Science and Technology for upsc

• NASA’s asteroid hunter LUCY soars into the sky with diamonds.
• China’s hypersonic glide vehicle test.
• India’s Agni 5 ballistic missile.
• Perseverance.
• Messier 87 (M87)
• James Webb Space Telescope.
• GJ 367b.
• Psyche Mission.

Latest 2022 Question for Science and Technology

SPACE:

GSLV-F10

Context:

• ISRO’S GSLV-F10 flight in August last year failed because of a malfunctioning valve that led to insufficient pressure in the liquid hydrogen tank in the cryogenic upper stage of the launch vehicle – National-level failure analysis committee.

Background:

• ISRO launched its GSLV F10 mission on August 12, 2021, with the GISAT-1 Earth-observation satellite. The mission failed 10 minutes after liftoff.

EOS-03:

• EOS-03 was a state-of-the-art agile Earth observation satellite that was supposed to be placed in a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit by GSLV-F10.
• It was meant to provide almost real-time images of large parts of the country that could be used for monitoring natural disasters like floods and cyclones, water bodies, crops, vegetation and forest cover.
• The SSLV is designed to cater to the increasing demand for the launch of small satellites, mainly from businesses and universities; it costs much less and consumes less energy.

SEA ANIMALS AT THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS)

Context: NASA has announced that it will carry 128 glow-in-the-dark juvenile squids and 5,000 tardigrades (commonly known as water bears) to the International Space Station for scientific purposes.

More about the news

• On SpaceX’s 22nd cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station, the aquatic animals will be launched.
• They’re participating in experiments that could help scientists design stronger safety procedures for astronauts on long-duration space flights.
• The experiments also want to learn more about how beneficial microbes interact with animals, which could lead to improvements in global human health.

Why are sea animals required on the ISS?

• Water bears and bobtail squid will be among the animals tested aboard the floating laboratory.
• When they arrive, they will be semi-frozen and will be thawed, revived, and developed in a particular bio-culture system.
• The researchers will be able to examine water bear hardiness up close, possibly pinpointing the genes that allow them to be so tough.
• Better tactics for keeping humans healthy on long-duration space flights could be created by examining how water bears thrive in zero gravity.
• The researchers want to explore how microgravity impacts the relationship between the bobtail squid and helpful bacteria as part of a project called Understanding of Microgravity on Animal-Microbe Interactions (UMAMI).
• Microbes are necessary for the proper development of animal tissues and for human health.
• As a result of this research, scientists will have a better understanding of how beneficial microorganisms interact with animals in the absence of gravity.
• In the human body, microorganisms play a variety of activities, including digestion, immune system development, and toxic detoxification.
• The discoveries will help space agencies devise more effective techniques to protect astronauts on long-duration missions against detrimental host-microbe alterations.

More about Tardigrades

• They’re tiny eight-legged creatures who’ve travelled to the farthest reaches of the universe and are likely to survive the end of the world.
• They have the appearance of sweet little bears.
• They’re classified as aquatic since they need a thin layer of water to keep from becoming dehydrated.
• Grasshoppers, praying mantises, and other insects with whom they are related have a thick cuticle covering their exoskeletons.
• They’re extremophiles or animals that can survive in environments where most other animals can’t.
• They can also survive in -196°F or more than boiling temperatures, at pressures six times that of the ocean’s deepest caverns, and in space.
• They prefer to live in the silt at the bottom of the lake, on moist moss, and in other damp environments.

COSMIC INFRARED BACKGROUND EXPERIMENT-2 (CIBER-2)

Context: CIBER-2 recounts the total of stars in the Universe.

About CIBER-2

• CIBER-2 is one of a number of active initiatives aimed at observing integrated lights across the universe, which will aid in determining and locating the true figures of the stars.
• The equipment will be launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration atop a sounding rocket (NASA).
• Once above the Earth’s atmosphere, the sensor will study an area of the sky that will contain dozens of galaxies clustered together.
• It won’t actually count individual stars; instead, it’ll detect the extragalactic background light (EBL).
• The CIBER-2 will focus on a part of the EBL known as Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB), which is emitted by some of the most distant stars.
• By looking at how bright are those lights, scientists will be able to estimate the number of stars out there.

What is EBL?

• EBL is a background glow created over time by the cumulative photons produced in the universe.
• It was used in the first CIBER mission to calculate the total light from stars on a scale ranging from optical to ultraviolet.

What are sounding rockets?

• The word “sounding rocket” comes from the nautical verb “to sound,” which implies “to take measurements.”
• They are solid-propellant rockets with one or two stages that are used for investigating the upper atmosphere for space research.

ENVISION MISSION

Context: European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the mission EnVision to Venus.

What is Mission EnVision?

• EnVision is an ESA-led Venus orbiter mission with NASA support that is expected to launch after 2030
• It will be the successor of the ESA-led Venus Express mission, which discovered volcanic hotspots on the planet’s surface from 2005 to 2014.

About Venus

• Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system because of the heat that is trapped by its thick cloud cover.
• It is the second-brightest object in the sky after the moon because of its thick cloud cover that reflects and scatters light.
• Venus, the second closest planet to the Sun, is called the Earth’s twin because of their similar sizes.
• The planet moves forward on its orbit around the Sun but spins backwards around its axis slowly. This means on Venus the Sun rises in the west and sets in the East.
• One day on Venus is equivalent to 243 Earth days because of its backward spinning, opposite to that of the Earth’s and most other planets.
• Venus does not have a moon and no rings.

FAST RADIO BURSTS (FRB)

Context: Hundreds of mysterious radio bursts detected in space by CHIME Telescope.

What is an FRB?

• FRBs are dazzling bursts of radio waves that last milliseconds before fading without a trace, as found in 2007.
• Their origins are unknown, and their look varies greatly.

About the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Telescope

• It is a big radio telescope that is permanently installed in British Columbia, Canada.
• While typical radio astronomy involves swiveling a big dish to focus light from different parts of the sky, CHIME just stares at the sky and utilizes a correlator to focus incoming signals.
• Between 2018 and 2019, it identified roughly 535 new rapid radio bursts in its first year of operation.
• The CHIME partnership includes the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Pune and the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA).

SUBORBITAL FLIGHT

Context:

• Virgin Group founder Richard Branson became the first billionaire to fly to the edge of space and back, riding aboard his own Virgin Galactic spacecraft in a suborbital flight.

What is Suborbital Flight?

• When an object travels at a horizontal speed of about 28,000 km/hr or more, it goes into orbit once it is above the atmosphere.
• Satellites need to reach that threshold speed in order to orbit Earth.
• Such a satellite would be accelerating towards the Earth due to gravity, but its horizontal movement is fast enough to offset the downward motion so that it moves along a circular path.
• Any object travelling slower than 28,000 km/hr must eventually return to Earth.
• These are suborbital flights because they will not be travelling fast enough to orbit Earth once they reach there.
• Such a trip allows space travellers to experience a few minutes of “weightlessness”.

Analogical example

• For an analogy, consider a cricket ball thrown into the air.
• Given that no human hand can give it a speed of 28,000 km/hr (about 8 m/sec), the ball will fly in an arc until its entire kinetic energy is swapped with potential energy.
• At that instant, it will lose its vertical motion momentarily, before returning to Earth under the influence of gravity.
• A suborbital flight is like this cricket ball, but travelling fast enough to reach the “edge of space”, and yet without enough horizontal velocity to go into orbit.
• If an object travels as fast as 40,000 km/hr, it will achieve escape velocity, and never return to Earth.

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