Science and Technology News

PSLV-C16 Launched Succesfully by ISRO

2011-04-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

PSLV-C16 rocket carrying 3 spacecrafts which include India's latest remote sensing spacecraft "ResourceSat-2" was succesfully launched on 20th April,2011 from Satish Dhawan Space Center, SHAR, Sriharikota at 10:12 hrs. This is the 18th launch of PSLV and 17th succesful launch of PSLV.

PSLV-C16 has placed the three spacecrafts into an orbit of 822 Kms. above the surface of earth. Two are Indian spacecrafts and the third one is a Singapore spacecraft. The Indian spacecrafts are RESOURCESAT-2 (1206 Kg) and YOUTHSAT (92 kg) and the Singapore Spacecraft is X-SAT (106 Kg).

The Resourcesat-2 is indian remote sensing spacecraft which will help in applications which include natural resource monitoring, environmental assessment and also disaster management related activities. Resourcesat-2 would provide a three-tier imaging through AwiFS LISS-3 and LISS-4 cameras.

The Youthsat spacecraft contains three payloads, of which two payloads are Indian and the third one is Russian. Together these three payloads are useful to study and investigate the composition, energetics and dynamics of the Earth's upper atmosphere.

The X-SAT is mainly intended to demonstrate technologies related to satellite based remote sensing and onboard image processing.

You can see a video of the launch.

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Biggest moon in 20 years - Super Moon 19th March,2011

2011-03-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

The moon is going to come very closer to earth on 19th March,2011 which is the closest distance in the last 20 years. There are people who believe that when the moon passes near to us, the earth jumps up to greet moon and thus we see all kinds of volcanoes, earth quakes, floods, tidal waves, tsunamis etc.

Similar big moon happened in the year 2005 and we have seen a natural disaster in the year 2005. There was Tsunami in Indonesia which triggered by earth quake 9.2 in Ritcher scale in 2005. 2,00,000 people lost their lives in that earth quake in Indonesia.

The people of Japan observed many UFOs shortly before being hit by earth quake and tsunami. There is a belief that UFOs appear at places where there would be some natural disaster going to happen.

The big moon of 19th March,2011 was 221,565 miles ( 3,56,575 kilometers) away from earth. This is the biggest and brightest moon in the past 20 years. many people believe that this would trigger natural disasters like earth quake and tsunami on earth. But NASA scientists say that this kind of claims are non sense. The full moon of 19th March,2011 appeared 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other days.

This is the photograph of the big moon taken by a person in Washington. This is an amazing view of moon of 19th March,2011 when the moon was at perigee, the closest point to earth in its orbit - using a camera-equipped telescope.

This is another big moon photo taken by a sky watcher in Manipal in India on 19th March,2011.

Japan's Earth quake on 11th March,2011 gives rise to doubts on Nuclear power

2011-03-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

There was an earth quake and Tsunami in Japan on 11th March,2011. Due to this earth quake and Tsunami there was a great loss to the properties and lives of people of Japan.

There were explosions at the three nuclear reactors in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex after the quake. This has put a question mark on the future of the nuclear power and the nuclear industry. People are fearing about what would happen if the radiation was leaked. It is not known what would be the impact of the explosions on the health, and environment. This explosion has created lot of fears among the people there. The nuclear plant showed dangerously low water levels, which exposed the nuclear fuel rods which may increase the threat of radiation to reach nearby public. It is known that at least 190 people were exposed to the radiation. Nearly 1,85,000 people were vacated from the place near the nuclear power plant.

But according to Mr. Ravi Krishnaswamy, Frost & Sullivan's Asia-Pacific Vice President of Energy and Power systems practice, Japan's nuclear power sector has a safety record for several decades.

The Japanese government also assures the public and international community that the health danger from release of radio active steam from the explosions is very very low and it seems the containment wall for the nuclear plant seems to be intact.

There is an increasing list of plans for nuclear power plants. As of 2010, we can see almost 56 nuclear reactors constructed worldwide and Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than half of these nuclear reactors.

Now there is a requirement for all the nuclear power plants which are currently in operation to undergo a review of safety processes whether they are located in earthquake-prone zone or not.

GSLV F06 Launch fails

2010-12-26T15:30:00.000-08:00

The GSLV-F06 carrying GSAT-5P spacecraft was launched on saturday, 25th Decembe,2010. But the launch ended in failure due to technical snag in the first stage of the rocket. After smooth and flawless countdown for 30 hours, the GSLV-F06 lifted off from the launch pad at 4:04 PM and ascended majestically into the sky. After few seconds the rocket lost its trajectory and exploded into a ball of fire. Immediately the sky filled with white, reddish-orange and dark-grey smoke.

