'Saraswati': A Supercluster Of Galaxies Discovered By Indian Scientists
A team of Indian astronomers has discovered an extremely large supercluster of galaxies -- as big as 20 million billion suns -- which they have named Saraswati, Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) said on Thursday.
This is one of the largest known structures in the neighborhood of the universe, 4,000 million light-years away from Earth and roughly more than 10 billion years old, IUCAA said.
Scientists of this Institute were also involved in the path-breaking discovery of gravitational waves last year.
The supercluster was discovered by Shishir Sankhyayan, a Ph.D. student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, Pratik Dabhade, IUCAA research fellow, Joe Jacob of the Newman College, Kerala, and Prakash Sarkar of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur.
Jul 15, 2017
Three Indian Vulture Species on List for Highest Protection
Ten critically endangered vulture species in the world , including three from India, are set to get the highest degree of protection. Three of the nine species of vultures in India - oriental white-backed, slender-billed and long-billed- are on the brink of extinction. The Bombay Natural History Society with the assistance of British charity Royal Society for the protection of Birds is breeding them in captivity. Currently, they are classified as ‘Critically Endangered’ or ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red list of species threatened with extinction. The meeting was concluded in Bonn.
Jul 13, 2017
Smallest Star Ever Known in Universe
A team of astronomers has discovered the smallest star ever known in the galaxy.
The star is called EBLM J0555–57Ab and is slightly bigger than Saturn. It is located about 600 light-years from Earth and can be seen from the Southern Hemisphere.
Jul 12, 2017
Brown Dwarfs
A new study conducted by scientists has found that Milky Way may have over 100 billion brown dwarfs.
Brown dwarfs are objects intermediate in mass between stars and planets, with masses too low to sustain stable hydrogen fusion in their core, the hallmark of stars like the sun.
The initial discovery of brown dwarfs was made in 1995.
Jul 08, 2017
World's First Battery-free Cell Phone
Scientists, including those of Indian origin, have invented the first battery-less cell phone that consumes almost zero power and runs by harvesting energy from ambient radio signals or light.