General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - January 2019

Jan 2019

Mar 04, 2021

Union Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot Launches 'Sugamya Bharat' App

- Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawar Chand Gehlot launched the 'Sugamya Bharat' App and a handbook titled 'Access - The Photo Digest' through a video conference in New Delhi.
- The App and the handbook have been developed by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.
- The App provides for five main features out of which four are directly related to enhancing accessibility.
- They include registration of complaints of inaccessibility across the broad pillars of the built environment, transportation sector and Information and Communication Technology ecosystem, positive feedback of examples and best practices worth emulating being shared by people as Jan-Bhagidaari.
- They also include Departmental s and guidelines and circulars related to accessibility. The fifth feature is a special feature meant only for Divyangjan for COVID-19 related issues.

Indigenously Developed "Spectrograph" Commissioned in Nainital

Indian Scientists at Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciences (ARIES), Nainital, have indigenously designed and developed a low-cost optical Spectrograph named as Aries-Devasthal Faint Object Spectrograph & Camera (ADFOSC). It has been commissioned on the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand.
The ADFOSC spectroscope is the largest of its kind among the existing astronomical spectrographs in India.
The ADFOSC spectrograph can locate sources of faint light from distant quasars and galaxies in a very young universe, regions around supermassive black-holes around the galaxies, and cosmic explosions.
So far, spectroscopes were imported from abroad at high costs. The 'Made in India' optical spectrograph is about 2.5 times less costly compared to the imported ones and can locate sources of light with a photon-rate as low as about 1 photon per second.
The ARIES is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. It is the largest reflecting telescope in India, as well as in Asia.

Mar 03, 2021

ISRO to Send First Unmanned Flight by this December

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to send the first unmanned flight into space by the end of 2021.
Under Gaganyaan mission, India plans to send three astronauts into space. They will orbit at about 400 km above the earth for five to seven days before returning.
Prior to that, there will be two unmanned space missions to test the rocket and the crew module systems.

Mar 02, 2021

ISRO Flags off 2021 with 19 Satellites, e-Gita & PM Modi's Picture

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) made its first launch of 2021 in a big way. It successfully blasted into space the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C51, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharkota, carrying 19 payloads: Brazil's 637-kg Amazonia-1 (its primary passenger) plus 18 co-passenger satellites.
One of these satellites also carried an e-copy of the Bhagavad Gita, saved on an SD-card, as well as a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi engraved on its panel.
Launched at 10.24 am, this was the first commercial mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), ISRO's commercial arm.
After a flight of about 17 minutes, the vehicle injected Amazonia-1 into its intended orbit, and in the succeeding 1 hour 38 minutes, all the 18 co-passenger satellites were successfully separated from the PSLV in a predetermined sequence.

Hubble Snaps Breathtaking New Image of NGC 2336

NGC 2336 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis.
Otherwise, known as LEDA 21033 and UGC 3809, it lies at a distance of 109 million light-years.
NGC 2336 is a member of a small galaxy group known as the NGC 2336 group.
It also forms a non-interacting pair with the spiral galaxy IC 467.
NGC 2336 was discovered in 1876 by the German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel, using a 28-cm telescope.
In 1987, NGC 2336 experienced a Type-Ia supernova, the only observed supernova in the galaxy since its discovery 111 years earlier.

Mar 01, 2021

Indian School Students Discover 18 New Asteroids

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), an organisation which assigns official names and designations to celestial bodies, has confirmed the discovery of 18 new asteroids by Indian students as part of a global science programme.
The International Asteroid Discovery Project was conducted by STEM and Space, an organisation working towards the learning of astronomy and space science in India, along with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) as part of a NASA citizen science project.
Over the last two years, 150 students from all around India participated in this two month long campaign to find asteroids, making this the largest asteroid discovery project in India, Mila Mitra, Co-founder and Academic Head of STEM and Space.
In the project, the students from India and across the globe analysed the high quality astronomical data provided by IASC -- an online scientific program for kids to discover Asteroids and Near Earth Objects (NEO).
NEOs are rocky objects in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, which pose a challenge to Earth as they may get perturbed out of their orbit and pose a threat of impact.

Russia Launches Satellite to Monitor Climate and Environment in the Arctic

Russia launched its space satellite Arktika-M on a mission to monitor the climate and environment in the Arctic amid a push by the Kremlin to expand the country's activities in the region.
The Arctic has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average over the last three decades and Moscow is seeking to develop the energy-rich region, investing in the Northern Sea Route for shipping across its long northern flank as ice melts.
The satellite successfully reached its intended orbit after being launched from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome by a Soyuz rocket.

Feb 27, 2021

ISRO Completes Launch Rehearsal of PSLV-C51 Mission

The Indian Space Research Organisation completed launch rehearsal of the PSLV-C51 mission slated for February 28.
India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C51) is scheduled to launch Brazil's Amazonia-1 as primary satellite and 18 co-passenger satellites from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharkota, about 100 km from Chennai.
The Bengaluru-headquartered space agency had announced on February 5 that there would be 20 co-passenger satellites.
Indian Space start-up Pixxel announced two days ago that due to "certain software issues" its first satellite 'Anand' would no longer be part of the payload on board the PSLV-C51 rocket.

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