General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - March 2018

Mar 2018

Nov 05, 2020

Enigmatic Fast Radio Burst Pinned on Magnetised Dead Star

Scientists have managed to trace a very short, very bright burst of radio waves to a type of highly magnetised dead star, known as a magnetar.
It's the first time a so-called fast radio burst, or FRB, has been pinned on a specific source.
FRBs were first detected in 2007, and have been one of the hottest topics in astronomy ever since.
The new discovery was made by two independent radio telescope arrays in North America.
Co-incident observations by other astronomical facilities - both in space and on the ground - helped characterise the event and strengthen the interpretation.
The source magnetar, a known object, has the slightly unwieldy designation of SGR 1935+2154.
It's about 30,000 light-years away, which is interesting because all previous FRB detections have come from beyond our Milky Way galaxy.
The detected properties, however, are very much same.

Nov 04, 2020

A68a Iceberg on Collision Path

The world's biggest iceberg, known as A68a, is bearing down on the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia.
The Antarctic ice giant is a similar size to the South Atlantic island, and there's a strong possibility the berg could now ground and anchor itself offshore of the wildlife haven.
If that happens, it poses a grave threat to local penguins and seals.
The animals' normal foraging routes could be blocked, preventing them from feeding their young properly.
And it goes without saying that all creatures living on the seafloor would be crushed where A68a touched down - a disturbance that would take a very long time to reverse.
Ecosystems can and will bounce back of course, but the danger here is that if this iceberg gets stuck, it could be there for 10 years.

Nov 03, 2020

Asteroid 16 Psyche

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, (NASA) has found that 16 Psyche asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter is made of rare metals such as gold, cobalt, platinum, rhenium and iridium. The total worth of the precious metals in the asteroid has been estimated as 10,000 Quadrillion USD by NASA scientists.
According to the NASA scientists, the asteroid might have been formed from the leftover of an earlier planet that lost its mantle and crust after getting collided multiple times during the creation of solar system. NASA is to send an unmanned spacecraft to study the asteroid closely.
It is located at around 370 million kilometres away from the earth. It is one of the most massive objects found in the asteroid belt of solar system. The asteroid was first discovered in 1853 by an Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. The asteroid has been named after the Greek goddess Psyche.

Oct 31, 2020

ISRO to Launch Earth Observation Satellite EOS-1

The Indian Space Research Organisation is to launch Earth observation satellite, RISAT-2BR2 and nine other customer satellites by November 7, 2020.
The earth observation satellite has been code named EOS-01. It aims to support applications in forestry, agriculture and disaster management. The launch of this earth observation satellite will be the 51st mission of ISRO.
The earth observation satellite is to be launched on Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles. The customer satellite is being launched along with the EOS-01 under the commercial agreement signed by ISRO with Newspace India Limited.

Oct 30, 2020

SpaceX Replaces 2 Rocket engines ahead of next Crewed Mission

Elon Musk-run SpaceX is replacing two engines on its Falcon 9 rocket which is scheduled to launch four space travelers to the International Space Station on November 14.
The requirement of replacing the engines became apparent after an investigation into the aberrant behaviour of the Falcon 9 rocket observed during a recent non-NASA mission launch attempt.
The non-NASA mission referred to the launch attempt of a GPS satellite for the US Space Force earlier this month, which was aborted automatically moments before the lit off.
This led NASA and SpaceX to delay the launch of Crew-1 mission, which is also scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket -- which was originally scheduled for launch on October 31.

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