The flames and the debris from the rocket came down like a shower into the Bay of Bengal.

For more details please read the news from Indian Express.

ISRO launches 10 rockets to study Solar Ecplise

2010-01-17T03:24:00.001-08:00

The India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched 10 rockets in two days to study the partial annular solar eclipse, which was observed by many people on its path, which included many African and Asian countries.

The fleet of small suborbital rockets was launched for the purpose of studying the effects of a sun-moon alignment on Friday the 15th Jan,2010. The eclipse was the longest eclipse of the millennium. The Rohini series indigenous sounding rockets were launched by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station and the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

The VSSC launched two each of the type RH 300 Mk II and RH 200 on Thursday while three sounding rockets of the type RH 300 Mk II and two sounding rockets of RH 200 from Thumba were launched on Friday.

The RH 300 Mk II and RH 200 rockets can attain an attitude of 116 km and 70 km, respectively. Another larger rocket of RH 560 Mk II series was launched from Sriharikota on Friday with the capability to attain an altitude of 548 km.

The rockets aimed at collecting relevant data on atmospheric structure and dynamics at different altitudes from the earth. The eclipse was at its peak at about 1:15 p. m. local time in India. The launch took place from Sriharikota at 1.15 PM.

The Solar eclipse gives us an opportunity to study how such events impact the photochemistry and electrodynamics within Earth's atmosphere and additionally drop in sunlight; lower temperatures and decreased levels of ionization within the atmosphere can also be observed.

The Solar Ecplise on 15th Jan,2010 offered a unique opportunity to scientists to investigate the effects of fast varying solar flux on the photochemistry and electrodynamics of the different atmospheric regions, especially the equatorial mesopause and ionosphere-thermosphere regions.”

The data collected by the rockets would be linked to the observations made from the ground to get insights into various phenomenas which occur during the eclipse.

India Launches OceanSat-2 Spacecraft into its orbit

2009-09-24T17:27:00.001-07:00

Oceansat-2 is ISRO’s second in the series of IRS satellites dedicated to ocean research. Oceansat-2 Spacecraft will gather systematic data for oceanographic, coastal and atmospheric applications. This spacecraft will study surface winds and ocean surfaces strata, and will study atmospheric aerosols and suspended sediments in the water.

India Succesfully launched Oceansat-2 ( 16th remote sensing satellite of India) and six eoropean satellites within 1200 seconds. The launching took place at Sriharikota at exactly 11.51 AM on 23rd September, 2009.

At the end of 18 minutes of flight, the PSLV’s fourth stage injected Oceansat-2 into orbit at a velocity of 25,000 km an hour at an altitude of about 728 km. Thereafter, spring-loaded action mechanisms catapulted four nano satellites called Cubesat 1, 2, 3 and 4 into orbit one after another. Two more nano satellites named Rubinsat 9.1 and 9.2 remained permanently attached to the PSLV’s fourth stage. Soon after the satellites were put into orbit, Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) satellite tracking centres started monitoring them.

PSLV - C14 had four stages using solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately. The first stage, carrying 139 tonne of propellant, is one of the largest solid propellent boosters in the world. The second stage carried 41.5 tonne of liquid propellant. The third stage used 7.6 tonne of solid propellant and the fourth had a twin engine configuration with 2.5 tonne of liquid propellent.

Click here to Watch the Video of the launch

Chandrayaan-1 lost Radio contact with Earth

2009-09-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Earth has lost another Satellite, Chandrayaan-1. According to numerous reports in Indian media, contact was lost with the lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 abruptly -- in the middle of a communications session with Earth -- at 1:30 Indian time on Friday (Thursday, August 27, at 20:00 UTC). India's communications antenna at Byalalu had received data from the spacecraft up to that taken at 00:25 IST (18:55 UTC), including the results of a recent bistatic radar experiment conducted jointly with Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

But Chandrayaan-1 has done its intended work succesfully 90% of the work. Chandrayaan-1 was launched on October 22, 2008 and had been intended to conduct a two-year primary mission. During 312 days at the Moon it orbited more than 3,400 times and returned more than 70,000 images, plus other data. More than half of its instruments were provided by (or in cooperation with) ESA and NASA; several were copies of those on ESA's SMART-1, and one was a duplicate of the Mini-SAR instrument now in orbit on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. ISRO has posted some images and data from the mission. The photos can be seen by Clicking Here.

