General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - December 2018

Dec 2018

May 02, 2022

UAE's Probe Finds New Auroras on Mars

Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) probe, Hope, captured stunning images of Mars' enigmatic auroras that will provide new insights into the interactions between the Red Planet's atmosphere, its magnetic fields and the solar wind.
Auroras are dancing waves of light like the northern lights seen on Earth. They appear on a planet when solar activity disturbs its atmosphere.
The latest observations by EMM include a never-before seen phenomenon, dubbed the 'sinuous discrete aurora' -- a huge worm-like aurora that extends halfway around the Red Planet.

NASA Scientists Crack 60-year-old Mystery of Explosions on Sun

Scientists at NASA developed a theory that explains how explosions occur on the Sun, and help better predict geomagnetic storms and solar flares that can impact Earth. An explosive process called magnetic reconnection triggers solar flares, which can, in just minutes, release enough energy to power the whole world for 20,000 years. Scientists have spent the last half-century trying to understand how this process happens.
The team at NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) has a new theory that explains how the most explosive type of magnetic reconnection - called fast reconnection - occurs and why it happens at a consistent speed.
Magnetic reconnection is a process that occurs in plasma - energetic, fluid-like material that is exquisitely sensitive to magnetic fields.
From flares on the Sun, to near Earth space, to black holes, plasmas throughout the universe undergo magnetic reconnection, which rapidly converts magnetic energy into heat and acceleration. While there are several types of magnetic reconnection, one particularly puzzling variant is known as fast reconnection, which occurs at a predictable rate.

May 01, 2022

60 Countries Join Hands for Open, Free and Secure Global Internet

The US, all the European Union (EU) member states and 32 non-EU countries signed a "Declaration for the Future of the Internet" that calls for an "open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure" internet.
The declaration represents a political commitment among partners to advance a positive vision for the internet and digital technologies.
It also reaffirms and recommits its partners to a single global Internet - one that is truly open and fosters competition, privacy, and respect for human rights.
The declaration aims to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people and promote a global Internet that advances the free flow of information.

Apr 29, 2022

SpaceX Launches NASA's Crew-4 Mission

SpaceX's Crew-4 astronaut mission for NASA was successfully launched atop the Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Freedom by the crew, successfully separated from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and is now flying on its own.
Harrison Schmitt, the last person to step on the moon with the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, was at the Kennedy Space Center where he witnessed the successful launch.
The Crew-4 flight carries mission commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Bob Hines, and mission specialist Jessica Watkins, all of whom are NASA astronauts. The flight also carries mission special Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Apr 28, 2022

MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar Launches Digital India RISC-V Microprocessor (DIR-V) Program

Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar launched Digital India RISC-V Microprocessor (DIR-V) Program. Its overall aim is to enable the creation of Microprocessors for the future in India, for the world and achieve industry-grade silicon and Design wins by December 2023.
Launching the program in New Delhi Mr. Chandrasekhar mentioned that DIR-V program will see partnerships between Startups, Academia and Multinationals, to make India not only a RISC-V Talent Hub for the World but also supplier of RISC-V System on Chips for Servers, Mobile devices, Automotive and Microcontrollers across the globe.

Apr 27, 2022

Hubble Spots Distant Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy

Ultra-diffuse galaxies are objects as large as our Milky Way Galaxy but with 100-1,000 times fewer stars. First discovered in 2015, they are extremely faint and lack star-forming gas, which makes them appear almost like a fluffy cosmic cloud. Their origins remain uncertain, but astronomers speculate that they could be 'failed' galaxies that lost their gas supply early in their lifetimes.
The new image of GAMA 526784 comes from a set of Hubble observations designed to shed light on the properties of ultra-diffuse galaxies. Hubble's keen vision allowed astronomers to study this galaxy in high resolution at ultraviolet wavelengths, helping to gauge the sizes and ages of the compact star-forming regions studding the galaxy. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

Key Components of DNA and RNA Found in Three Meteorites

Using state-of-the-art analytical techniques, researchers detected diverse suites of nucleobases — including canonical base pairs (e.g., adenine-uracil, guanine-cytosine, adenine-thymine) and some non-canonical ones (e.g. isoguanine-isocytosine and xanthine-2,4-diaminopyrimidine) — in three carbonaceous meteorites: the Murchison, Murray, and Tagish Lake meteorites.
Two types of chemical building blocks, or nucleobases, are needed to form DNA and RNA. These are the pyrimidines, which include cytosine, uracil and thymine, and the purines, for example guanine and adenine.
Thus far, only purine nucleobases and uracil have been identified in meteorites. However, Hokkaido University's Dr. Yasuhiro Oba and colleagues identified the final two nucleobases that have eluded scientists.

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