Category Geology

How long does it take the International Space Station to orbit the Earth ______ minutes?

The International Space Station (ISS) is a large spacecraft that orbitis around Earth every 90 minutes. It is not only a science laboratory but also serves as a home to crews of astronauts and Cosmonauts.

Its laboratory has components from the United States, Russia, Japan, and Europe.

The space station is used by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists to learn more about living and working in space. The research here will make it possible to send humans farther into space than ever before.

History                                                                                               

Originally called ‘Freedom’ in the 1980s, then U.S. President Ronald Reagan authorised NASA to build the space station. It was redesigned in the 1990s to reduce costs and expand international involvement, at which time it was renamed.

In 1993, the U.S. and Russia agreed to merge their separate space station plans into a single facility and incorporate contributions from the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan.

It took 10 years and more than 30 missions to assemble the space station. It was launched in 1998 with the help of the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan, and the participating countries of the ESA. The first piece of the ISS was launched in November 1998. The ISS is the size of a large five-bedroom house or a football field and is able to support a crew of six people and some visitors

It is made up of several parts that were assembled in space by astronauts. The first crew reached the space station on November 2, 2000. People have lived on the space station ever since.

International Space Station

The space station is equal to a five-bedroom house or the size of a football field and is able to support a crew of six people, plus visitors. The laboratories in the space station help the crew members to do research that could not be done anywhere else.

At the ISS, the scientists also study what happens to the human body when people live in microgravity (place where there is almost no gravity) for a long time.

The space station has solar arrays, which collect energy from the sun to provide electrical power. The arrays are connected to the station with a long truss, which is a beam that is the backbone of the space station.

There are radiators on the truss that control the space station’s temperature. Astronauts reach the space station on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft Operating the space station is more complicated than other space flight programmes as it is an international programme. Each partner is mainly responsible for managing and running the hardware it provides It is the largest space station ever constructed and yet it continues to be assembled in orbit.

Till now, it has been visited by astronauts from 18 countries During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the U.S.. President Joe Biden said that India and the US. will collaborate to send an Indian astronaut to the ISS in 2024.

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Did the Milky Way shape-shift?

Embark on a journey to Verona and meet the dedicated volunteers preserving the legacy of one of Shakespeares greatest heroines

The House of Juliet also known as Casa di Gillette” is Italian, is more than just an old building in Verona Italy It is believed to have once belonged to the Cappello family which according to the legend inspired the famous Capulet family in English playwright William Shakespeare’s play Romen & haliet This is the very house where Gulietta Capuleti the supposed inspiration behind, the tragic heroine of Shakespeares play, is said to have livest

A global love connection

But the House of Juliet is not just a tounst attraction it is a hub of heartwarming connections from around the world Thousands of people lene letters addressed to Juliet. expressing their deepest feelings about love, relationship and life when they visit this medieval 13th Century palace Some letters are placest in a postbox at the house itself. while others are simply addressed to Juliet, Italy and sent from all corners of the globe

Juliet Club

The Juliet Club, a hidden gem tucked away in the backstreets of Verona since 1972 is a place where the timeless spirit of romance thrives. The dubs heart and soul lie in the dedicated committer of a dozen local women who affectionately call themselves The Secretaries of Juliet These volunteers take on the heartwanning task of responding to the staggering 50.000 letters Juliet receives annually. They diligently strive to answer every letter, even those written in languages beyond Italian or English, seeking local speakers to help bridge the communication gap. Stepping into the workroom fillest with boxes of handwritten letters, the secretaries embark on their mission to provide solace, wisdom, and advice on matters of the heart

This unique experience is not just limited to the dedicated team: anyone can be a part of Juliets legacy A visitor can drop in for a day and become Juliet’s secretary reading and responding to letters that resonate with their hearts. Each response is penned on official Club di Giulietta stationery and signed off as Secretary of Juliet.”

The first secretary of Juliet

The tradition of answering Juliet’s letters has a history dating back to the 1930s when the guardian of Juliets grave in Verona, Ettore Solimani, first began replying to letters left for the literary character. Handwritten letters have retained their allure, despite the prevalence of modem communication methods. The clubs archive stands as a treasure trove of countless love stories and a testament to the enduring power of love expressed through pen and paper

The Juliet Club and its Secretaries carry forward the legacy of Shakespeare’s iconic character, extending love hope, and empathy to countless hearts seeking solace and connection.

 

Did the Milky Way shape-shift?

For the longest time, astronomers have been trying to unlock the mystery surrounding our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have known that our galaxy looks like a spiral ever since the 1950s. Galaxies are classified based on their shapes and physical features. activity in their central regions, and so on. The presence of spiral anns in our galaxy has placed it in the category of spiral galaxies

What are spiral galaxies?