India Plans to send astronauts to Space

2009-06-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

A manned space flight is proposed before 2015, at a budget of Rs 12.4 billion ($242 million), using a fully autonomous orbital vehicle carrying two or three crew members to 400km (250 miles) low Earth orbit for up to 7 days and back. Development of fully autonomous orbital vehicle to carry a two-member crew into a low Earth orbit has already began. ISRO will set up full-fledged training facility in Bangalore for training astronauts. ISRO is also planning to build third launch pad at Sriharkota for manned mission with extra facilities like entry into the crew capsule and an escape chute.

A 100 acre astronaut training is planned to be completed on the outskirts of Bangalore by 2012 by ISRO in collaboration with IAM Bangalore at a cost of Rs 10 billion.

India and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Joint Activities in the Field of Human Spaceflight Program during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to India in December 2008.

As per the agreement, an Indian astronaut will first go on a space mission on a Russian spacecraft (Soyuz, 2013). This will be followed by an Indian manned mission to space in 2015.

The spacecraft is being designed for a seven day mission on completion of which it will splash down either in the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal.

Jugnu - India's lightest Satellite to be launched

2009-06-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur has come in to agreement with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to launch a nano satellite. It will be the country's lightest and the institute's first satellite to be launched in the orbit from Sriharikoita.

Sanjay Govind Dhande, Director, IIT Kanpur said that regular review sessions are being carried out by ISRO to check the progress.

A team of 40 students and around 12 professors, led by Professor Nalinaksh S.Vyas are working out since December, 2008 on the project. The project is expected to be completed within a budget of 2-3 crores.

The Spacecraft weighs around 3.5 kgs and would be 34 cm long and 10 cm wide. Equipped with the micro imaging and micro electronic system, it will transfer the images to the IIT Kanpur campus. The high resolution pictures obtained will be used for different applications like drought monitoring, wasteland management, urban planning and flood risk management.

"Although the stipulated life time of the satellite is six months, we are optimistic that it will complete at least 12 months in the orbit," said Dhandhe.

Hundreds of Black Holes may roam in Milky Way, swallowing anything that gets its way

2009-05-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

New calculations at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggest that hundreds of massive black holes, left over from the galaxy-building days of the early universe, may wander the Milky Way and will start swallowing what ever comes in their way. Fortunately Earth is safe. The closest rogue black hole should reside thousands of light-years away. Astronomers are eager to locate them, though, for the clues they will provide to the formation of the Milky Way.

Hundreds of rogue black holes should be traveling the Milky Way's outskirts, each containing the mass of 1,000 to 100,000 suns. They would be difficult to spot on their own because a black hole is visible only when it is swallowing, or accreting, matter.

For more details please Click here.

Space debris around is increasing

2009-05-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

The space around Earth is becoming more cluttered by the day with orbital junk that, if left unchecked, will pose an ever-increasing threat to current and future spacecraft, a panel of experts says.

The Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network, which relies on a global network of monitoring stations, is currently tracking more than 19,000 objects in Earth orbit larger than four inches (10 cm), but there are an estimated 300,000 total objects bigger than a half-inch (1 cm) in size circling Earth. In 1980, the network was tracking just 4,700 objects, about 2,600 of which were space trash.

For more details please Click here.

Corpse's Face transplanted to a woman

2008-12-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

The first face transplantation surgery was carried out in USA. This surgery was carried out at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio in USA by Dr. Maria Siemionow. He worked with a dozen specialists to rebuild the face of a woman who was missing her right eye, nose and upper jaw.

For more details please visit the URL:

http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/ViewResource.aspx?resourceId=45689

Smiling Sky

2008-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

Astronomers and stargazers have been watching a rare astronomical phenomenon.

Jupiter and Venus are in conjunction and lie just two degrees apart, so lucky skygazers will be able to see the two planets getting closer.

At the same time, the crescent Moon will eclipse Venus and, if you watch the Moon at sunset through binoculars, you will see an occultation of Venus by the Moon. The planet will seem to disappear as the dark limb of the Moon passes over it.

Photo: Carlos Bacigalupo

Carlos Bacigalupo took this beautiful shot from his home in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.

Indian Probe landed on Moon on 14th Nov, 2008

2008-11-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

An Indian probe landed on the moon on Friday, the Indian Space Research Organisation announced, in a milestone for the country's 45-year-old space programme.

The probe touched down on the moon at 8:34pm (1504 GMT), 25 minutes after it was ejected from an unmanned spacecraft orbiting the moon.

During its descent from Chandrayaan-1 an onboard video camera transmitted lunar pictures to the ISRO command centre.

Scientists monitoring the probe cheered as ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair announced the success of the country's first lunar mission, which began on October 22 when a rocket transported Chandrayaan-1 into space.

The probe, carrying three instruments and with the Indian flag painted on its outer panes, settled in a crater in the moon's south pole.

Nair said the landing was perfect.

"We have now successfully put our national flag on the lunar surface," he told a news conference.

