1. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, first ever mission to “Touch the Sun”
Tags: Science and Technology
The Parker Solar Probe of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA’s) of the United States, became the first manmade object to touch the Sun’s upper atmosphere, the Corona, for the first time in human history.
- It was launched by NASA on 12th August 2018, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on board the Delta IV-Heavy launch vehicle.
- Parker Solar Probe actually flew through the corona (Alfven point) on 28th April 2021 during the spacecraft's eighth close approach to the sun.
- It was designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
- It has been named so to honour nonagenarian American astrophysicist Eugene Newman Parker, who developed the theory of the supersonic solar wind and predicted the Parker spiral shape of the solar magnetic field in the outer Solar System.
The probe passed by at a ridiculous speed of 363,660 mph, making it the fastest artificial object ever created.
The primary science goals for the mission are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles.
India’s first Mission to study the Sun:
Aditya or Aditya-L1 is a planned coronagraphy spacecraft to study solar atmosphere, currently being designed and developed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and various other Indian research institutes.
- It is planned to be launched in the third quarter of 2022 aboard a PSLV-XL launch vehicle.
- The spacecraft will study coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, coronal magnetometry, origin and monitoring of near-UV solar radiation and continuously observe photosphere, chromosphere and corona, solar energetic particles and magnetic field of the Sun.
2. 21st December Earth’s Northern Hemisphere witnesses the year's shortest day
Tags: Science and Technology
Earth’s Northern Hemisphere observes the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year on 21st December.
- A solstice is an astronomical event , when the tilt of Earth’s axis with respect to the Sun is maximum.
- This day also marks the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere, called the summer solstice of the region.
- Winter Solstice takes place on either December 21 or 22.
3. Installed Nuclear Power capacity in India
Tags: Science and Technology
- Government of India has informed the Parliament about the status of the Nuclear Power Plant in India
- The present nuclear power capacity of 6780 MW is planned to be increased to 22480 MW by 2031.
- At present the share of nuclear power in the total electricity generation in the country is about 3.1% in the year 2020-21.
- Government has given approval to the setting up of six nuclear power reactors of 1650 MW each in technical cooperation with France which would make it the largest nuclear power generating site with a total capacity of 9900 MW at Jaitapur in Maharashtra.
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4. Two wild plant species are now extinct!
Tags: Science and Technology
According to the Journal of Threatened Taxa two species of plants first collected by botanists more than 125 years ago from Meghalaya and the Andaman Islands are now extinct in the wild.
Highlights:
- Study blames climate change, human interference and over-exploitation, or natural calamities for disappearance.
- Classified under the genus Boesenbergia, the species belongs to the family Zingiberaceae, the ginger family of flowering plants.
- Boesenbergia rubrolutea was first collected from the Khasi Hills, Thera, in Meghalaya on October 10, 1886. Specimens of Boesenbergia albolutea were collected from the Andamans and sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, in 1889.
- The authors have recommended listing them as ‘Extinct in the Wild (EW) (IUCN 2019)’ under the IUCN Red List category.
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ● IUCN is a membership union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations ● Created in 1948, it is the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. ● It is headquartered in Gland, Switzerland. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. |
