Tribune News Service
Jammu, January 6. Jammu and Kashmir will have the distinction of setting up the world’s largest solar telescope in the Ladakh region of the state. The telescope is being set up by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) will be set up at the Pangong Tso Lake in Ladakh.
This was stated by Chief Secretary Madhav Lal while chairing a meeting here today. The meeting was convened to discuss the modalities for setting up the solar telescope and chalk out strategies to ensure that the construction as well as operational phases of the project could be undertaken with minimal disturbance to the local flora and fauna.
Prof Tushar P Prabhu from the Department of Science and technology at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics said the site was selected after carefully studying various scientific and environmental aspects.
It emerged from the studies that the Pangong Lake site at Merak was promising and offered longer sunshine hours.
He said the site selected for setting up of the world’s largest solar telescope fitted with a 2m reflector would allow scientists to carry out cutting-edge research to understand the fundamental processes taking place on the sun.
The solar telescope will help the scientific community to study the long term changes in the earth’s climate and environment and also provide useful data to carry out research, in order to minimise or remove disruptions to communications network and satellites due to periodic solar winds.
