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From being India’s largest international carrier to near bankruptcy

Naresh Goyal founded Jet Airways in 1993 with a fleet of four leased Boeing 737 aircraft. At a time when private airlines had just started coming up in India, Jet Airways, a full-service airline, grew fast to become India’s largest international carrier.

However, with budget airlines such as SpiceJet and Indigo entering the broil, the aviation industry became a highly competitive one. Calling themselves ‘budget’, SpiceJet and Indigo started offering low airfare, forcing Jet also to lower fares. But it continued to offer full services, increasing operational costs and forcing it to keep borrowing from banks to stay afloat. Macro-economic changes such as a weakening rupee and rising fuel costs only hurt it further. It all led to unpaid dues and grounded flights which put JetAirways into the fray.

Back in 2013, when Jet had a debt of over $2 billion, it struck a deal with UAE-based airline Etihad, taking advantage of new policy changed that allowed foreign airlines to invest in domestic airlines. The agreement, which almost went through, would have seen Etihad bringing in a new investor who would invest around Rs 1,900 crore for a 20% stake. This would mean that Goyal and promoter group stake would fall. Goyal, however, didn’t want promoter shareholder capping to be a part of the deal, following which the deal fell through.

Again in November 2018, Tatas offered to invest in Jet. However the deal didnt go through for the same reason since Tatas wanted full control, which would mean Goyal stepping down. Goyal wouldn't just give up.

As of March 25th, Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita Goyal has finally stepped down from the board of the company. This step brings some hope on the revival of Jet airways. What is the next move is not determined. This all depends on the steps taken by interested investors like Etihad and Tatas. It is to be seen whether or not the Jet aiways will be able to come back from the dead, and if it does, how it shall flare.

Yogendra Rijal

Our earth is constantly moving in cosmos space at a very high speed. There are three kind of movements our earth is making. The first movement is the rotation on its axis that gives us day and night. The second movement is the revolution around the sun that gives us cold and hot seasons. The third movement is the movement of whole solar system around the center of milky way galaxy.

Have you ever wondered how these movements first came into place? After the big bang everything started moving and the universe started expanding. In the beginning it was all hot dusts and clouds that began to condense & form solid celestial bodies. The same rotation speed remained until today. Imagine like rotating a spinning top that once you started rotating and it kept on rotating forever. The rotation of the earth in its axis is about 1675 km/hr. We all have been spinning with this speed all the time since our birth. This inertial rotation has remained forever since the formation of the earth because there has been no external force to stop it. In case of spinning top, it slows down and eventually comes to stop because it has frictional drag force with the ground surface and the air around it. If we would be able to neglect those frictions, the spinning top would also keep rotating forever. Now the questions arises, is our earth loosing any rotational speed? What will happen if our earth would start slowing down and eventually stop?

As a matter of fact, the earth gets about 1/2000th of a second slower every single day. This is because the rotation of earth on its axis is slowing down because of the tidal friction from moon. The gravitational pull between moon and earth is dragging the earth rotation a bit. In other words, a day after 2000 days will be a second longer compared to today. At this rate, the earth will completely slow down in 474,000 years from now. The moment will be like a roulette game. The side facing towards the sun will get day forever and it will get hotter and hotter. The opposite site will remain on the darker sider and it will be night forever. The night side will get colder and colder. The areas on earth between dark and night side will have forever mornings and forever evenings. But as the time passes, these two sides will remain isolated from each other. It will be difficult to travel from morning side to the evening side or vice-versa because the paths between them will have extreme temperatures. One side facing the sun will be extremely hot while the other side will be extremely cold.

Everything runs out of energy. Just like that, our earth will also someday come to a stop.

Do you like science fiction stories and science fiction movies? If so, the movie called Jurassic Park must be well-known for you. If you liked the previous version of the movie, the good news for you is that the new Jurassic Park 4 is on the way. The movie is expected to be released on July 14th, 2014.

See the trailer of the previous Jurassic Park movies here below.



Steven Spielberg made cinematic gold with his release of Jurassic Park, a marvelous movie about genetically altered dinosaurs roaming the land in modern times. Of course, any of Spielberg’s films have been regarded as purely marvelous, but I’ll ignore the generalizations of the crowd for a much more personal observation.

Jurassic Park released in the summer of 1993 is an adaptation film of the book by the same name by Michael Crichton. In essence, Jurassic Park was a test for Spielberg, as is the same test for all competent filmmakers, to make a film translation of the book. What we got was (what some considered) a better version of the book.

Jurassic Park tells the story of Dr. Alan Grant, a modern day rendition of Indiana Jones and his adventures on a fictional island called Isla Nublar. Grant has been invited by John Hammon, the CEO of InGen, to study the dinosaurs on the island and to validate if it’s ultimately safe for civilians to visit the island as a vacation resort. Alan initially disagrees with the concept altogether before he’s star stricken at the landscape of a vast selection of dinosaurs on a plain.

After learning how these dinosaurs are created, Alan also begins to wonder about the ethics of recreating a species that died out “for a reason.” His gripes aren’t necessarily with the fact that this particular species of animal was created. Instead, Alan continuously retorts that dinosaurs were never meant to be kept in cages.

From here, we saw the true ethics of the movie; as the 20 minute segments rolled by, we understood what Alan meant in his theory. The moral of the movie was mankind’s human conditioning for control of other species through uncontrollable means. Effectively, Spielberg showed us what could happen when we try to play God with an entire species.

