(Current Affairs) Science & Technology, Defence, Environment | March: 2014

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

Potentially hazardous asteroid 2013 YP139 discovered

NASA discovered a new potentially hazardous asteroid named 2013 YP139 on 29 December 2013. It was confirmed by the NASA on 15 January2014. It was first discovered by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE). The Researchers at the University of Arizona used the Spacewatch telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory southwest of Tucson to confirm the discovery. The 2013 YP139 is about 43 million kilometers from Earth. On the basis of Infrared brightness, it is found to be 650 meters in diameter and extremely dark like a piece of coal. NEOWISE‘s sophisticated software picked up the moving object against a background of stationary stars. The asteroid circles the Sun in an elliptical orbit titled to the plane of solar system. It is possible for its orbit to bring it as close as 482803 km from Earth, a little more than the distance to the Moon. But it will not come that close within the next century. NEOWISE was originally called as Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) which made the most comprehensive survey to date of
asteroids and comets. In 2010 and early 2011, WISE discovered more than 34000 asteroids and characterised 158000 throughout the solar system. Its reactivation in September 2013 followed 31 months in hibernation.

Moclic software to predict weather

Researcher from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) designed the software Monitoring Climate Change (Moclic) through which is possible to organise, store and operate geo-referenced data from climate elements. Moclic can calculate bio and agro climatic indicators such as humidity, aridity, rain erosion and rainfall concentration.

Using the new software information regarding temperature can be known more accurately which feeds on data from weather stations in any state or country. Moclic project allows an agronomist to obtain annual rainfall records and relate them to the crops production figures for explanation of a possible event. It is also possible to identify desiccation processes in a region which comes useful while considering the seeds that can resist droughts or the optimization of rainwater catching techniques, storage or types of irrigation. The software is very simple and can be used by decision making characters, as governors, breeders, physicians, farmers, students or anyone whose repercussions could have economic politic or social effects.

First multi-coloured 3D Printer launched

World’s first 3D-printer Objet500 Connex3 was launched on 28 January 2014. The printer was manufactured by the USA based company Stratasys, the owner of the MarkBot range of printers. Object500 Connex3 is the world’s first 3D printer that can produce multi-colour, multimaterial objects at the same time. It will be commercially available in the second quarter of 2014 and will cost around 330000 dollars. It enables users to get exact intended colour, material properties and surface finish as conceptualized. The printer uses three different base resins and 10 colour palettes and can craft a variety of objects like a pair of sports goggles, flexible shoes, headphones, a blender and even multi-colored football and bike helmets. It is touted to be better than the 3D printer the ProJet 5500X which was unveiled by Stratasys’s rival 3D Systems. ProJet 5500X offers a smaller range of colours: black, white, and certain shades of grey. However, since the size of the printer is large, it is mainly targeted toward major corporations and high-end designers.

What is it that determines the colour of anything?

Colour is the visual perception of the physical signal, the light, that eye receives. The colour depends on the kind of light that falls on anything and also that bounces off or passes through it. Light travels in waveform and each colour has its own wavelength. So, in other terms, colour depends on the wavelengths of light that reaches the surface of an object and that reach eyes after being reflected or transmitted by the object. Surface of any object has, in general, three effects on light falling over it — absorption, reflection and  transmission. If an object absorbs all wavelengths of light falling on it, then it appears ‘black’ and if it reflects every wavelength of light falling on, it will appear ‘white’. If an object reflects wavelengths of light partly, absorbing the rest, then the reflected  wavelengths ‘decide’ the colour of it. Thus the apparent colour of an object depends on the wavelength of the light that it reflects. For example, a ‘red object’ observed in  daylight appears red because it reflects only the waves producing red light.

We see green leaves as being green because chlorophyll in the leaves, because of its nature and chemical makeup, absorbs the all other wavelengths (colours) of the sunlight (called white light as it contains all wavelengths), except green. The green is reflected back out to the viewer making the leaves appear green. The light falling on the surface also determines the colour. If a piece of cloth which appears green in sunlight is viewed under red light it will appear black, because the pigments on the surface of that cloth have the property of reflecting only green light absorbing all other wavelengths falling on it. As red light has only wavelength corresponding to red colour it is completely absorbed and as no colour is reflected back it appears black. Transparent objects do not reflect light, but transmit it. A ‘blue’ glass transmits only blue light, absorbing all other colours, so appears blue. A non-rigid ‘object’ like sky also has colour due to the phenomena called scattering. As sunlight strikes the upper atmosphere blue light is scattered the most by air molecules and suspended dust particles etc.,
which illuminates the whole sky, giving it its colour.

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