Researchers Find Organic Matter and Water in Sample from Asteroid Itokawa
An international team of scientists has studied both the water and organic contents from a dust particle recovered from the surface of the near-Earth S-type asteroid 25143 Itokawa by JAXA's Hayabusa mission, which was the first mission that brought pristine asteroidal materials to Earth.
In 2010, the Hayabusa mission successfully recovered over thousands of regolith particles, with sizes ranging 10-200 μm, from the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa.
Itokawa is considered a rubble-pile asteroid that was re-accreted from materials of a formerly large, thermally metamorphosed, collisional-disrupted precursor planetesimal.
Mar 06, 2021
NASA's Perseverance Rover Drives on Mars for First Time
NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover performed its first drive on Mars, covering 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) across the Martian landscape.
The drive served as a mobility test that marks just one of many milestones as team members check out and calibrate every system, subsystem, and instrument on Perseverance. Once the rover begins pursuing its science goals, regular commutes extending 656 feet (200 meters) or more are expected.
The drive, which lasted about 33 minutes, propelled the rover forward 13 feet (4 meters), where it then turned in place 150 degrees to the left and backed up 8 feet (2.5 meters) into its new temporary parking space.
To help better understand the dynamics of a retrorocket landing on the Red Planet, engineers used Perseverance's Navigation and Hazard Avoidance Cameras to image the spot where Perseverance touched down, dispersing Martian dust with plumes from its engines.
Mar 04, 2021
Union Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot Launches 'Sugamya Bharat' App
Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawar Chand Gehlot launched the 'Sugamya Bharat' App and a handbook titled 'Access - The Photo Digest' through a video conference in New Delhi.
The App and the handbook have been developed by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.
The App provides for five main features out of which four are directly related to enhancing accessibility.
They include registration of complaints of inaccessibility across the broad pillars of the built environment, transportation sector and Information and Communication Technology ecosystem, positive feedback of examples and best practices worth emulating being shared by people as Jan-Bhagidaari.
They also include Departmental s and guidelines and circulars related to accessibility. The fifth feature is a special feature meant only for Divyangjan for COVID-19 related issues.
Indigenously Developed "Spectrograph" Commissioned in Nainital
Indian Scientists at Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciences (ARIES), Nainital, have indigenously designed and developed a low-cost optical Spectrograph named as Aries-Devasthal Faint Object Spectrograph & Camera (ADFOSC). It has been commissioned on the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand.
The ADFOSC spectroscope is the largest of its kind among the existing astronomical spectrographs in India.
The ADFOSC spectrograph can locate sources of faint light from distant quasars and galaxies in a very young universe, regions around supermassive black-holes around the galaxies, and cosmic explosions.
So far, spectroscopes were imported from abroad at high costs. The 'Made in India' optical spectrograph is about 2.5 times less costly compared to the imported ones and can locate sources of light with a photon-rate as low as about 1 photon per second.
The ARIES is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. It is the largest reflecting telescope in India, as well as in Asia.
Mar 03, 2021
ISRO to Send First Unmanned Flight by this December
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to send the first unmanned flight into space by the end of 2021.
Under Gaganyaan mission, India plans to send three astronauts into space. They will orbit at about 400 km above the earth for five to seven days before returning.
Prior to that, there will be two unmanned space missions to test the rocket and the crew module systems.
Mar 02, 2021
ISRO Flags off 2021 with 19 Satellites, e-Gita & PM Modi's Picture
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) made its first launch of 2021 in a big way. It successfully blasted into space the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C51, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharkota, carrying 19 payloads: Brazil's 637-kg Amazonia-1 (its primary passenger) plus 18 co-passenger satellites.
One of these satellites also carried an e-copy of the Bhagavad Gita, saved on an SD-card, as well as a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi engraved on its panel.
Launched at 10.24 am, this was the first commercial mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), ISRO's commercial arm.
After a flight of about 17 minutes, the vehicle injected Amazonia-1 into its intended orbit, and in the succeeding 1 hour 38 minutes, all the 18 co-passenger satellites were successfully separated from the PSLV in a predetermined sequence.
Hubble Snaps Breathtaking New Image of NGC 2336
NGC 2336 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis.
Otherwise, known as LEDA 21033 and UGC 3809, it lies at a distance of 109 million light-years.
NGC 2336 is a member of a small galaxy group known as the NGC 2336 group.
It also forms a non-interacting pair with the spiral galaxy IC 467.
NGC 2336 was discovered in 1876 by the German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel, using a 28-cm telescope.
In 1987, NGC 2336 experienced a Type-Ia supernova, the only observed supernova in the galaxy since its discovery 111 years earlier.
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