Aside from metaphors and two-bit analogies, Jurassic Park reached into the special effects library and pulled an early Avatar marvel of the 90s. Jurassic Park would go on to be talked about for the next 20 years with still no let up in the amazement that its graphics designers managed to squeeze out of the film.

In the time that we must wait for Jurassic Park 4, Spielberg has gone to say that a 3D re-release of the original film will be put into theaters, while a 3D release is also planned for Jurassic Park 4.


1. If the sun were to "turn off", the Earth would completely freeze within a week with a temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit even in the equator. In a year's time it would dip to -100 degree Fahrenheit, and millions of years later it would be a stable -400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.The sun is getting hotter, becomming 10% more luminous around every billion years. This could mean that in a billion years, there will be no liquid water on Earth.

3. The sun is comprised of 72% hydrogen, 26% helium and other trace elements. These dense mass of gases makes up 99% of all the mass in our solar system.

4. The sun puts out a huge amount of energy to heat the solar system. Every second around 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium ashes by the sun's fusion process.

5. The sun's surface is comparatively colder than its atmosphere, at around 6000 Kelvin. The atmosphere can reach 10,000K while the core is about 1 million Kelvin.


6. The sun is around 25,000 light years away from the center of the Milky way galaxy. It takes about 240 millions years to orbit once around the galactic center.

7. Different sections of the sun rotate at varied speeds, as it is made of gas. The equator regions rotate around every 25 days, whereas the poles take about 36 days to complete one rotation around the sun.

8. On some planetary bodies and moons, there exists a "peak of eternal light" where the sun never sets. This is due to the angle of rotational axis on relation to the sun.

9. The sun is middle aged. Astronomers believe it formed around 4.59 billions years ago. In 5 billion years time, it will enter the red giant phase of its life time.

10. 100,000,000,000 tons of dynamite would have to be detonated every single second to match the energy that the sun produces.

Source: universitytoday.com

I thought to write something about the orbital mechanics that I know so far. This would be a revision for me as well as chance to realize new things and come up with new questions to ask for myself.

The celestial mechanics or the orbital mechanics is the study of dynamics of satellites and planets in their orbit around bigger masses. For example, the moon and artificial satellites such as GPS, International Space station, etc. revolve around the earth in their orbit while the planets revolve around the sun in their orbit. The orbit around the sun is called helical orbit while the orbit around the earth is named as geo-orbit.
 
Nomenclature: It is important to understand the terminologies used to define the characteristics of orbit. In the demonstration figure below a mass is revolving around a bigger mass in its orbit. When the smaller body is at the closest distance with the bigger body (at position 2), its position is called as the periapsis. On the other hand, when the body approaches the farthest point (at position 1), its position is called as the apoapsis.

If the center body is sun, the closest and farthest positions are called perihelion and apohelion position respectively. Similarly, if the center body is earth, the closest and farthest position are called apogee and perigee respectively.See table below for more terms of apogee and perigee.

Body Farthest approach Closest approach
General Apogee Perigee
Sun Apihelion Perihelion
Earth Apogee Perigee
Mercury Apohemion Perihermion
Venus Apocyterian Pericytherian
Mars Apoareion Periareion
Jupiter Apozene Perizene
Saturn Aposaturnium Perisaturnium
Uranus Apouranion Periuranion
Neptune Apoposeidion Periposeidion
Pluto Apohadion Perihadion
Star Apoastron Periastron
Galaxy Apogalacticon Perigalacticon
Black Hole Apobothra Peribothra

Obviously, you must have noted that the periapsis is equal to the apoapsis for a circular orbit. The circular orbits can be seen in case of artificial satellites only. By nature, each and every cellestial body revolves in an elliptical path. The Keplers law define these kind of properties of properties of planets around the sun.

Kepler's law:
1. The orbit of each planet is an ellipse with the sun occupying the focus (center object).
2. The line joining the sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal intervals of time
3. A planets orbital period is proportional to the mean distance between the Sun and the planet raised to the power 3/2.

First law
Picture owned by Gary M. Winter
Second law
Third law

     




Helical Orbits:



  • Energy is not continuous, but comes in small but discrete units.
  • The elementary particles behave both like particles and like waves.
  • The movement of these particles is inherently random.
  • It is physically impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. The more precisely one is known, the less precise the measurement of the other is.
  • The atomic world is nothing like the world we live in.

There is a new branch of science called Super String Theory or M Theory, which is further demonstrating that the material universe is just an illusion. Every atom and particle is not solid but made up of what theorectical physicists call strings of vibrational energy and they are so small that if an atom is the size of the Solar system, each one of the strings that make it up would be anywhere from the size of a tree on Earth or the size of an atom compared to the size of the atom, which has been extrapolated to the size of the Solar System. If there is no solidity whatsoever then it is easy to understand how the entire universe can expand from the point of the Big Bang.

In former times scientists thought that light consists of waves and that electrons, neutrons and protons are particles. But Scientists have discovered that sometimes light has got a wave character and sometimes light has got a particle character but not only light also the other particles which I mentioned sometimes have got a wave character. There is an experiment which shows that light can have a particle character. For this experiment we need a metal plate. When we irradiate this metal plate with light it can happen that some of the electrons of some atoms will leave their atomic shell. But when no electron leaves the atomic shell a classical physicist would say that the intensity is to low and what we need a stronger light source or that we must give the light nearer to the metal plate. But this would not help, because light consists of photons and when we have got a higher intensity there are more photons which bombard the electrons, but one electron can only absorb one photon. This means that the energy of the photon is responsible, wheather an electron leaves his atomic shell or not. The electrons are holded by the positive charged atomic nucleus and so they need a certain energy to break out. So we need radiation with a shorter wavelength to give the electrons enough energy. If the wavelength is shorter the energy and the frequency are higher. Which wavelength do we need depends on the atoms. Simple light is to little so that we need ultraviolet light for example. All this is called photoelectric effect. The best possibility to make this experiment is with an electroscope. There is also an experiment which show us that electrons can have a wave character. It is the double gap experiment which I will describe later, because he is the most important experiment for quantum physics and the consequences of him might change your conception of the world.

