Lakshya UPPSC PT 2022 – Science & Technology Lecture -1 – Complete One Year Current Affairs

Syllabus

The 2014 UN271 or Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet has been found to measure over 60 miles in diameter (Around 80 miles).
That’s 50 times bigger than an average comet, and is thought to weigh 500 trillion tonnes, that’s a 100,000 times more massive than the typical comet usually found closer to the Sun.
For comparison’s sake, the asteroid that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs was only around six miles wide.

C/2014 UN271 is not actually a new discovery, and has been on scientists’ radars since late-2010.
Researchers knew the comet had to be larger than average, but since the comet is now closer to us, astronomers have used images taken by the Hubble Telescope to calculate the comet’s size more accurately.
Comparing five images taken by the space telescope, and using computer modelling to clear up the grainy images, scientists determined that the solid icy centre of comet C/2014 UN271 measures 80 (130 Km) miles across.

The comet was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey in the astronomical observatory in Chile.
It was discovered in November 2010 and has been an item of interest for scientists.
The comet has been travelling towards the sun for over a million years and it is believed to have originated in the Oort Cloud.

The gravity of a planet or star can pull comets from their homes in the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud. This tug can redirect a comet toward the Sun. The paths of these redirected comets look like long, stretched ovals.
As the comet is pulled faster and faster toward the Sun, it swings around behind the Sun, then heads back toward where it came from.
Some comets dive right into the Sun, never to be seen again. When the comet is in the inner solar system, either coming or going, that’s when we may see it in our skies.

It was built by the United States space agency NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency.
NASA named the world’s first space-based optical telescope after American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble who confirmed an “expanding” universe theory, which provided the foundation for the big-bang theory.
It is a large space telescope and was launched in 1990 and is still operational. Hubble features a 2.4-meter mirror, and its four main instruments include ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum
It is the only telescope that has been designed in a manner that it can be serviced by astronauts in space. Till date 5 Space Shuttle missions have been conducted to repair and upgrade the parts of the telescope

What is the difference between asteroids and comets? (CSE Prelims 2011)

1. Asteroids are small rocky planetoids, while comets are formed of frozen gases held together by rocky and metallic material.
2. Asteroids are found mostly between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, while comets are found mostly between Venus and Mercury.
3. Comets show a perceptible glowing tail, while asteroids do not.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 1 and 3 only
(c) 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

Stars: A star is a form of a celestial object made up of a shining spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearby star to Earth is the Sun.
Planets : A planet is a body that revolves around a star. The star must be enormous enough to be spherical by its own magnitude with its own gravitational effect.
Satellites : It is a natural or artificial space object with a recognized orbit around a planet.
Comets : A comet is an icy object which is present in Solar System that revolves around the Sun.
Asteroids: Asteroids are small planets or planet fragments that revolve around the sun.
Big asteroids are also called planetoids.
Meteor and Meteorites : A meteor is also called a shooting star. It is basically a space body like meteoroid, comet or asteroid which enters Earth’s atmosphere. If the shooting starts doesnot burn out and hits the surface, it becomes meteorite.

Network for Space Objects Tracking and Analysis (NETRA) project of ISRO
- Project NETRA’ is an early warning system in space to detect debris and other hazards to Indian satellites.
- Under NETRA, the ISRO plans to put up many observational facilities: connected radars, telescopes, data processing units and a control centre. The project will give India its own capability in space situational awareness (SSA).
- NETRA can spot, track and catalogue objects as small as 10 cm, up to a range of 3,400 km and equal to a space orbit of around 2,000 km.
- The ultimate goal of NETRA is to capture the GEO scenes at 36000km. This will help in space surveillance as well as monitoring space debris.

The Kessler Syndrome is a theory proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, used to describe a self-sustaining cascading collision of space debris in LEO.
It’s the idea that two colliding objects in space generate more debris that then collides with other objects, creating even more shrapnel and litter until the entirety of LEO is an impassable array of super-swift stuff.
At that point, any entering satellite would face unprecedented risks of headfirst bombardment.

ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is an astrobiology programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
First Part over in 2016:
- Its first mission launched atop a Proton-M rocket in 2016 and consisted of the European Trace Gas Orbiter and test lander called Schiaparelli. The orbiter was successful while the test lander failed during its descent to Mars.
Second Part has been delayed:
- It comprises a rover and surface platform. This second part of the mission was originally planned for July 2020. But it has been postponed.
- Earlier ESA and NASA were the original collaborators, but NASA dropped out in 2012 due to budgeting problems. Russia took NASA’s place in the project in 2013.
- In June 2023, a Roscosmos lander named Kazachok was due to deliver the ESA Rosalind Franklin rover to the Martian surface.

Under the Artemis lunar exploration program, NASA wants to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by the year 2024.
ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of Moon’s Interaction with the Sun.
The mission was named Artemis after the Greek mythological goddess of the Moon and twin sister to Apollo.
The main objective is to measure what happens when the Sun’s radiation hits our rocky moon, where there is no magnetic field to protect it.