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(Current Affairs) Science & Technology, Defence, Environment | November: 2016

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

Special telescope-array established in Ooty (Free Available)
India and Russia have agreed to double the range of the BrahMos (Free Available)
Russian spaceship Soyuz MS-01 successfully touched down (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Omega-3 may help in curing Alzheimer's (Only for Online Coaching Members)

The GRAPES-3 experiment is a special telescope-array established in Ooty to detect muons from cosmic ray showers.
The experiment has detected a surge in muon intensity correlated with a weakening of the earth’s magnetic field due to a solar storm that hit the earth on June 22, 2015.
An Indo-Japanese collaboration, this experiment is unique in that it can be used to study solar storms and space weather at distances up to two times the earth’s radius.
A coronal mass ejection (CME) left the sun on June 21, 2015 and, along with two such others that left the sun on June 18 and 19, reached earth on June 22, 2015.
Solar flares are often followed by CMEs which are nothing but giant clouds of plasma which also contain embedded magnetic fields.
This CME was associated with a solar flare from the sunspot region 12371 near the central disc of the sun. This caused a solar storm and ensuing radio blackouts and Aurore Borealis.
Analysing data from the GRAPES-3 muon-tracking telescope, scientists have inferred that while it lasted, the CME resulted in weakening the earth’s magnetic field, allowing high energy cosmic rays to burst through.
The earth’s atmosphere provides a shield against UV rays and other incident particles. But its protection stretches to less than 100 km around the earth.
The stronger protection comes from the earth’s magnetic field which stretches to around 10 times the radius of the earth — about 60,000 km beyond the surface.

India and Russia have agreed to double the range of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile that the two produce together.
This follows India’s recent accession to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Earlier, India was denied access to the missile technology with range over 300 km as it was not a member state.
The decision was taken earlier this month during the summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Goa on the sidelines of the BRICS summit.
When the two countries teamed up to develop the missile in 1998, which is based on the Russian Yakhont anti-ship missile, its range was limited to 290 km as Russia was a member of MTCR but India was not.
While it was a joint development, most of the critical systems on board the missile, including the seeker, come from Russia.
BrahMos, which is one of its kind, has already been deployed by the Army and the Navy in anti-ship and precision strike roles respectively. The air version is at present undergoing testing.