Hereby, I have shared a documentary about Parallel Universes at the end of this post. Parallel universe is also known as the "alternative reality". The idea behind the parallel universe (multiverse) is that there are far more than just one universe and that we constantly interact with many of these "hidden" universes. This idea mainly evolved on the basis of the fact that subatomic particles are unstable. The subatomic particles (elementary particles by which every matter is composed of) do oscillate and change their postion continously.

Scientists are always in search of reality, how did it all began? So far, they have been able to explain the evolution and the birth of our universe as a result of big bang theory. They eventually want to know more. Descrbing the universe from this point haven't satisfied the scientists and they are starting to look even backwards. What was it that caused the big bang? What was there beyong the bigbang and the spacetime? To answer this mystery, scientists are in search of a theory- THeory of Everything! The concept of parallel universes yielded the M-theory (membrane theory / mad-theory / made-up theory / meaningful theory / meaningless theory  - there are many opinions about this theory among the physicists of today). The parallel universe and the M-theory is explained in the documentary below. The theory further discusses about the 11-dimensions.


Fantasy has long borrowed the idea of "another world" from myth, legend and religion. Heaven, Hell, Olympus, Valhalla are all "alternative universes" different from the familiar material realm. Modern fantasy often presents the concept as a series of planes of existence where the laws of nature differ, allowing magical phenomena of some sort on some planes. This concept was also found in ancient Hindu mythology, in texts such as the Puranas, which expressed an infinite number of universes, each with its own gods. While technically incorrect, and looked down upon by hard science-fiction fans and authors, the idea of another "dimension" has become synonymous with the term "parallel universe". The usage is particularly common in movies, television and comic books and much less so in modern prose science fiction. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_universe_(fiction)

"Our universe (that we feel to exist) is a collection of selected events from these multiverses based upon the probabilties and the actions/decisions that we take/make." [my understanding]

And hereby, I present the summary of my understanding of the M-theory:
- Every matter in this universe is composed of vibrating strings which are about 10^(35) of a mm.
- Our universe is a bubble floating in a membrane.
- There are many such bubbles floating around.






Australian transport investigators have announced they have identified a "critical safety issue" with engines fitted to the world's largest passenger airliner. Some Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, which power some Airbus A380 "superjumbos", may be prone to "fatigue cracking", which could lead to oil leakage and a fire.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said they think this was "central to the engine failure" which occurred on a Qantas A380 on November 4, shortly after take-off from Singapore. The airline grounded all six of its fleet of A380s so they could undergo safety checks before they were put back into service.

The ATSB said the manufacturing fault with the Trent 900 engines "could lead to an elevated risk of fatigue crack initiation and growth, oil leakage and potential catastrophic engine failure from a resulting oil fire." The agency urged Rolls-Royce to "address the safety issue and take actions necessary to ensure the safety of flight operations in transport aircraft equipped with Rolls-Royce Trent 900 series engines."

Qantas emphasised on Thursday that there was "no immediate risk to flight safety," but said they would conduct further investigations. A statement from the airline said: "Qantas currently has two A380 aircraft in operational service, following the grounding of the fleet on 4 November. Both A380 aircraft will be inspected at the Qantas Jet Base in Sydney." Two other airlines use A380 aircraft with Trent engines, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines; Singapore Airlines said they were checking the engines of their A380s "on a daily basis". They said: "The new checks advised by the ATSB will be carried out as quickly as possible."

The incident in Singapore was embarrassing for Airbus. The incident in Singapore was certainly the most serious incident that the A380 has experienced since it entered operations. The A380 made its first commercial flight in 2007, and is now in service with several other airlines, including Air France and Emirates. It is the largest commercial passenger airliner in the world, with an 840-passenger maximum capacity, though Qantas' can carry 450 only.

There was an age when communication and transportation was limited which kept us to persue a limited ammount of space on earth. With each slight progress in communication and transportation, our community suddenly elaborated. We started from streeet to street and then town to town and eventually from country to country. With this rapid development in science and technology, we might eventually talk about planet to planet. For example, in the past people used to represent themself saying "I am from blah blah town". Thereafer "I am from that province" and now we talk about I am from this country. It might be such that in the future that we represent our planet and we introduce ourself in other planets/galaxies by saying "I am from earth".
One of the recent progress in technology is the flying bird. It is of no amaze that humans can fly today in the sky like birds with the development in aeronautics. But this recent development is the flying car which is hybrid and is infact a car that can fly in sky.

The concept of flying cars is not a new one. It was preliminarily designed before but the practical one which could be used in real life was not achieved before. Terrafugia company in Oskkosh, USA have designed the rodable aircraft which can roll on the road as well lift on the air. The design is both a rear-wheel drive road vehicle and a light sport aircraft that can cruise at 170 kph (105 mph). Although this technology is still limited to certain class of people, it can be common to ordinary people once the commercialization takes on and production becomes efficient. Besides that, the air certification plays a role in bringing these cars to public as well.

This newly designed flying car may pave the way for future personal transportation. This development will certainly defy the constraints in living. No landscapes can block the cars, no roads need to be paved, no any terrains will resist to move. The range for transportation will increase and the life on earth will be different once these flying cars will start to be on garages of personals.

