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

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

New method to fight desertification

  • Chinese scientists have claimed to have converted sand into fertile soil using a new method which they hope will be useful to fight desertification.
  • A team of researchers from Chongqing Jiaotong University has developed a paste made of plant cellulose that, when added to sand, helps it retain water, nutrients and air.
  • The plants in the sandy test plot needed about the same amount of water as those grown in regular soil, but required less fertilizer and bore higher yields, according to estimates by experts.
  • Since 2013, scientists have been experimenting with outdoor cultivation at two sites with areas of approximately 550 and 420 square metres in Chongqing, where scientists simulated desert landform conditions.

Global warming is spreading disease among animals and humans

  • Global warming is making the oceans sicker than ever before, spreading disease among animals and humans and threatening food security across the planet.
  • The findings, based on peer-reviewed research, were compiled by 80 scientists from 12 countries, experts said at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in Hawaii.
  • The report, ‘Explaining Ocean Warming’, is the “most comprehensive, most systematic study we have ever undertaken on the consequence of this warming on the ocean,” co-lead author Dan Laffoley said.
  • The world’s waters have absorbed more than 93 per cent of the enhanced heating from climate change since the 1970s, curbing the heat felt on land but drastically altering the rhythm of life in the ocean, he said.
  • The study included every major marine ecosystem, containing everything from microbes to whales, including the deep ocean.
  • The higher temperatures will probably change the sex ratio of turtles in the future because females are more likely to be born in warmer temperatures. The heat also means microbes dominate larger areas of the ocean.

Success of GSLV mission makes ISRO ready for the Chandrayan-2 mission

  • The space road to Chandrayaan-2 is now clear.
  • The significance of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F05) mission’s success is that the rocket is now more than qualified to put Chandrayaan-2 into orbit.
  • The interfaces between GSLV-Mk II and Chandrayaan-2 have already been finalised, according to officials in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).\
  • A GSLV-Mk II vehicle will put Chandrayaan-2 with a lander and a rover into orbit in the first quarter of 2018. It will be a totally indigenous mission — the vehicle, the spacecraft, the lander and the rover are all made in India.
  • The lander will have a throttleable engine for performing a soft landing and four sites have been short-listed for this. After it touches down on a flat surface on the moon, the 25-kg rover — which is a kind of a toy car — will emerge from it.
  • It will have six wheels, made of aluminium, to move about on the lunar soil. The wheels will interact in such a way that the rover does not sink.
  • The rover will move at a speed of two cm a second. Its lifetime on the moon is 14 earth days; it will have two payloads for analysing the soil’s chemical properties.

Astronomers have found a magnetar that spins much slower than the slowest known

  • Astronomers have found evidence of a magnetar — magnetised neutron star — that spins much slower than the slowest of its kind known until now, which spin around once every 10 seconds.
  • The magnetar 1E 1613 — at the centre of RCW 103, the remains of a supernova explosion located about 9,000 light years from Earth — rotates once every 24,000 seconds (6.67 hours), the researchers found.
  • These exotic objects possess the most powerful magnetic fields in the universe — trillions of times that observed on the Sun — and can erupt with enormous amounts of energy.
  • New data from trio of high-energy telescopes, and archival data from Chandra, Swift and European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton confirmed that 1E 1613 has the properties of a magnetar, making it only the 30th known.
  • Rotation of once every 6.67 hours, much slower than the slowest magnetars known until now, which spin around once every 10 seconds.
  • This would make it the slowest spinning neutron star ever detected, the researchers found.
  • Astronomers expect that a single neutron star will spin quickly after its birth in the supernova explosion and will then slow down over time as it loses energy.

GSAT-11, India’s advanced and heaviest communication spacecraft to date to be launched

  • GSAT-11, India’s advanced and heaviest communication spacecraft to date at 5,700 kg, is to be launched early next year on the European Ariane launch vehicle.
  • The high-throughput satellite with its multi-spot beam coverage of the country will be far superior to the older generation three-tonne INSAT/GSAT spacecraft.
  • GSAT-11 is designed to generate a bandwidth of more than 12 gbps primarily for users of Internet driven services, VSAT operations and rural connectivity.
  • Globally many operators are putting up such high throughput satellites for commercial use while ISRO is working on putting up five such in the near future.
  • This would be the first spacecraft to be integrated on ISRO’s new i-6k platform. The INSAT/GSATs have not exceeded 3,400 kg; the last heaviest was GSAT-10 launched in 2012.
  • Also, ISRO’s newly readied medium-lift launcher can only lift satellites up to 2,000 kg. Arianespace quoted its Chairman and CEO Stéphane Israël announcing the GSAT-11 contract along with five other global launch orders.

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