General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - May 2015

May 2015

Aug 10, 2019

NASA Scientists Find Outer Boundary Of Solar System, Call It Hydrogen Wall

NASA scientists have found the outer boundary of solar system and called it the hydrogen wall. Earlier, the space was believed to be a continuous expanse of an imaginary sheet called ether.
The scientists working at NASA think that they have found the outer boundary of our solar system.
It was earlier thought to be not properly defined. Now, they have said that their New Horizons spacecraft can see that invisible boundary.
They have named it the "hydrogen wall." It is located at the edge of our solar system.
The hydrogen wall has been described by the scientists as the place where bubbles of solar wind cease to exist. The mass of interstellar matter here is very small but strong enough to not let the solar winds to pass through.
At the same time, it is not so strong to bust through the solar wind build up. It acts like a wall pressing the solar winds inward.

Scientists Develop World's Smallest Stent

Scientists have created the world's smallest stent — 40 times smaller than any produced to date.
Stents have been used to treat blocked coronary vessels for some time now, but the urinary tract in fetuses is much narrower in comparison, said researchers from Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland.
In order to prevent life-threatening levels of urine from accumulating in the bladder, paediatric surgeons have to surgically remove the affected section of the urethra and sew the open ends of the tube back together again.
It would be less damaging to the kidneys if a stent could be inserted to widen the constriction while the fetus is still in the womb, according to the study published in 'Advanced Materials Technologies'.

NASA Discovers Cloaked Black Hole In Early Universe

Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ability of X-rays to pierce through the obscuring cloud, astronomers have discovered evidence of the farthest "cloaked" black hole found to date.
At only about 6% of the current age of the universe, this is the first indication of a black hole hidden by gas at such an early time in the history of the cosmos, said the study set to be published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Aug 09, 2019

Scientists Produce Radioactivity-Free Chernobyl Vodka

A team of British scientists has helped produce a radioactivity-free vodka called "ATOMIK" from crops near the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, according to the University of Portsmouth .
The team did find some radioactivity in the grain but said the normal distillation process meant the only radioactivity in the alcohol was natural Carbon-14 "at the same level expected in any spirit drink".

Why Chandrayaan 2 Will Take 48 Days To Reach Moon ?

USSR's Luna-2 craft took just 34 hours to reach Moon in 1959. Ten years later on July 20, 1969, Nasa's Apollo-11 mission carrying humans landed on Moon in just four days, 6 hours and 45 minutes. Besides being the world's first manned Moon mission, Apollo-11 was also the fastest trip of astronauts to the Moon.
So why is Chandrayaan-2 taking more than a month? The answer lies in the build of the rocket, the amount of fuel it's carrying and the speed of the lunarcraft.
In space, covering long distances requires high speeds and straight trajectories. For Apollo-11, Nasa had used Saturn V, a super heavy-lift launcher, to travel at more than 39,000km per hour.
The powerful rocket had a lifting capability of 43 tonnes, including the lunar module, service module and command module housing the crew capsule.
Saturn V's third stage put the modules (command with crew capsule, service and lunar modules) into the trans-lunar trajectory soon after orbiting Earth for the second time. The launcher and the lunar craft used powerful engines to reach Moon covering 3.8 lakh km in just four days
India does not have a rocket powerful enough to hurl Chandrayaan-2 on a straight path to Moon.
It's the reason ISRO chose a circuitous route to take advantage of Earth's gravity, which will help slingshot the craft towards the Moon.
The role of GSLV-MkIII, with only 4-tonne lifting capability, was limited to putting Chandrayaan-2 (3.8 tonnes) in the geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Aug 08, 2019

'Indestructible' Earthlings on Moon?

Tardigrades can withstand extreme radiation, sizzling heat, the coldest temperatures, and decades without food.
These terrifying-sounding beings aren't aliens but instead microscopic Earthlings known as tardigrades, who likely made it out alive following a crash landing on the lunar surface by Israel's Beresheet probe, the US-based organisation responsible for their trip.
Based on an analysis of the spacecraft's trajectory and the composition of the device the micro-animals were stored in, it is believed that the chances of survival for the tardigrades are extremely high.

Aug 07, 2019

MISSION MOON ON TRACK

Chandryaan-2 has successfully carried out the fifth orbit-raising manoeuvre, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) when the Earth-bound orbit raising manoeuvre was performed in line with the Indian space agency's schedule.
Using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of 1,041 seconds, the orbit achieved was 276 x 142975km.
On August 14, 2019, ISRO will now undertake the next procedure – the Trans-Lunar Insertion, which will put it on a lunar transfer trajectory – on August 14, 2019 between 3 am and 4 am.

Aug 06, 2019

New Japanese Flying Car Hovers for One Minute

The Japanese electronics maker demonstrated the machine, flying without a passenger, at a Tokyo suburb. Made by NEC Corp., the vehicle is essentially a large drone with four propellers that's capable of carrying people. Powered by a battery, it rose briefly to about 3 meters (10 ft.) above the ground before settling down again. Japan's government wants the country to become a leader in flying cars after missing out on advancements in technology such as electric cars and ride-hailing services. The country's technological roadmap calls for shipping goods by flying cars by around 2023 and letting people ride in flying cars in cities by the 2030s. NEC is positioning itself as an enabler for air mobility, providing location data and building communications infrastructure for flying cars.

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