Galaxies are generally categorised as spiral (like our Milky Way). elliptical and irregular. Spiral galaxies have winding spiral arms. It makes them look like pinwheels and the cosmic entities comprise stars, gas, and dust.

Their spiral arms are composed of gas and dust from which bright younger stars are born. Stars are actively being formed in the spiral galaxies. The younger stars are formed in the arms that are rich with gas while the older stars occur in the halo, in the disk and within the bulge. And this is happening in our neighbouring galaxies as well The spiral galaxies are further grouped into normal spirals and barred spirals. A barred spiral galaxy has ribbons of stars, gas, and dust running across their centres. Our galaxy as well as Andromeda galaxy belong to the subtype of a barred spiral galaxy But here is a new spin on the story. New observations have shown that our galaxy was not always a spiral Reporting in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomer Alister Graham observed that galaxies evolve from one shape to another. He used old and new observations to show how the evolution of galaxies from one shape to another takes place. This process is called galactic speciation. The clashes and subsequent mergers with other galades result in the process of cosmic evolution.

So our galaxy transformed from a dust-poor lenticular galway to the spiral galaxy we know it as today. In future, between 4 billion and 6 billion years, our galaxy is all poised to merge with its neighbouring galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy Following this collision and merger, the daughter galaxy resulted will be a dust rich lenticular galaxy, with an intact disk but without the spiral structure.

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Does Saturn have a storm spot?

The Great Red Spot is the largest storm in our solar system. An anticyclone that is over 16,000 km wide-large enough to engulf the entire Earth-the Great Red Spot has been on Jupiter’s surface for hundreds of years.

A new study has shown that Satum Jupiters neighbour, also has long-lasting megastorms. While these are less colourful and blander than those on Jupiter, they do have impacts deep in Saturn’s atmosphere that remain for centuries. The study was published on August 11 in the journal Science Advances

Similar to hurricanes

Similar to hurricanes on Earth but much much larger, megastorms on Satum occur every 20 to 30 years. The causes for these megastorms in Saturn’s atmosphere. which is made up mainly of hydrogen and helium along with traces of methane ammonia and water, remains unknown. Based on radio emissions from Satum. astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, noticed anomalies in the concentration of ammonia gas in the atmosphere. While the concentration of ammonia at mid-altitudes is lower, it was enriched at lower altitudes. 100 to 200 km deeper in the atmosphere.

Precipitation and re-evaporation

The researchers were able to connect this to the past occurrences of megastorms in Satum’s northern hemisphere. According to them, ammonia is being transported from the upper to the lower atmosphere. This effect, which they believe can last for hundreds of years, occurs through the processes of precipitation and re-evaporation.

Additionally, this study reveals that Saturn and Jupiter are very dissimilar despite the fact that both gas giants are made of hydrogen gas. The tropospheric anomalies in Jupiter have been connected to its zones (whitish bands) and belts (darkish bands), while those on Saturn are caused by cyclones.

These differences between Saturn and Jupiter challenge scientists on what they know about the formation of megastorms on gas giants and other planets. Understanding this would not only further our knowledge of terrestrial meteorology, but may also inform us as to how they are formed and studied on exoplanets in the future.

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How stars like the Sun generate energy through nuclear fusion?

Stars like our Sun radiate huge quantities of energy because of the nuclear fusion reaction taking place inside their core. Can we use the same idea to generate power that is clean and cheap? Where are scientists around the world working on such projects.

The energy scenario in the world is changing as natural sources conventionally used for generating energy like fossil fuels, oil and coal are fast depleting.

But there are abundant energy sources that cause minimal climate change. Nuclear energy is one such option being used worldwide. In this process, energy is released from the nucleus of an atom either by splitting the heavy atom into two (nuclear fission) or by combining two light atoms into a heavier one (nuclear fusion).

For more than 50 years, energy has been generated in nuclear power plants through fission, a process in which heavy elements such as uranium are bombarded by neutrons, resulting in the splitting of the nuclei and the release of huge amounts of energy in the form of heat.

Nuclear fusion is the opposite process. In fusion reactors, light atomic nuclei are compressed under intense pressure and heat, forcing them to combine together to form heavier nuclei. Fusion also results in the release of huge quantities of energy.

Special conditions Normally, atomic nuclei repel each other if we try to bring them closer; to force them to come close and ultimately fuse together, special conditions have to be generated in the form of very high pressure and extremely high temperatures.

Stars like our Sun radiate huge quantities of energy because of the nuclear fusion reaction taking place inside their core- hydrogen is continuously changing to helium.

