{"id":46147,"date":"2025-04-25T11:25:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T05:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=46147"},"modified":"2025-05-28T15:37:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T10:07:43","slug":"new-method-to-estimate-helium-abundance-in-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/new-method-to-estimate-helium-abundance-in-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"New Method to Estimate Helium Abundance in the Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>New Method to Estimate Helium Abundance in the Sun Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>Indian scientists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have successfully developed a novel method to accurately estimate the abundance of Helium in the Sun\u2019s photosphere using indirect spectral analysis.<\/p>\n<h2>Background\u00a0<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Helium is the\u00a0<strong>second most abundant element in the Sun<\/strong>, but\u00a0<strong>direct detection in the Sun\u2019s photosphere is extremely difficult<\/strong>\u00a0due to the\u00a0<strong>absence of Helium spectral lines<\/strong>\u00a0in the visible range.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Traditionally<\/strong>, Helium abundance was estimated\u00a0<strong>indirectly<\/strong>\u00a0using:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Solar wind or corona data<\/strong>,<\/li>\n<li><strong>Extrapolation from hotter stars<\/strong>,<\/li>\n<li><strong>Helioseismology (solar interior vibrations)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>These methods were\u00a0<strong>not based on direct photospheric observations<\/strong>\u00a0and hence lacked precision.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is the New Method?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Scientists used\u00a0<strong>spectral lines of neutral Magnesium (Mg I)<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>neutral Carbon (C I)<\/strong>, along with\u00a0<strong>molecular lines of MgH, CH, and C\u2082<\/strong>, observed in the\u00a0<strong>Sun\u2019s photosphere<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This method is based on the principle that\u00a0<strong>the relative abundance of Helium affects the availability of Hydrogen<\/strong>, which in turn\u00a0<strong>influences the formation and strength of molecular lines<\/strong>\u00a0(e.g., CH and MgH).<\/li>\n<li>The researchers\u00a0<strong>matched the atomic and molecular abundances<\/strong>\u00a0of Magnesium and Carbon for different\u00a0<strong>Helium-to-Hydrogen (He\/H) ratios<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The technique confirmed that\u00a0<strong>only at a He\/H ratio of ~0.1 do the atomic and molecular line abundances agree<\/strong>, validating the assumed solar value.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About Helium<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Helium (He)<\/strong>\u00a0is a\u00a0<strong>noble gas<\/strong>\u00a0with a\u00a0<strong>closed-shell electronic configuration<\/strong>, making it\u00a0<strong>stable and chemically inert<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Discovered in 1868<\/strong>\u00a0by\u00a0<strong>Jules Janssen and Norman Lockyer<\/strong>\u00a0via a\u00a0<strong>yellow spectral line during a solar eclipse<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Named after the Greek word<strong>\u00a0\u2018Helios\u2019,<\/strong>\u00a0meaning\u00a0<strong>Sun<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Largest global reserves<\/strong>: United States, Algeria, and Russia.<\/li>\n<li><strong>India\u2019s Rajmahal Volcanic Basin (Jharkhand)<\/strong>\u00a0is a significant\u00a0<strong>helium reservoir<\/strong>\u00a0trapped for billions of years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2124064\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PIB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Helium, the Sun\u2019s second most abundant element, is hard to detect in the photosphere due to the lack of visible spectral lines in its emission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[272,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-46147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-new-method-to-estimate-helium-abundance-in-the-sun","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}