LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory)
What is LIGO? It is the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory and a wonder of precision engineering. It comprises of two enormous laser interferometers located thousands of kilometres apart, each having two arms which are 4 km long. It exploits the physical properties of light and of space itself to detect and understand the origins […]
Spitzer Space Telescope
The Spitzer Space Telescope is the final mission in NASA’s Great Observatories Program – a family of four space-based observatories, each observing the Universe in a different kind of light. The other missions in the program include the visible-light Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO), and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO). The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched in the year 2003. It is a space-borne, […]
Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
It consists of a supercomputer that will process the enormous amounts of data produced by the SKA’s telescopes. The total compute power will be around 250 PFlops — that’s 25 per cent faster than IBM’s Summit, the current fastest supercomputer in the world. Significance: When complete, the SKA will enable astronomers to monitor the sky […]
Why do we need telescopes?
To watch the object of faraway we need to have a bigger eye over which we can collect more light coming from an object. With more light we can create a brighter image, we can then magnify the image so that it takes up more space on our retina. That’s where the telescopes come, telescope […]
Saraswati supercluster
A team of Indian astronomers have identified previously unknown, extremely large supercluster of galaxies called Saraswati Saraswati supercluster is one of the largest known structures in the nearby universe. It is 4 billion light years away from Earth and may contain the mass equivalent of over 20 million billion suns. It has 43 galaxies that […]
ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY
A team from the University of Colorado at Boulder is working on making the concept of artificial gravity a reality. Meaning: Artificial gravity means spacecraft generating their own gravity by spinning around in space. Concept: These researchers are examining ways to design revolving systems that might fit within a room of future space stations and even […]
What’s the Difference Between a Comet, Asteroid and Meteor?
Where asteroids are located? Most asteroids lie in a vast ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Not everything in the main belt is an asteroid, for instance, comets have recently been discovered there, and Ceres, once thought of only as an asteroid, is now also considered a dwarf planet. Many asteroids lie outside the main belt. For instance, a […]
SUNSPOT CYCLE
Sunspot cycle: The amount of magnetic flux that rises up to the Sun’s surface varies with time in a cycle called the solar cycle. This cycle lasts 11 years on average. This cycle is sometimes referred to as the sunspot cycle. Near the minimum of the solar cycle, it is rare to see sunspots on the Sun, and the […]
Goldilocks Zone
NASA has reported the discovery of an Earth-size planet, named TOI 700 d, orbiting its star in the “habitable zone”. Details: A habitable zone, also called the “Goldilocks zone”, is the area around a star where it is not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface of surrounding […]
What is Planet?
Three conditions for a celestial object to be called a ‘planet’ – it must orbit the Sun it should be massive enough to acquire an approximately spherical shape it has to ‘clear its orbit’ i.e. be the object that exerts the maximum gravitational pull within its orbit ‘Dwarf planets’, on the other hand, need to […]