Astronomers discovered an ancient planetary system, which belonged
to one of the earliest cosmic eras, 13 billion years ago. The planetary system consists of the star HIP 11952 and two planets namely HIP 11952b and HIP 11952c. The newly discovered
planetary system will shed light on planet formation in the early
universe.
A NASA spacecraft called Messenger in the last week of March 2012 discovered further evidence for the existence of water ice at Mercury’s poles.
Although surface temperatures at Mercury can soar above 400 C, some craters at Mercury’s
poles are permanently in shadow,
turning them into so-called cold traps.
Aerogel
- Aerogel is a synthetic porous material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with a gas. The result is a solid with extremely low density and thermal conductivity.
- It is nicknamed frozen smoke, solid smoke, solid air or blue smoke owing to its translucent nature and the way light scatters in the material.
- Aerogels are rigid, dry materials. It is among the lightest solid substances on earth.
- Aerogels are good thermal insulators because they almost nullify the three methods of heat transfer (convection, conduction, and radiation)
Applications
- Its high surface area leads to many applications, such as a chemical adsorber for cleaning up spills or as a catalyst.
- Insulation material for windows.
Chang’e-2- China
SALT-LOVING WHEAT COULD EASE FOOD CRISIS
- Durum wheat with a salt-loving gene had yields which were up to 25 per cent greater than ordinary counterparts, according to trials carried out in highly saline fields.
- The gene, called TmHKT1;5-A, helps remove sodium from the water that is transported from the plant’s roots to the leaves.
- TmHKT1;5-A was inserted into a commercial strain by traditional cross-breeding, not through genetic engineering.
- Durum wheat — Triticum turgidum — is used for making pasta, bulgur and couscous. It is more salt-sensitive than bread wheat.
Nirbhay- The
Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed
a new sub-sonic cruise missile called Nirbhay (Fearless in Sanskrit), which may
be test-fired in April. This is the first time that India
Helina, the
helicopter-fired version of Nag, the third-generation anti-tank missile. Nag
has ‘fire and forget’ and ‘top attack’ capability. Carrying an eight-kg warhead,
it has an infra-red seeker and can destroy enemy tanks four km away. Based on
the information available from the target, Helina will lock on to it midway
through its flight and zero in on to it.
The LAHAT (Laser Homing Attack or Laser Homing Anti-Tank
missile) is a third-generation semi-active
low-weight anti-tank missile.
This version was fired from the Arjun tank.
The planet GJ1214b was largely covered in water. Hubble
Space Telescope was used to discover the water
on planet. GJ1214b
was discovered in 2009 by the ground-based MEarth Project. GJ1214b was described as a super-Earth.
The Dragon is a reusable spacecraft developed by SpaceX, a
private space transportation company. During its uncrewed maiden flight in
December 2010, Dragon became the first commercially-built and operated
spacecraft to be recovered successfully from orbit. On 25 May 2012 , an uncrewed variant of Dragon became
the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous (meeting) with the
International Space Station (ISS). It carried some food to ISS. It docked with
ISS successfully to transfer the material. It can carry 7 astronauts.
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a radio telescope in
development which will have a total collecting area of approximately one square
kilometre.
- The
SKA will be built in the southern hemisphere, in
- The SKA will combine the signals received from thousands of small antennas spread over a distance of more than 3000 km to simulate a single giant radio telescope capable of extremely high sensitivity and angular resolution
- It will operate over a wide range of frequencies and its size will make it 50 times more sensitive than any other radio instrument.
- The phased array technology used in this will greatly increase the survey speed of the SKA and enable multiple users to observe different pieces of the sky simultaneously.
- It’ll assist in research on origin and evolution of universe.
In November 2011, the SKA Organisation was formed and the
project moved from a collaboration to an independent, not for profit, company.[6]
As of May 2012, the members of the SKA Organisation are:
- The
LOFAR is the
Low-Frequency Array for radio astronomy, built by the Netherlands
- LOFAR will be one of the largest connected radio telescope built using a new concept based on a vast array of omni-directional antennas.
- The project is based on an interferometric array of radio telescopes using about 20,000 small antennas and at least 48 larger stations. The total effective collecting area is up to approximately 300,000 square meter, depending on frequency and antenna configuration.
- LOFAR is the most sensitive radio observatory at its low observing frequencies, until the next generation of large array radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), comes online around 2020.
MeerKAT is a
radio telescope under construction in the Northern Cape of South Africa.
- It will be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the southern hemisphere until the Square Kilometer Array is completed around 2024.
- The telescope will be used for research into cosmic magnetism, galactic evolution, the large-scale structure of the cosmos, dark matter and the nature of transient radio sources.
Rajendra Radar
- Rajendra is a passive phased array radar developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
- It is a multifunction radar, capable of surveillance, tracking and engaging low radar cross section targets. It is the heart of the Akash surface-to-air missile system
Synthetic-aperture
radar (SAR)
- Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar whose defining characteristic is its use of relative motion, between an antenna and its target region, to provide distinctive long-term coherent-signal variations, that are exploited to obtain finer spatial resolution than is possible with conventional beam-scanning means.
- SAR is usually implemented by mounting, on a moving platform such as an aircraft or spacecraft, a single beam-forming antenna from which a target scene is repeatedly illuminated with pulses of radio waves at wavelengths anywhere from a meter down to millimeters. The many echo waveforms received successively at the different antenna positions are coherently detected and stored and then post-processed together to resolve elements in an image of the target region.
- SAR images have wide applications in remote sensing and mapping of the surfaces of both the Earth and other planets. SAR can also be implemented as "inverse SAR" by observing a moving target over a substantial time with a stationary antenna.
Low-temperature
thermal desalination (LTTD)
- It is a desalination technique takes advantage of the fact that water boils at low pressures, even as low as ambient temperature.
- The system uses vacuum pumps to create a low pressure, low-temperature environment in which water boils at a temperature gradient of 8 to 10 °C between two volumes of water.
- Cooling water is supplied from sea depths of as much as 600 metres (2,000 ft). This cold water is pumped through coils to condense the evaporated water vapor. The resulting condensate is purified water.
- The LTTD process may also take advantage of the temperature gradient available at power plants, where large quantities of warm waste water are discharged from the plant, reducing the energy input needed to create a temperature gradient.
- The
plants have been commissioned at Minicoy, Agatti, Kavaratti in
AUF1- A Key Gene Found Responsible For Chronic Inflammation, Accelerated Aging and Cancer.
A team of Canadian scientists have discovered that thioridazine, a drug used to treat psychotic disorder, could successfully kill cancer stem cells in humans without the toxic side-effects on normal cells.
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