Let us see what progress and success will this technology achieve in the future.



July 13, 2010
Solar Impulse, whose wingspan is the same as an Airbus A340 (64.3m), flew 26 hours and 9 minutes, powered only by solar energy stored during the day. It was also the longest and highest flight in the history of solar aviation, organizers said.

Bertrand Piccard, the Swiss president of the project, best known for completing the first round-the-world flight in a hot air balloon in 1999, said the success of the flight showed the potential of renewable energies and clean technology.

"We are on the verge of the perpetual flight," he said.

Jubilant pilot Andre Borschberg told Reuters television: "It was unbelievable, success better than we expected. We almost thought to make it longer, but ... we demonstrated what we wanted to demonstrate so they made me come back, so here I am."

Borschberg, a former Swiss air force pilot who has flown for 40 years, returned to a hero's welcome at Payerne air base in the northwestern canton of Vaud, where hundreds gathered at dawn to watch the aircraft glide onto the Tarmac at 0700 GMT (3 a.m. EDT).

The carbon-fiber aircraft reached a maximum speed of 68 knots (ground speed), an average speed of 23 knots and a maximum altitude of 8,564 meters above sea level, a statement said.

"The success of this first night flight by a solar-powered plane is crucial for the further course of the Solar Impulse project," it said.

The Solar Impulse HB-SIA, which has 12,000 solar cells built into its 64.3-meter (193-foot) wings, is a prototype for an aircraft that its creators hope will carry out its first circumnavigation of the globe from 2012.

The next milestone will be crossing the Atlantic using a second prototype which goes into construction soon.

Weighing just 1,600 kg (3,500 lb), as much as a medium-sized car, the plane powered by four electric motors is designed to save energy from its solar cells in high-performance batteries.

It is certain that there won’t be any life on earth once the sun gets burnt out and it starts expanding to form a red giant which will end the earth and solar system. This is estimated to happen in five billion years from now on. But that time is very far from us, so we don’t need to panic right now. Besides, the search for another shelter planet is going on with the rapid development in science and technology. The other thing that we should fear is about the changing climate and unpredictable weathers that we have been facing currently. It has certainly been a time to be serious about the preservation of earth and its atmosphere to keep our human kind alive.

People might have misunderstood the definition of climate change when they see some extreme winters and get confused that there is no such thing like global warming. It is well to be taken into account that the extreme winters and extreme summers are a part of climate change.

Leaving the talk about changing Earth, I want to talk about the changed Venus now. The other fact what we have is the planet Venus which is second nearest to the sun (Earth being the third). The composition of our mother planet and Venus planet is exactly the same. The major between the planets is the surface temperature and water percentage. It is believed that there used to be oceans and most probably life too. The water vapour layers can be seen on the surface of Venus which means that there was water on Venus. The other question left hereby is the amount of water. If the amount of water vapour in Venus' atmosphere let condensed to water and puddle onto its surface, it would create a global puddle 3 cm deep. Whereas in case of earth, the water on earth would create a global puddle of 3 km deep. However, this fact has to be corrected taken into account that Venus is losing its water vapour. Some millions years back, it might have more water vapour or even oceans too. Venus Express (group of scientists studying Venus) has confirmed that Venus has lost huge quantity of water into space. Therefore, there is a chance that oceans used to exist in the past.

Now let us see how the water has escaped into the atmosphere which will be interesting for us in Earth. As ultraviolet radiation from the Sun streams into Venus' atmosphere, it breaks up the water molecules into atoms: two hydrogens and one oxygen atom. Such continuous reaction transformed water to oxygen and hydrogen. These gases could easily escape to the atmosphere. This shows us that ultraviolet rays from the sun are the main reason for the loss of water on Venus. As a reason of ozone depletion, the water on the earth could face the same attack. The current surface of Venus is like a hot oven. It could be such that the surface was similar to ours in the past over there. I hope and wish that our earth will never be an hot oven. Let us preserve our earth and let preserve ourselves.

The society I am living is about 5 square kilometers in area. It takes probably an hour to go around. This society is just a small part of the city, and the city itself is a small part of the country. There are hundreds of such countries and thousands of such cities on the earth. I can't imagine how many hours or years will it take to visit around the earth. 

The other day I was browsing some images of telescopic views of space. At some point it was difficult to distinguish the microscopic pictures and the telescopics pictures. The planets and stars just seemed like bacterias when looking through a microscope. Our planet Earth was just one of those dots. There are millions and billions of such dots in the universe. All the evolution from the microorganisms to the human civilization happened in this small dot. Humans developed and invented several things in this small dot. Many wars were also fought in this small dot as well. There are infinity no. of events that happened in this small dot. This small dot is our planet Earth which is such vast and giant in our view. But the fact is that our Earth is just a dot, a micro-organism in the sea of galaxies. Our universe is really really elegant.


  


South Korea has lost contact with its Naro-1 rocket, just 137 seconds after take-off. Officials believe the rocket exploded.

Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center had hoped to use a Naro-1, South Korea's first carrier rocket, to launch a STSAT-2B satellite.

South Korea had postponed the launch on Wednesday due to problems with the rocket's fire extinguisher system. Science Ministry spokesman Pyun Kyung-bum said, "We expect that it will be difficult to launch today".

The rocket lifted off from Goheung's Naro Space Centre at 1701 (0801 GMT) today. The rocket apparently exploded 137 seconds after launch, when a flash was seen from an on-board camera and communication was lost. The loss of communication occurred when the rocket had achieved an altitude of around 70 kilometers (43 mi). Television cameras captured a white speck, presumably part of the rocket, falling into the sea.

