Heena Sharma Blog

Notwithstanding the one-week delay in lift-off, the Chandrayaan-2 mission would likely see the lander and rover modules of the spacecraft making a soft-landing on the lunar surface on the previously fixed date of September 7. Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) have reworked the Chandrayaan-2 schedule so that it could land on the moon’s south pole as scheduled earlier. For this, Isro would be adjusting the travel time by tweaking the earth-bound and the lunar-bound phases, according to officials. According to the new timeline, the earth-bound phase has increased by six days to 23 days; earlier it was 17 days. The time for Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) would now be only 13 days (it was previously 28 days). Thus, the space agency has reduced the journey time by nine days; it had lost seven days due to postponing of the launch, which was earlier scheduled on July 15, said experts. K Sivan, chairman of Isro, told Business Standard that the space agency h...

I still remember a cartoon in a newspaper in July 1969, just before the first Apollo moon landing. It showed the ground crew reminding the astronauts as they boarded their rocket, “Don’t forget to bring back some rock!” This was a nod to an old holiday cliché – people who went to the seaside were often asked to bring back some “rock”, referring to rock candy. It wasn’t very funny, but it does demonstrate that, once the race against the Soviets was won, the point of it all was to find out about the moon’s geology. The scientific value of landing on the moon would have been diminished without studies to establish the context of the landing sites. The primary consideration was to touch down somewhere safe, but rocks collected from these places would have conveyed much less information had effort not gone into working out the nature of, and more importantly the relationships between, the rock units from which the samples were collected. This was done by making detailed geological...

Even fifty years after astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, there are people who still insist that it never happened and that it was a hoax perpetrated by the US government. On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 Mission landed two men on the Moon. Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin piloted the lunar module, which detached from the spacecraft and landed on the Moon's surface. Their commander, Neil Armstrong, became the first man on the Moon. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 82. However, conspiracy theories that claimed that the moon landing was faked and that it was all a Hollywood-like cinematic production shot on Earth have been doing the rounds for decades. The Associated Press recently listed the most common claims and the counters to them: 1) Claim: In the photos from the Moon, the American flag looks like it's flapping in the wind. That would be impossible because there's no air up on the Moon. Fact: Instead of letting the American f...

Days after its scheduled take-off had to be postponed due to a technical glitch, India's second mission to the Moon — Chandrayaan-2 — is now confirmed to be launched on Monday (July 22). "Chandrayaan-2 launch, which was put off due to a technical snag on July 15, 2019, is now rescheduled for 2:43 pm IST on Monday, July 22, 2019," said an Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) official. Chandrayaan-2 was originally scheduled to take off in the first week of January but was rescheduled for 2:50 am on July 15. It had to again be postponed after a snag was observed in its most powerful rocket, less than an hour before its launch from a spaceport. Isro scientists had put the launch on hold to assess the seriousness of the problem with the heavylift rocket GSLV Mk-III rocket carrying the satellite that put a halt to the ambitious Rs 976 crore lunar mission. The lift-off of the three-component spacecraft weighing 3,850 kg and comprising an orbiter, the lander and the...

At a time when astronauts around the world are celebrating 50 years of Apollo 11 Luna landing, the moon will undergo a partial eclipse early morning on July 17. The spectacle can be seen when the moon passes partly but not completely through the earth’s dark umbral shadow. Other than coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo mission, the eclipse is a little more special in India as it is falling at the same time as Guru Purnima — the first time after 149 years. WHAT IS LUNAR ECLIPSE? There are three basic types of lunar eclipses — Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, Partial Lunar Eclipse and Total Lunar Eclipse. A lunar eclipse can only occur when a full moon passes through earth's shadow. The shadow is composed of two components, an outer shadow and an inner shadow. The outer or Penumbral shadow occurs when th earth blocks a part of the sun's rays from reaching the moon, while the inner or Umbral shadow is the region where the planet blocks all of the sun's ray...

NASA said Thursday that it's sending a drone called Dragonfly to explore Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Using propellers, the drone will fly and land on several spots on the icy moon to study whether it can support microbial life. The nuclear-powered mission is part of NASA's competitive New Frontiers program, which launched the New Horizons spacecraft that became the first to visit dwarf planet Pluto. Dragonfly beat out nearly a dozen proposed projects, including a mission to collect samples from a nearby comet. The drone is slated to launch in 2026 and arrive at Titan in 2034. The plan is to land on some of Titan's dunes and later on a crater. Development costs for the mission are capped at around USD 850 million. "What really excites me about this mission is that Titan has all the ingredients needed for life," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's planetary science division. Titan is a haze-covered world with a thick atmosphere. The mo...

