General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - January 2019

Jan 2019

Jan 23, 2022

Researchers Create Deep-Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diode

A team of researchers from the Pohang University of Science and Technology and the Korean Institute for Basic Science has demonstrated deep-ultraviolet (DUV) electroluminescence and photocurrent generation in hexagonal boron nitride, a semiconductor often called the 'white graphene.'
Among UV lights, the near-UV light has high penetration depth and can cause diseases when the skin is exposed to it.
However, DUV light (200-280 nm) has extremely low skin penetrability and is anticipated to be safely used.
For this reason, research to develop DUV LEDs has been active, mainly using aluminum gallium nitride (AlxGa1-xN).
However, this material has a fundamental limitation in that its electroluminescence rapidly deteriorates as the wavelength becomes shorter and fabricating LEDs that can be used in the DUV frequencies remains a challenge.

Jan 22, 2022

Saturn's Moon Mimas Hosts Global Ocean, New Study Suggests

According to a new analysis of data from NASA's Cassini mission, Mimas, the smallest and innermost of Saturn's eight main moons, may be warm enough to harbor a global, liquid water ocean beneath a 24-31-km (15-19-mile) thick ice shell.
One of the most profound discoveries in planetary science over the past 25 years is that worlds with oceans beneath layers of rock and ice are common in our Solar System.
Such worlds include the icy satellites of the giant planets, such as Europa, Titan and Enceladus, as well as distant planets like Pluto.
Worlds like Earth with surface oceans must reside within a narrow range of distances from their stars to maintain the temperatures that support liquid oceans.
Interior water ocean worlds, however, are found over a much wider range of distances, greatly expanding the number of habitable worlds likely to exist across the galaxy.

Monster Black Hole Spotted 'Giving Birth' to Stars

Astronomers spotted a black hole "giving birth" to stars at the center of a nearby dwarf galaxy — and the stellar newborns are tethered to the black hole by a massive "umbilical cord" made of gas and dust.
The supermassive black hole, situated roughly 34 million light-years away in the galaxy Henize 2-10, was seen spewing an enormous, 500-light-year-long jet of ionized gas from its center at around 1 million mph (1.6 million km/h), contributing to a "firestorm" of new star formation in a nearby stellar nursery.
The discovery, made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is the first time a black hole in a dwarf galaxy (a galaxy with 1 billion or fewer stars) was seen birthing stars.

Jan 21, 2022

Yutu-2 Lunar Rover Finds Sticky Soil on the Far side of the Moon

The first rover to visit the far side of the moon, China's Yutu-2, has found stark differences between there and the near side. These include stickier, more supportive soil on the far side and a greater abundance of small rocks and impact craters.
Despite several exploratory missions to the moon, crewed and uncrewed, the moon's far side has remained unexplored because of difficulties communicating with Earth from there. But in 2019, China's Chang'e 4 mission deposited the Yutu-2 rover to roam the far side's surface.

Jan 19, 2022

South Africa Launches 1st 'Made In Africa' Satellites

South Africa launched its first satellite constellation developed entirely in the continent of Africa. Three locally produced nanosatellites, which made up the country's first Maritime Domain Awareness Satellite (MDASat) constellation, were launched from Cape Canaveral in the United States, as part of American aerospace company SpaceX's Transporter-3 mission.
Transporter-3, SpaceX's third dedicated rideshare mission, carried a total of 105 spacecraft for various organisations and governments, including CubeSats, microsats, PocketQubes and orbital transfer vehicles.

Jan 17, 2022

Pandora Mission to Study Stars and Exoplanets Passes Crucial Step

The Pandora mission, co-led by a national laboratory and a NASA flight center, passed a crucial step on its path to study stars and planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets.
After a successful concept study report and system requirements review, NASA approved the mission to continue toward flight. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) are co-leading Pandora as part of NASA's new Astrophysics Pioneers program, with LLNL leading the project management and NASA GSFC leading the science.
The mission will study approximately 20 stars and exoplanets by analyzing starlight that passes through exoplanets' atmospheres, using a technique called transit spectroscopy.
Pandora will disentangle signals to understand which are from exoplanet atmospheres and which are from starspots, stellar phenomena that are similar to sunspots and can contaminate data. The celestial untangling will address and mitigate the impact of stellar inhomogeneities on exoplanet data obtained with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which was launched on Christmas Day.

Astronomers Discover Evidence of Super-Sized Moon Orbiting a Jupiter-Sized Planet

Astronomers reported a second, super-sized moon orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet beyond our solar system. If confirmed, the sighting could mean that exomoons are as common in the universe as exoplanets, and that big or small, such moons are a feature of planetary systems. But it could be a long wait. The first-ever sighting of an exomoon four years ago is still awaiting confirmation, and verification of this newest candidate could be as equally long and contentious.
Astronomers have found more than 10,000 exoplanet candidates so far, but exomoons are far more challenging.
The team spotted the giant exomoon candidate orbiting the planet Kepler 1708b, a world 5,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the Cygnus and Lyra constellations. This new candidate is about a third smaller than the Neptune-sized moon that Kipping and his colleagues earlier found orbiting a similar Jupiter-sized planet, Kepler 1625b.

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