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Kodaikanal Solar Observatory founded

· Kodaikanal Solar Observatory

Kodaikanal Solar Observatory founded
Marcus334 at English Wikipedia (Original text: Indian Institute of Astrophysics), CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons

Solar research moved from the Madras Observatory to a new observatory at Kodaikanal, where the Evershed effect was discovered in 1909.

After a famine in the Madras Presidency underlined the need to study the sun and monsoon patterns, a committee recommended a solar observatory at a hill station in South India. Equipment and work were transferred from the Madras Observatory from 1895, and the Kodaikanal observatory was founded on 1 April 1899. In January 1909 John Evershed detected the radial flow of gas in sunspots there, now called the Evershed effect. The observatory remains an important centre of solar astronomy.

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