General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - December 2018

Dec 2018

Jan 01, 2024

China's Groundbreaking Voyage: Mengxiang Sets Sail for Earth's Mantle Exploration

China introduced its groundbreaking ocean drilling vessel, Mengxiang, signifying a pivotal moment in scientific exploration. Developed by the China Geological Survey in collaboration with 150 research institutes and companies, the vessel is named "dream" in Chinese, reflecting its ambitious mission. The Mengxiang aims to penetrate Earth's crust and delve into the mysteries of the mantle, marking humanity's inaugural foray into this uncharted territory.
Mengxiang is a colossal ship with exceptional capabilities. It boasts a range of 15,000 nautical miles and can operate for 120 days per port call. Engineered to withstand powerful tropical cyclones, it stands as a testament to advancements in deep-sea drilling technology. The vessel's drilling prowess is unmatched, with the capacity to reach depths of 11,000 metres below the sea's surface.
Traditionally confined to the Earth's crust, scientific exploration now eyes the mantle, a crucial layer connecting the surface to the core. The Mengxiang seeks to breach the Mohorovicic discontinuity, or Moho, the final frontier for human exploration into the mantle. While American scientists have pursued this goal since the 1960s, Mengxiang's cutting-edge technology represents a new chapter in the quest for understanding Earth's structure.

Dec 31, 2023

Scientists Discover Plant Growth-promoting Bacteria, Names it after Rabindranath Tagore

Researchers from Visva-Bharati University's botany department identified a bacterium with remarkable potential to enhance plant growth. Named 'Pantoea Tagorei' in homage to Nobel laureate, the bacteria could revolutionise agricultural practices, said microbiologist Bomba Dam, who led the research.
Dam was assisted by research scholars Raju Biswas, Abhijit Mishra, Abhinav Chakraborty, Pooja Mukhopadhyay and Sandeep Ghosh. The team isolated the bacteria from the soil of Sonajhuri in Santiniketan and then discovered the same in the coal mining belt in Jharkhand's Jharia.
The Association of Microbiologists of India officially recognised this discovery.

Dec 30, 2023

China Successfully Launches Test Satellite for Internet Technologies

China successfully launched a test satellite for satellite internet technologies.
The satellite was launched by a Long March-2C carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. It successfully entered its preset orbit.
It was the 505th flight mission of the Long March carrier rocket series.

Reliance Jio Joins Hands with IIT Bombay to Launch Bharat GPT, to Bring OS for Smart TVs

Reliance Jio Infocomm, India's largest telecom service provider, joined hands with Indian Institute of Technology Bombay to launch 'Bharat GPT', a large language model specifically tailor for India's needs.
The company is also comprehensively thinking to launch an operating system for televisions.
The company will be launching products and services in the media space, commerce, communication and also devices.

Dec 29, 2023

NASA Sends Spacecraft to Study 'God of Chaos' Asteroid

NASA relaunched a mission to study the 'God of Chaos' asteroid as it begins to near Earth's orbit. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that returned from deep space after collecting samples from the space rock Bennu has been renamed the OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer).
It has now been launched to study the asteroid Apophis' extremely close flyby of Earth in 2029. The asteroid also known as 'God of Chaos' is expected to fly by Earth on April 13, 2029, from about only 20,000 miles away.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasising peaceful applications in space science.

Dec 28, 2023

ISRO to Launch XPoSat Mission to Study X-ray Polarisation in Space

India is poised to ring in 2024 with a roaring launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle carrying the country's first X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) on January 1, 2024.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that the XPoSat mission will lift off using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), marking a significant milestone in India's space exploration journey.
The XPoSat mission is designed to investigate the polarisation of intense X-ray sources, a scientific endeavour that will place India at the forefront of space-based polarimetry.
This mission is not only India's first dedicated polarimetry mission but also the world's second, following NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) launched in 2021.
XPoSat aims to study the 50 brightest known sources in the universe, including pulsars, black hole X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, neutron stars, and non-thermal supernova remnants. The satellite will be placed in a circular low Earth orbit of 500–700 km, with a mission lifespan of at least five years.

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