Countdown for the launch of PSLV-C46 began at 04:30 am (IST) today from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. This will be the third launch in 2019 alone. The launch is scheduled at 05:30 am (IST) on Wednesday. PSLV-C46, the 48th mission of PSLV, will launch RISAT-2B, a radar imaging earth observation satellite. PSLV-C46 is the 14th flight of PSLV in 'core-alone' configuration, a type which does not use solid strap-on motors. This will be the 72nd launch vehicle mission from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota, and the 36th launch from the First Launch pad. PSLV-C46 will carry the 615-kg RISAT-2B into an orbit of 555 km at an inclination of 37 degrees, said Isro officials. The project would help agriculture, forestry and will give disaster management support. Meanwhile, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Sivan on Tuesday visited Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupati on the eve of the launch. Read More Article Source -> Business Standard

Using a global network of telescopes to see “the unseeable,” an international scientific team on Wednesday announced a milestone in astrophysics - the first-ever photo of a black hole - in an achievement that validated a pillar of science put forward by Albert Einstein more than a century ago. Black holes are monstrous celestial entities exerting gravitational fields so vicious that no matter or light can escape. The somewhat fuzzy photo of the black hole at the center of Messier 87, or M87, a massive galaxy residing in the center of the relatively nearby Virgo galaxy cluster, shows a glowing ring of red, yellow and white surrounding a dark center. The research was conducted by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, an international collaboration involving about 200 scientists begun in 2012 to try to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole. The announcement was made in simultaneous news conferences in Washington, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and...

Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening. Sometimes, someone is. Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands. The Alexa voice review process, described by seven people who have worked on the program, highlights the often-overlooked human role in training software algorithms. In marketing materials Amazon says Alexa “lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.” But like many software...

The Indian Space Research Organisation is all set to launch its 40th communication satellite GSAT-31 on Wednesday from the spaceport in French Guiana. The satellite with a mission life of 15 years will provide continuity to operational services on some of the in-orbit satellites and augment the Ku-band transponder capacity in Geostationary Orbit, the space agency said. In a statement, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the satellite, weighing about 2,535 kg, is scheduled for launch onboard the Ariane-5 (VA247) from Kourou in French Guiana. "The satellite GSAT-31 is configured on ISRO's enhanced I-2K Bus, utilising the maximum bus capabilities of this type. The satellite derives its heritage from ISROs earlier INSAT/GSAT satellite series. The satellite provides Indian mainland and island coverage," the agency said. ISRO also said the GSAT-31 will be used for supporting VSAT networks , television uplinks, digital satellite news gathering, ...

A scientist in China claims to have produced the world’s first genome-edited babies by altering their DNA to increase their resistance to HIV . Aside from the lack of verifiable evidence for this non peer-reviewed claim, this research is premature, dangerous and irresponsible. He Jiankui from the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen (which has reportedly since suspended him) said he edited the DNA of seven embryos being used for fertility treatment, so far resulting in the birth of one set of twin girls. He says he used the tool known as CRISPR to delete the embryos’ CCR5 gene (C-C motif chemokine receptor 5), mutations in which are linked to resistance to HIV infection . If true, this is a significant advance in genetic science, but there are some very serious problems with this news. First, the research has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal so we cannot be sure of the exact details of what has been done. Instead, the scientist made ...

James Allison and Tasuku Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to breakthroughs in cancer therapy, the award-giving body said on Monday. "Allison and Honjo showed how different strategies for inhibiting the brakes on the immune system can be used in the treatment of cancer," the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement on awarding the prize of 9 million Swedish crowns ($1 million). Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901. The literature prize will not be handed out this year after the awarding body was hit by a sexual misconduct scandal. Read Complete Article Business Standard

To avoid falling for cybercriminals' fraudulent schemes and losing personal data, it is suggested that users should not spread questionable links among their friends Current Affairs News : While legitimate apps like Tokenfire and Swagbucks buy card codes from vendors, to then give them to clients as a reward for certain activities, criminals have apparently recognised the popularity of such websites and have decided to deceive users using a simple algorithm. "The success of these new fraud schemes is based on criminals exploiting the drive of users to get something for free," Lyubov Nikolenko of Kaspersky Lab said in a statement this week. "However, at best they will spend hours of personal time doing worthless tasks, and at worst lose money without receiving anything in return. So, if you want to get your hands on a free gift card, try to earn it on legal and trustworthy sites," Nikolenko added. When on the fake site, the user is asked to...