Analysts say the failure is a setback for South Korea. If it had been successful, it would have been the first Naro-1 launch to reach orbit. The launch cost South Korea an estimated US$400 million, and if successful, would have launched a satellite called the STSAT-2B into orbit. The satellite was designed to examine climate change and its effects.

The incident is seen as a major setback for South Korea's space program, which had been aiming to become the 10th country to achieve the capability to launch satellites, and the fourth Asian country, after China, Japan, and India. A successful launch would have helped South Korea to become a player in commercial space launches, an industry valued at around US$250 billion. Since 1992, South Korea has launched 11 satellites from overseas sites with foreign-made rockets.

Chinese researchers have successfully built an electromagnetic absorbing device for microwave frequencies. The device, made of a thin cylinder comprising 60 concentric rings of metamaterials, is capable of absorbing microwave radiation, and has been compared to an astrophysical black hole (which, in space, soaks up matter and light).

The research published June 3 in New Journal of Physics (co-owned by the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society), shows how the researchers utilised the special properties of metamaterials, a class of ordered composites which can distort light and other waves.

Qiang Cheng and Tie Jun Cui of the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves at Southeast University in Nanjing, China, designed and fabricated their absorbing device, officially called an "omnidirectional electromagnetic absorber," using 60 strips of circuit board arranged in concentric layers coated in copper. Each layer is imprinted with alternating patterns, which resonate or don't resonate in electromagnetic waves.

The designed device can trap and absorb electromagnetic waves coming from all directions by spiraling the radiation inwards and converting its energy into heat with an absorption rate of 99%. Hence it behaves like an "electromagnetic black body" or an "electromagnetic black hole."

At the moment, the device only works with microwaves, but the researchers are planning to develop a black hole for visible light next.

The current results could find some applications in microwaves. As the researchers write, "The good agreement between theoretical and experimental results has shown the excellent ability for metamaterials as the candidate to construct artificial omnidirectional absorbing devices.

"Since the lossy core can transfer electromagnetic energies into heat energies, we expect that the proposed device could find important applications in thermal emitting and electromagnetic-wave harvesting."

Astrophysicists analyzing infrared images captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope found indications of a dust cloud surrounding a relatively young star. The star is 10 to 16 million years old, and analysis of the dust cloud suggests that it may coalesce and become a rocky planet like earth. It is located at a distance from the star that it may build an atmosphere, collect liquid water, and perhaps, in millions and millions of years, support life.

It took billions of years and the perfect conditions for our Earth to grow and form. Now, those same conditions can be seen in space, shaping a similar planet. Ivanhoe explains this exciting space discovery.
Far, far away, something amazing is brewing in space. Swirling around a giant star similar to our sun, astrophysicists have spotted the very early stages of a planet taking shape. "What we think we're seeing is the actual formation of a planet -- terrestrial planet -- a rocky planet like the Earth, around the star," Carey Lisse, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., told Ivanhoe.

The Earth-like planet is about 430 light years away or 2.5x1015 miles from Earth. It's inside a huge dust belt -- bigger than our asteroid belt -- with enough dusty material to build a planet. "The material is forming at just the same distance, or close to the same distance where the Earth formed from the sun," Dr. Lisse says.

To find the planet, astronomers used images captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope. It looks for infrared light or heat radiating from the dusty materials. The images also confirm the rocky fragments forming the new planet are similar to materials found in the Earth's crust and core. "So, the body that's going to form -- the planet that's going to form -- isn't going to be this gas giant with incredibly thick atmosphere," explains Dr. Lisse. It's going to be a rocky planet like Mars or Venus or the Earth."

There's also an outer ice belt circling the young planet, making it more likely that water could reach the new planet's surface … and maybe even life; but don't wait around for signs of life. The planet still needs another 100 million years before it's completely formed.

Astronomers say the star the new planet is spinning around is between ten and 16 million years old, which is the perfect age for forming Earth-like planets.


25th May, 2010
Australian scientists Monday unveiled the world's smallest electronic switch measuring just a few atoms, which will shrink microchips and revolutionise computing speeds. The seven-atom transistor, measuring four-billionths of a metre and embedded in a single silicone crystal, is the first step in a "quantum computer" which will make calculations millions of times faster than existing devices.

Lead researcher Michelle Simmons said the technology has major implications for code-breaking, financial transactions and weather forecasting, which involve testing enormous numbers of possible scenarios.

"You'll be able to solve problems that would take longer than the life of the universe with a classical computer," she told AFP. The University of New South Wales' Centre for Quantum Computer Technology (CQCT) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison created the transistor by manipulating atoms using a special microscope.

The breakthrough promises to reduce the size of microchips, which contain billions of transistors, by up to 100 times, simultaneously accelerating processing speeds exponentially. 

"Australia's first computer was commissioned in 1949. It took up an entire room and you could hold its components in your hands," Simmons said.

"Today you can carry a computer around in your hand and many of its components are more than 1000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. "Now we have just demonstrated the world's first electronic device in silicon systematically created on the scale of individual atoms."

Simmons said commercial applications for the technology were about five years away. Her team is now working towards the first ultra-fast quantum computer, predicted to be the size of a current silicone chip.

Fishtail Air has with the help of Air Zermatt, a Swiss helicopter company, introduced an advance "Alpine Rescue System" in the Himalayan region of Nepal.

