally enters the Cumulonimbus Cloud System)..

This article this scientifically explains this phenomena of Turbulence...

It was published in The Hitavada on 22nd May 2012

(The CB cloud photo was taken by me on 11th May 2012 while I was enroute to Mumbai from Nagpur)

Article: Guest from the Cosmos in Vidarbha (The Hitavada,5th June 2012)

There was a Meteorite shower around Nagpur region (Referred as Vidarbha) on 22nd May 2012 afternoon. People heard the explosion sounds in the afternoon especially in a wedge area around 100-200kms from Nagpur city.

Surprisingly, an earthquake measuring 2.1M on the Richter Scale was recorded 30km NE of Akola which is near to Nagpur.

The article thus explains the basic difference between a meteorite,meteoroid and meteror in a very simple and illustrative way. Also I have investigated whether the Earthquake was caused to the impact or not (As a few meteorites had produced Earthquakes in the past)

The article was Co-Authored by Me,AKGs Aluth Fian and Mr.Sandeep Shirkhedkar.

I thank them for their support

Times of India interview (20th August 2012)

I was interviewed recently by the reputed newspaper Times of India at Nagpur. I was asked about my work and matters like why I chose to do a BS by going against the stream and why do people opt for engineering more than B.S

It was published in The Times of India,Nagpur on 20th Aug 2012

Article: Ek Mayan Mein Do Fermion??? ( The Hitavada,21st Aug 2012)