SPACE Chennai - Zero Shadow Day ( GAM 2019)

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May 06

2019

by SPACE Chennai

Event Date: 24.04.19

On 24th April, 2019 SPACE Chennai had conducted a zero shadow day experiment at College Of Engineering, Anna University, Guindy during the local noon 12:07 pm.

About Zero shadow day:

During sunrise and sunset, we will have a long shadow of an object but at noontime, we will have the shortest shadow of that day. But specifically during summers, we will have even shorter shadows facing towards south at local noon and during winter we will have slightly longer shadows facing towards the north at local noon. This gives rise to two days in a year where we have Zero Shadow (or No Shadow), during the transition of shadows from North to South or vice a versa. This happens once between months of December solstice (21st/22nd December) and June solstice (20th/21st June) and then once between June solstice and December solstice. This can only happen in the region which lies between the latitudes 23.5° South (the tropic of Capricorn) and 23.5° North (the tropic of Cancer).

Chennai is at 13.0827° N above the equator so we people are lucky to witness this twice per year. On the day we will place different vertical objects on the ground to observe the zero shadow exactly at the local noon, when the sun comes up above our head we will get a zero shadow on that particular day. 

About the Experiment:

Zero shadow day started with a brief about the criteria that are causing the Zero shadow and shadow making experiment given by Mr Neeraj Ladia, Astronomer and Business Head of SPACE Chennai. Following which the students moved to the ground and started marking the shadows by 11.30 AM with an interval of 2 minutes. They found the shadow missing by 12.07 PM & started to reappear by 12.09 PM. The shadow making was done up to 12.30 PM. After that students moved back to the AV room and was explained about the shadow difference between the correct setup & wrong setup of shadow making experiment. Students observed the images of zero shadow taken in their campus ground. The program ended with certificate distribution & vote of thanks. Some of the Photos of the observations are here.