As there has been many deaths of the mountaineers in the Himalayan region, Fishtail Air has started this system to carry out rescue operations to save precious lives. Air Zermatt, a helicopter company based in Switzerland, is famous company for rescue operation. It has now joined hands with Fishtail Air to develop and establish an Alpine Rescue System in Nepal by helping the latter in technology and trainings.

Air Zermatt has also introduced ambulance facilities in the rescue helicopter to make rescue operations effective.

It had organized a week-long training programme on how to conduct high-altitude rescue operations for Fishtail Air pilots on March this year, said Suman Pandey, chief executive officer of Fishtail Air.

The pilot and rescue specialist of Fishtail Air will be leaving for Switzerland for additional training in Alpine in the near future, he added. Fishtail Air also believes that after the additional training by the pilot and rescue specialist, it will have the best rescue team in the whole of Asia.

It has also plans to expand its service to the neighboring counties like India, Bhutan and Tibet.

Are eco-friendly airplanes possible?


The ecology is finally getting more attention, and eco-friendly products are becoming increasingly popular. Hybrid cars are one of the best examples how eco-friendly vehicles are becoming more and more popular as their sales have experienced significant growth in the last few years.

And now it looks like air traffic might also have its green representative in form of eco-friendly plane after MIT-led team designed an eco-friendly airplane that is estimated to use 70 percent less fuel than current planes while also reducing noise and emission of harmful nitrogen oxides.

Current estimates say that air traffic will double by 2035 so it is of vital importance to develop eco-friendly planes that would be far more efficient than current planes in order to tackle climate change problem.

THE MIT scientists have designed two series of eco-friendly planes: the 180-passenger D "double bubble" series to replace the Boeing 737 class aircraft, currently used for domestic flights, and the 350 passenger H "hybrid wing body" series to replace the 777 class aircraft now used for international flights.

D series was constructed by reconfiguring the tube-and-wing structure. Instead of using a single fuselage cylinder, scientists used two partial cylinders placed side by side to create a wider structure whose cross-section resembles two soap bubbles joined together. They also moved the engines from the usual wing-mounted locations to the rear of the fuselage. Unlike the engines on most transport aircraft that take in the high-speed, undisturbed air flow, the D-series engines take in slower moving air that is present in the wake of the fuselage. This techniques is knows as the Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI), and it allows the engines to use less fuel for the same amount of thrust, although the design has several practical drawbacks, such as creating more engine stress.

H series utilizes much of the same technology as the D series, including BLI, a larger design is needed for this plane to carry more passengers over longer distances. The MIT team designed a triangular-shaped hybrid wing body aircraft that blends a wider fuselage with the wings for improved aerodyamics. The large center body creates a forward lift that eliminates the need for a tail to balance the aircraft.

Eco-friendly air traffic certainly sounds very good, especially after construction of eco-friendly airplanes look possible. Let us hope that such aircraft will be flying sooner in our sky and thus protecting our environment.


1. The Earth spins at 1,000 mph (1,610 kph) but it travels through space at an incredible 67,000 mph (107,826 kph).

2. Every year, over one million earthquakes shake the Earth.

3. The Earth is 4.56 billion years old…the same age as the Moon and the Sun.

4. In 5 billion years the Sun will run out of fuel and turn into a Red Giant.

5. It would take over an hour for a heavy object to sink 6.7 miles (10.8 kilometres) down to the deepest part of the ocean.

6. Around a million, billion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.

7. Every hour the Universe expands by a billion miles in all directions.

8.
Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system with surface temperature above 450 C.

9. If we are to believe scientists there are approximately 50,000,000,000 galaxies "out there". there might be even more than that however

10. Our moon is extremely dry, it is for instance one million times drier than a earth desert.

11. The highest recorded temperature on Earth was measured in Libya in 1922, and it was 58°C.

12. The lowest recorded temperature on our planet was -89.6°C. This was measured in Antarctica in 1983.

13. Not all animals on our planet have brains, for instance starfish do not have brains.

14. Our brain isn't much different than the rest of our body in terms of water since 80 % of our brain is water.

15. Our brain for proper functioning needs about quarter of total oxygen used by our body.

16. Ants are so hardworking that they even do not sleep.

17. Our fingernails are growing much faster than our toenails, about 4 times faster.

18. Talking about the hot stuff - The highest temperature produced in a laboratory was 920,000,000 F (511,000,000 C) at the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor in Princeton, NJ, USA.

19. Hurricanes cause havoc which is really no surprise since a typical hurricane produces the energy equivalent to 8,000 one megaton bombs.

20. In case you have ever wondered why giraffes are such a quiet animals it is because they have no vocal chords to make any noise.

21. In Mercury, a day is longer than a year. Note that the rotation in its axis makes a day while the revolution around the sun makes a year.

22. Sun loses 360 million tonnes of material each day as its fuel burns.

23. Astronauts can become upto 2 inches taller returning from space.This happens because the cartilage disks in the spine expand in the absence of gravity.

24. Methane is extremely potent greenhouse gas and cows are among the largest methane emitters with each domestic cow emitting about 105 pounds of methane a year.

25. The fastest spacecraft till the date can cruise at 40,000 mph (67,374 kph).

26. Fetuses react to rock music by responsing with a continous kick inside mother's belly.

27. Average male brain is larger than average female brain (1,4 kg to 1,25 kg).

28. Polar bears would make perfect thieves since they cannot be detected by infrared cameras because of their transparent fur.

29. Average person breathes about 10 million times a year.

30. It snows in the upper atmosphere of Mars but vaporizes before reaching the ground.

31. There was a time when Mars had large amounts of surface water. Proof of this facts have been fund on certain valleys and canyons.