The core experiences extremely high pressure because of the gravitational force exerted by the mass of the gigantic star itself, this pressure also leads to the generation of very high temperature inside the star. So, the basic requirement for a fusion reaction is to create a star-like situation inside the reactor in terms of temperature and pressure. To generate such conditions, a lot of energy is needed.

The process must be optimised to generate more energy than it consumes. Fusion could be utilised to generate electricity commercially. The main fuels used in nuclear fusion are deuterium and tritium, both heavy isotopes of hydrogen. Deuterium constitutes a tiny fraction of natural hydrogen, only 0.0153 per cent, and can be extracted inexpensively from seawater. The amount of deuterium present in one litre of water can in theory produce as much energy as the combustion of 300 litres of oil! This means that there is enough deuterium in the oceans to meet human energy needs for millions of years.

Building a fusion power plant that can withstand the immense temperature and pressures produced by this process is one of the century’s greatest engineering challenges. The fuel must be heated to about 100 million degrees Celsius. At that hotter-than-the-sun temperature, a fully ionised gas-plasma is formed. The plasma will then be ignited to create fusion.

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What powers a spacecraft?

Scientists send spacecraft to probe objects in space. These spacecraft carry instruments that help them take pictures and collect data in space and send them back to Earth. But to do this, the spacecraft needs electricity So what powers it?

Based on the mission it is assigned, and factors such as where the spacecraft is travelling, what it plans to do there and how long it needs to work engineers choose the best way to power a spacecraft.

The Sun                     

One source of power engineers consider is energy from the Sun, or solar power. Spacecraft that orbit close to Earth are dose enough to the Sun to use solar power. These spacecraft are fitted with solar panels, which convert the Sun’s energy into electricity. The electricity from the panels charges a battery in the spacecraft and can be used even when the spacecraft doesn’t have direct sunlight

Batteries

Sometimes, when the mission is only for a short duration, such as the Huygens probe that landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and meant to work only for a few hours, engineers may power the spacecraft with batteries. These batteries are designed to be tough since they need to withstand the harsh environment of space.

Atoms

An atom is a tiny building block of matter. Atoms need to store a lot of energy to hold themselves together. However, atoms such as radioisotopes are unstable and begin to fall apart. As they fall apart, they release energy as heat. A radioisotope power system uses the temperature difference between the heat from the unstable atoms and the cold of space to produce electricity. This system produces power for a very long time even in harsh environments. That’s why this system has been used to power many of NASA’s missions, including the two Voyager spacecraft that continue to send back information after over four decades in space.

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Are Membrane mirrors for large space-based telescopes?

Researches create lightweight flexible mirrors that can be rolled up during launch and reshaped precisely after deployment.

Mirrors are a significant part of telescopes. When it comes to space telescopes, which have complicated procedures for launching and deploying, the primary mirrors add considerable heft, contributing to packaging difficulties.

Researchers have now come up with a novel way of producing and shaping large, high-quality mirrors. These mirrors are not only thinner than the primary mirrors usually employed in space-based telescopes, but are also flexible enough to be rolled up and stored inside a launch vehicle.

Parabolic membrane mirror

The successful fabrication of such parabolic membrane mirror prototypes up to 30 cm in diameter have been reported in the Optica Publishing Group journal Applied Optics in April. Researchers not only believe that these mirrors could be scaled up to the sizes required in future space telescopes, but have also developed a heat-based method to correct imperfections that will occur during the unfolding process.

Using a chemical vapour deposition process that is commonly used to apply coatings (like the ones that make electronics water-resistant), a parabolic membrane mirror was created for the first time. The mirror was built with the optical qualities required for use in telescopes. A rotating container with a small amount of liquid was added to the inside of a vacuum chamber in order to create the exact shape necessary for a telescope mirror. The liquid forms a perfect parabolic shape onto which a polymer can grow during chemical vapour deposition, forming the mirror base. A reflective metal layer is applied to the top when the polymer is thick enough, and the liquid is then washed away.

Thermal technique

The researchers tested their technique by building a 30-cm-diameter membrane mirror in a vacuum deposition chamber. While the thin and lightweight mirror thus constructed can be folded during the trip to space, it would be nearly impossible to get it into perfect parabolic shape after unpacking. The researchers were able to show that their thermal radiative adaptive shaping method worked well to reshape the membrane mirror.

Future research is aimed at applying more sophisticated adaptive control to find out not only how well the final surface can be shaped, but also how much distortion can be tolerated initially. Additionally, there are also plans to create a metre-sized deposition chamber that would enable studying the surface structure along with packaging unfolding processes for a large-scale primary mirror.

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