New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Emmanuel Macron will visit the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur today, hours after French President arriving in India.
Jantar Mantar is a famous solar observatory established by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh. It has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in July 2010.
It is an exhibit of India’s expertise and scientific progress centuries before independence. It includes a set of eighteen instruments and is the biggest stone observatory in the world.
It consists of various instruments which include:
The Laghu Samrat Yantra which is a Sun Dial that can help to calibrate local time to an accuracy of 20 seconds.
The triangular wall which is placed in north-south direction has quadrants on either side. The shadow of the wall moves equal distance in equal time intervals on the quadrants. This movement is calibrated to read the local time.
The western and eastern quadrants are divided into sub divisions, each of 6 hours, for the morning and afternoon segments respectively.
Each hour is divided into four fifteen minutes divisions which are sub divided into five minutes and one minute divisions. Each one minute division is sub divided into three divisions 20 seconds each.
The Sun Dial which is used to determine the position of the Sun in the hemispheres. It is made in two parts- one depicting when the Sun is in northern hemisphere ( March to September) and the other depicting the Sun in southern hemisphere (September to March). The shadow of the iron rod (gnomon) depicts the local time of Jaipur city.
Rashivalaya which are instruments for measuring the celestial latitude and longitude of the celestial bodies. There are twelve instruments which represents the twelve signs of the zodiac. Measurement is done when the corresponding sign of the zodiac transits the local meridian.
These instruments are placed on the basis of angular position of the Sun in the Northern and Southern hemisphere.
The largest Sun dial in the world which shows the local time with precision of two seconds.
The wall in the middle which is placed in north-south direction with an angle of local latitude, which is 27º N. The shadow of the wall moves equal distance in equal time intervals on the eastern & western quadrants. This movement is calibrated to read the local time. The western and eastern quadrants are divided into 6 hours.
Each hour is divided into 15 minutes and later in 1 minute parts.