32. Saturn's rings are about 500,000 miles in circumference but only about a foot thick.

33. December 21st 1968, was the first time that humans actually left the Earth, when Apollo 8 became the first manned space vehicle to leave Earth orbit and to orbit the Moon.

34. A satellite launched by Britain was called Black Arrow.

35. Our moon is in fact moving away from Earth at a rate of about 2.5 cm per year. There are different statistics for the moon's rate of moving way from the Earth, some claim the rate of moon's moving away from the Earth is up to 34 cm per year but according to the most credible sources it moves 2.5 cm away from Earth each year.

36. Buzz Aldrin's(second man on the moon) mother's maiden name was "Moon".

37. Did you know that astronauts cannot burp in space?

38. It is said that just 20 seconds worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11's lunar module landed on the moon.

39. A comet's tail always points from the sun.

40. Every day, Earth accumulate 10 to 100 tons of material.

41. The largest found meteorite was found in Hoba, Namibia. It weighed 60 tons.

42. Did you know that the heart of an astronaut actually gets smaller when in outer space?

43. The earth is .02 degrees hotter during a full moon.

44. Some large asteroids even have their own moon.

45. On average, Saturn is 886 million miles away from the Sun.

46. Saturn's density is less than water on average, although this fact is a bit misleading. As one looks deeper into the planets gas surface, density rises well above water.

47. Jupiter has 60 known moons, but some of them are quite small and look fainter.

48. A 100 pound object on Earth would weight 116 pounds on Saturn.

49. Mars is red because it is rusty. There is a lot of iron in the soil, and the air on Mars has made it turn red-just like rusty iron on Earth.

50. It takes about 29.46 Earth years for Saturn to complete its orbit around the sun.

51. Mars complete its orbit around the Sun in 687 days.

52. The atmosphere of Saturn comprises mostly of Hydrogen and Helium.

53. At its brightest, Mars outshines every other planet apart from Venus.

54. Only moon of Saturn to have an atmosphere out of its thirty satellites is Titan.

55. Jupiter has a mass 318 times greater than the Earth's and a diameter that is 11 times larger.

American biologist Craig Venter has announced that he has created the first ever "artificial life form" on Earth at the J. Craig Venter Institute, a U.S. laboratory and research center.

The breakthrough is the culmination of fifteen years of research and builds upon earlier work, research which saw the creation of a synthetic bacterial genome and the transplant of a genome from one species of bacteria into a second. "Synthia", a nickname derived from synthetic lifeform, combines these two techniques to create a "new lifeform".

This image was released following the announcement by scientists that they had produced a living cell with a nucleus containing man-made DNA.

A genome was created using synthetic chromosomes made from bottles of chemicals, the chromosomes sequenced to create a genome using as a template an existing bacterium. A bacterium from different species then had its own genome removed and the synthetic one transplanted in its place. Venter's achievement is that the new genome switched on and the new cell was able to replicate. A process likened to the booting of a computer with a new operating system.

Venter's achievement has been dismissed by some as falling short of a true technological breakthrough, claiming that rather than creating a new genome, that he has merely recreated the genome of an existing bacterium: "a technical tour de force" but not breakthrough science, according to Caltech geneticist David Baltimore.

Amongst the possibilities of artificial bacteria talked about are bacteria tailored to solve climate change by taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and to develop new vaccines. More complex organisms could include algae which would both be a source of biofuels and a CO2 remover. This is not, however, the instant solution to the Earth's major problems. Although enough is now known to duplicate a genome, there is insufficient knowledge as to what the role of individual chromosomes within the genome do. Any advances in synthetic biology to design life forms would require a much greater understanding of how the creation of proteins are coded in a genome's chromosomes.

Without no doubt, everyone knows that Jupiter is the fifth member of our solar system and it is the largest planet in our solar family. Here below can you find some more interesting facts about Jupiter.


Equatorial Radius: ~71500 kms [11.21 times that of earth]

Surface Area: 6.21796×1010 km² [122 times that of earth]

Volume: 1.43128×1015 km³ [1321.3 times that of earth]

Mass: 1.8986×1027 kg [318 times that of earth ; 1/1047 solar mass]

Equatorial layer gravity: 24.8 m/s² [2.5 times that of earth]

Escape velocity: 59.5 km/s [that of earth is 11.186 km/s]

Atm. surface Pressure: 200 kPa  [twice as that of earth surface ]

Atmospheric Contents: 89% Hydrogen, 10% Helium, 1% of rest including Methane, ethane ammonia, water, etc.




Some Interesting facts about Jupiter:-

 - Jupiter technically has no surface as it is entirely made out of gas.


 - Jupiter can be seen with a ordinary telescope from earth because of its huge size.

 - The gravitational pull of the planet is so high that anything and everything that passes the planets gets pulled towards it.

 - Jupiter has 63 moons and one of them is volcanically active and it is the only moon in the entire solar system to be in such a state.

 - Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet of all.

 - Jupiter has clouds that are up to 50 km thick.

 - An average day on Jupiter lasts around 10 hours.

 - After Venus, Jupiter is the second brightest planet in the Solar System (Venus reflects 70% of sunlight).

  - Jupiter emits weird sounds or so called "electromagnetic voices" recorded by NASA-Voyager.



What is a black hole ?
In simple words, a black hole is a strange astronomical body which is formed when a massive star dies. As the star dies, the nuclear fusion reactions stop because the fuel for these reactions gets burned up. At the same time, the star's gravity pulls material inward and compresses the core. As the core compresses, it heats up and eventually creates a supernova explosion in which the material and radiation blasts out into space. What remains is the highly compressed and extremely massive core.

