Sighting Himalayan peaks from plains after COVID-19 lockdown: 17-year-old boy, mentor refute claims

After analysing Henry Colebroke’s observation, Arnav and Professor Vijay Singh said that in all probability it was Mt Kanchenjunga. (Representative image)

The coronavirus-induced lockdown not only helped in preventing transmission of infection but also resulted in better air quality and visibility, with reported sightings of Himalayan peaks from hundreds of kilometres away. However, the claim has been challenged by a student researcher and his mentor.

Arnav Singh, 17, and his mentor Professor Vijay Singh, president of the Indian Association of Physics Teachers, revisited the reports of the sightings of the Dhauladhar from Jalandhar and Mt Jomolhari in the eastern Himalayas from Bhagalpur, reported The Times of India.

According to the report, the duo calculated the distance and size of mountains and the intensity of light. Based on the calculation, they inferred that such sightings are unlikely to be true, it said.

Taking into account the reports of sighting the peaks, they said observer would have mistaken a larger or taller range for something else, said the report.

Their work, published by the American Journal of Physics in May, stated that the maximum distance one could see from the peak of Mt Jomolhari was 301 kilometres because of the curvature of the Earth.

“This was short of the distance of 366 km between the peak and Bhagalpur,” Professor Singh was quoted as saying. Singh completed his doctoral degree from the State University of New York, Albany in 1978. He was a Professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur) for over two decades (1984-2005).

The finding also questioned the observation of Jomolhari from Bhagalpur by Sir William Jones. The 1785 observation of the Jomolhari from Bhagalpur by reputable Orientalist and founder of the Royal Society of Bengal (RSB) Jones has been quoted often and recently in a famous book of John Keay’s called the ‘Great Arc’, the report stated.

To answer the question that if Jomolhari cannot be seen from Bhagalpur then which peak did Sir William Jones see, Arnav and Singh analysed the observations of his successor to the RSB, Henry Colebroke. After analysing Colebroke’s observation, they said that in all probability it was Mt Kanchenjunga, said the report.