SCIENCE OF VISHU:

The earth revolves around the sun. the number of revolution is counted starting from the fixed point known as Mesha sankranthi rekha which is Alpha Aeries point. The movement of the sun ( when viewed from the earth) from the sign of Meena to the sign mesha is the sankranthi. It infact from the mesha sanskrathi starts the astronomical new year day. i.e. the starting of counting the revolution of the earth around the sun. In Sanskrit it is known as mesha vishuvath from the word vishuvath came vishu. There are mesha and tula vishuvath. The time of the change of the sign from meena to mesha (mesha sankranthi) is known as the punya kaalam. By assigning the Sankranti time as the right ascension (lagna) point examining the position of all other grahas the vishu phala pravachana is done for the next one year. As usual, Indians connected the science with spirituality. So that vishukkaineettam, Vishukkani etc are organized including temple visit..

Newsletter from Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage
Thursday Message - April 08 ,2010 (Serial Number 204) (by Dr.N.Gopalakrishnan and IISH Communication Team, published Wednesday, 07 April 2010 23:59)