According to the general theory of relativity, a black hole is a region of space from which nothing, including light, can escape. It is the result of the deformation of space-time caused by a very compact mass. In other words, a black hole is a region of space that has so much mass concentrated in it that there is no way for a nearby object to escape its gravitational pull.
Black hole is something which has immense gravity and thus nothing can pass through it.
Why not even light can pass through a black hole?
Suppose that you are standing on the surface of the earth. You throw a rock straight up into the air. Assuming you don't throw it too hard, it will rise for a while, but eventually the acceleration due to the planet's gravity will make it start to fall down again. If you threw the rock hard enough, though, you could make it escape the planet's gravity entirely. It would keep on rising forever. The speed with which you need to throw the rock in order that it just barely escapes the planet's gravity is called the "escape velocity". As one would expect, the escape velocity depends on the mass of the planet: if the planet is extremely massive, then its gravity is very strong, and the escape velocity is high. A lighter planet would have a smaller escape velocity. The Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km per second (about 25000 mph), while the Moon's is only 2.4 km per second (about 5300 mph).

Now imagine an object with such an enormous concentration of mass in such a small radius that its escape velocity was greater than the velocity of light. Then, since nothing can go faster than light, nothing can escape the object's gravitational field. Even a beam of light would be pulled back by gravity and would be unable to escape.

Even Horizon and the Singularity of a black hole
In general relativity, gravity is a manifestation of the curvature of space-time. Massive objects distort space and time, so that the usual rules of geometry don't apply anymore. Near a black hole, this distortion of space is extremely severe and causes black holes to have some very strange properties. In particular, a black hole has something called an 'event horizon'. This is a spherical surface that marks the boundary of the black hole. You can pass in through the horizon, but you can't get back out. In fact, once you've crossed the horizon, you're doomed to move inexorably closer and closer to the 'singularity' at the centre of the black hole.

You can think of the horizon as the place where the escape velocity equals the velocity of light. Outside of the horizon, the escape velocity is less than the speed of light, so if you fire your rockets hard enough, you can give yourself enough energy to get away. But if you find yourself inside the horizon, then no matter how powerful your rockets are, you can't escape.

The horizon has some very strange geometrical properties. Far away from the black hole, the horizon seems to be a static, unmoving spherical surface. But once you get close to the horizon, you realize that it has a very large velocity. In fact, it is moving outward at the speed of light. That explains why it is easy to cross the horizon in the inward direction, but impossible to get back out. Since the horizon is moving out at the speed of light, in order to escape back across it, you would have to travel faster than light which is impossibly practically as well as theoretically.

Gravity is a well-known term and everyone in general knows that it is a pulling force. It is such a force which keeps everything in contact and everything thus constrained to something. Gravity of earth keeps the moon where it is supposed to be and gravity keeps you where you are now. If you weren’t under gravity of earth, you would be floating in space. This understanding of gravity is not really limited to the force of attraction between two masses or let’s says a pulling force. It is something more mysterious.
 

The mystery of gravity has kept a lots and lots of scientists till the date intact to think about it. Starting from medieval ages and still now, people are studying gravity to find what exactly it is. The big two names that come automatically on our mind with this word are Newton and Einstein. Newton started by calculating the forces and gave us relationships on the amount of gravitational force between masses on space. However, he was incomplete and until Einstein no one had really figured out what really gravity is and how does it work in nature.

Newton’s Gravity:
When an apple fell from a tree in Newton’s garden, he described gravity to be a pulling force. He said that there is a force of attraction between two masses. This force is a function of (depends upon) the mass of the objects and the distance between them. Newton’s law of gravity is given as:
Gravitational force = (G * m1 * m2) / (d2)
where G is the gravitational constant, m1 and m2 are the masses of the two objects, and d is the distance between the centres of gravity of the two masses.

Einstein’s Gravity:

The understanding of gravity was understood by the scientists and people as described by Newton in 1680’s. But this was until 1900’s when Einstein found out the gravity to be working in a different way. Newton was wrong with the sense how actually the gravity works. Einstein calls a gravity not to be a force at all. It is rather a space-time distortion; it is a curve in space.


Space-time: Space is the three dimensional representation of everything we observe and everything that occurs. It is the space that allows us to move us freely in three dimensions – up/down, left/right, forward/backward. Time is in our sense a tool to measure the happenings and events. Besides this, time is somewhat more sophisticated tool which is woven with the space (location/position). Having one without the other has no meaning in physical world.
An example: If there was no space, you wouldn’t exist; you wouldn’t be able to move (no degrees of freedom, left-right, up-down ..... ) In this case, you can’t talk about time, if you can’t move, if you can make any events. Thus without space, any time wouldn’t exist and vice-versa.
Thus, space-time is a common quantity and as time and space are bonded together.
Space is a fibre where our universe exists. This can be seen on the picture below.












Thus, when an object is placed on this fabric space, it distorts the space-time and created a curve on the space-time. This is what we experience: gravity. Big masses create big distortion (big curvatures) while small objects create, small distortion. This is because of this face that the smaller objects are pulled towards bigger objects. Consider this with earth and moon.
Our earth being a big mass has created distortion in space-time and thus a curvature is created on the fabric of space. The moon is thus constrained to move in its orbit and hence attracted towards the earth and so are we all. 


Sun is even a huge star compared to our earth. It thus creates even bigger curvature in space-time and earth as well as other big planets laying in its gravitation field (area upto its curvature effect) are attracted to it and hence revolve around the sun.

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