Kathy Sullivan Becomes 1st Woman to Reach Deepest Point of Ocean
Sixty-eight-year-old Kathy Sullivan, Former NASA astronaut and Geologist became the first woman to reach the Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the ocean.
Challenger Deep is located in the Mariana Trench, 7 miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean which is 200 miles southwest of Guam.
This is the deepest point known in the Ocean.
Kathy Sullivan joined NASA in 1978 and flew three shuttle missions and in 1993 she left NASA and started exploring oceanography.
She became the under-secretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere in the United States.
She was the first American Woman to walk in space in 1984.
In 2004 she was inducted into the Astronauts Hall of Fame.
She was the 8th human to take the dive to Challenger Deep.
She became the first human to visit both the space and the deepest known point in the Ocean.
Europe's Sun Mission Makes First Close Pass
Europe's Solar Orbiter (SolO) probe made its first close pass of the Sun, tracking by at a distance of just over 77 million km.
SolO was launched in February and is on a mission to understand what drives our star's dynamic behaviour.
The close pass, known as a perihelion, puts the probe between the orbits of Venus and Mercury.
In the coming years, SolO will go nearer still, closing to within 43 million km of the Sun on occasions.
As it stands today, only five other missions have dived deeper into the inner Solar System: Mariner 10, Helios 1 & 2, Messenger, and Parker Solar Probe.
Jun 13, 2020
Scientists Discover the Fifth State of Matter in Space
Scientists have observed the fifth state of matter in space for the first time, offering unprecedented insight that could help solve some of the quantum universe's most intractable conundrums.
Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs), the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein and Indian mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose almost a century ago, are formed when atoms of certain elements are cooled to near absolute zero (0 Kelvin, minus 273.15 Celsius).
At this point, the atoms become a single entity with quantum properties, wherein each particle also functions as a wave of matter.
BECs straddle the line between the macroscopic world governed by forces such as gravity and the microscopic plane, ruled by quantum mechanics.
Scientists believe BECs contain vital clues to mysterious phenomena such as dark energy, the unknown energy thought to be behind the Universe's accelerating expansion.
Jun 12, 2020
Google Removes TikTok Clone App from Play Store
Google has been keeping a close eye on new apps that try to mimic other popular applications. This time around, the search giant removed a Chinese video app called Zynn from the Play Store. The app was a clone of the hugely popular video app TikTok. This happened due to allegations of plagiarism.
According to a report by Wired, TikTok users pointed out that their entire accounts had been plagiarised on this application. The information included profile pictures, names, dating back to months.
The app Zynn surfaced on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play Store in the month of May. Within the end of the first month, the app had become the most downloaded free iOS app and was featured in the top 10 downloads in Google Play Store.
The app had a rewards programme where users got paid for watching videos and also to get other users on the app. Users were offered $1 for signing up, $20 for the first person they get to join and $10 for every five users afterward.
Jun 11, 2020
Titan is Drifting Away From Saturn 100 Times Faster
Scientists say that Saturn's largest moon Titan is moving away from the ringed planet must faster than previously believed. In fact, it is drifting away a hundred times faster.
The fact was discovered using data collected during NASA's Cassini spacecraft to study Saturn and some of its moons which revealed that Titan, one of Saturn's 80 moons, is moving away from the planet at a rate of about four inches per year.
Moons' moving away from their planet is a common phenomenon. Earth's own Moon, for instance, moves about 1.5 inches away every year, according to American space agency NASA.
The movement away is caused by the moon's gravity tugging on the planet, which creates a temporary bulge in the planet. That energy pushes the moon further away.
Jun 10, 2020
Pratik Tirodkar Develops World's First 'Internet-controlled' Robot 'Coro-bot'
Thane engineer, Pratik Tirodkar, founder of a start-up PNT Solutions, Dombivali developed the world's 1st 'Internet-controlled' robot named 'Coro-bot' to address the needs of the hospitals treating COVID-19 patients. It is deployed for the 1st time in Holy Cross Hospital, Kalyan, Maharashtra.
The company has created a special application to operate Coro-bot from any location in the world using Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the 1st time in the world that this technique is being deployed in the medical field.
The robot delivers food, water and medicines to Corona patients in the hospitals without needing the physical presence of nurses and other care-givers.
By using a camera it can interact with patients and also can caution them by audio reminders to sanitise their hands before they pick up things from trays.