Reply by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in compliance to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order dated January 21, 2024 in the matter of ‘News item titled “Feeling anxious? Toxic air could be to blame” appearing in Times of India dated 10.10.2023’. NGT had directed CPCB to file a …
WITH the new millennium just round the bend, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has dedicated several missions for a planet it did not care for much before - Earth. Dubbed 'The Planet Earth Enterprise', the project seeks to implement NASA's space-age technology for life on earth. An advance, …
THE Hubble space telescope has continued to puzzle astronomers ever since it soared off, by sending one intriguing information after another. The latest images from the telescope suggest that the Milky Way and other neighbouring galaxies are filled with 'rogue' planets, which were never observed before. These planets have escaped …
ASTRONAUTS on February 26 were hoping to perform the ultimate Indian rope trick - by dangling a ball-shaped satellite from a space shuttle as it swept above the earth. But the experiment failed; the cable linking the space shuttle to the satellite broke. The experiment, which was conducted by astronauts …
IT SEEMS to be a jinxed programme for the National Space and Aeronautics Administration (NASA) in the us. While its first effort to deploy a satellite in space as part of the Tethered Satellite System - a joint us-Italian venture - ended unsuccessfully after the tether got jammed, this time, …
China's space programme received a setback with the explosion of a Loug March 313 rocket carrying a us satellite, Intelsat 708. China suspended all satellite launches' after the blast, which killed four people. The suspension is likely to delay the launch of two satellites, Dongfang 3 for China and the …
With funds for mega accelerator projects drying up, particle physicists are increasingly turning their attention heavenwards. A 15-institution collaboration at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in US has proposed a US $100 million gamma ray telescope -Gamma Large Array Space Telescope (GLAST) - to be put into space by AD 2005. …
IN THE run up to knowing more about outer space and its intricate components, especially the asteroids - rocky leftovers of the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully launched the first ever space probe to orbit an asteroid …
As SPACE research becomes costlier, inexpensive propulsion systems are being widely sought. Research with a view to achieving a major reduction in the cost of satellite operation is now underway at the University of Surrey. At present, it is necessary to employ costly propulsion systems using either solid or liquid …
CASH-STRAPPED Russians want to make money out of Mir, their station in space. Their proposal to raise funds is to make the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officials use Mir, which will outlive its usefulness sometime in the late '90s, for all activities until Alpha, the us space station, …
Launched about five years ago, the spacecraft Ulysses has provided valuable information about the sun. Last year, it swung past the sun's south pole and into the ecliptic plane (the plane of the earth's orbit). The fly past provided a unique opportunity to gather information on the heliosphere, one of …
THE mood is upbeat at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore. Flushed with the successful launch Of IRS- IC, India's space technology marvel, ISRO'S scientists are now all set to invade the multi-billion dollar world market for satellite data by storm. Billed as the most advanced remote sensing …
Released by the us National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on November 2 (see Down To Earth, Vol 4, No 14), these Hubble-captured snapshots hold up to the eye a mind-blowing, spectacular display of cosmic births. Monumental eerie pillars of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust - part of the 7,000 …
The Pioneer 11, which had transmit- ted some spectacular pictures of Jupiter and its moons, is now drifting towards interstellar space some 6.5 billion kin from the earth. Its power generators, four radioisotope thermoelectric generators and electronic gear have outlived themselves. The spacecraft's radio transmissions are now too weak to …
ONE of the curious facts of our universe to how it is that the deeper one in space, the more one travels in time. This is because light (or signals emitted from a distant in space take time to reach us; the signals we recieve must have ted a long …
THE big bang cosmological model is one of the most successful models of our universe. Its efficacy in predicting the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation and the profusion of light elements in the universe (like helium and lithium) remains unsurpassed by any of the competing cosmological models (Nature, …
DOES our universe have antimatter (the oppositely charged counterpart of ordinary matter) in substantial quantities? Do we have whole galaxies made up of antimatter, much like our own galaxy which is made up of matter? These are some of the brainteasers which could be closer to a solution if Massachusetts …
GLOBAL collaboration in space exploration has taken another giant leap forward with the signing in August of a us $190 million deal - to develop and launch the first module of a new international space station called Alpha - between Russia's Krunichey Space Center and the Boeing Defense and Space …
WHEN the giant comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed against Jupiter exactly a year ago and took the world of science by storm, it also created water. Researchers working with Italy's National Research Council have been monitoring the impact, using a radio telescope equipped with a high-speed spectrometer. And they now claim …
One ofthe most controversial of scientific projects, Gravity Probe-B, has won the approval of an expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences. The project, proposed by Stanfora physicist Francis Everitt, envisages sending a probe in orbit around the Earth to test Einstein's General , Theory of Relativity (Science, Vol …
THREE indigenous satellites are to be launched in quick succession between September and December this" year, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Bangalore. While the sequence of the launches have not yet been finiliscd, sources in ISRO said thai they were ready for them. The 3 satellites are …