"The moon has been very favourable to us and this is a very productive and fruitful mission," he said, and added: "We have also emerged as a low-cost travel agency to space," referring to the mission's 80-million dollar tag.

Chandrayaan-1 is on a two-year orbital mission to provide a detailed map of the mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics of the moon's surface.

Buoyed by its success, ISRO plans to send a second unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2012 and separately launch satellites to study Mars and Venus.

India started its space programme in 1963, developing its own satellites and launch vehicles to reduce dependence on overseas agencies.

world's largest astronomical observatory set up to solve Cosmic Mysteries

2008-11-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

Scientists in western Argentina were set to inaugurate on Friday, the 14th Nov, 2008 the world's largest astronomical observatory, hoping to unlock the mysteries of high energy cosmic rays that bombard the Earth.

To observe the cosmic ray showers -- high-energy particles present in universe that bombard the Earth -- they use a collection of 1,600 particle detectors placed 1.5 kilometers (one mile) apart, in a grid spread across 3,000 square kilometers (1,200 square miles).

On top of this detection system, scientists will turn the observatory into the most powerful galaxial observation instrument ever built with an additional 24 telescopes, to record emissions of light from the particle shower.

Cosmic particles amount to microscopic protons and atomic nuclei, which whiz across the vast expanse of the universe, approaching the speed of light.

When the particles slam into Earth's upper atmosphere the impact splits them into secondary particles that scientists call an "air shower," which can spread across more than 40 square kilometers (15 square miles) across the planet's surface.

Chandrayaan-1, India's First Moon mission launched on 22nd Oct, 08

2008-10-26T02:33:00.000-07:00

On 22nd October, 2008, India's first Moon mission took place. The Rocket PSLV-C11 has lifted off exactly at 6.22 AM from the Second Launch Pad at Sriharikota - The space port of India.

It was truly a historic moment for the entire country. The PSLV-C11, which carries India's first unmanned moon spacecraft Chandrayaan-1, was successfully put into initial orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Wednesday morning at around 6.40 am.

At the end of the 49-hour countdown, the 44.4 meter tall four-stage PSLV-C11 blasted off from the second launch pad with the ignition of the core first stage at 6.22 am.

The launch vehicle uses larger strap-on motors to achieve higher payload capability.

The Chandrayaan-1 is carrying 11 payloads, five entirely designed and developed in India, three from European Space Agency, one from Bulgaria and two from US, which would explore the moon.

The 1380-kg Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft will first reach a highly elliptical Initial orbit and thereafter the satellite's Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) will be fired at appropriate moments that will finally take it to an orbit at a height of 100 km around the moon around November eight.

Chandrayaan-1 carries 11 payloads (scientific instruments) -- five from India, three from ESA, two from the US and one from Bulgaria. It aims to undertake remote-sensing of the moon in the visible, near infrared, microwave and X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. With this, preparation of a three-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface is envisaged.

Astronomers record supernova explosion

2008-05-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

ThursDay : May, 22nd, 2008

In a stroke of cosmic luck, astronomers for the first time witnessed the start of one of the universe's most fiery events: the end of a star's life as it exploded into a supernova.

On January 9, astronomers used a NASA X-ray satellite to spy on a star already well into its death throes, when another star in the same galaxy started to explode.

The outburst was 100 billion times brighter than Earth's sun. The scientists were able to get several ground-based telescopes to join in the early viewing and the first results were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"It's like winning the astronomy lottery," said lead author Alicia Soderberg, an astrophysics researcher at Princeton University. "We caught the whole thing from start-to-finish on tape."

Another scientist, University of California at Berkeley astronomy professor Alex Filippenko, called it a "very special moment because this is the birth, in a sense, of the death of a star."

And what a death blast it is.

"As much energy is released in one second by the death of a star as by all of the other stars you can see in the visible universe," Filippenko said.

Less than one per cent of the stars in the universe will die this way, in a supernova, said Filippenko, who has written a separate paper awaiting publication.

Most stars, including our sun, will get stronger and then slowly fade into white dwarfs, what Filippenko likes to call "retired stars," which produce little energy.

The first explosion of this supernova can only be seen in the X-ray wave length.

It was spotted by NASA's Swift satellite, which looks at X-rays, and happened to be focused on the right region, Soderberg said.

The blast was so bright it flooded the satellite's instrument, giving it a picture akin to "pointing your digital camera at the sun," she said.

The chances of two simultaneous supernovae explosions so close to each other is maybe one in 10,000, Soderberg said.

The odds of looking at them at the right time with the right telescope are, well, astronomical.

Phoenix mission to Mars will search for climate clues

2008-05-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

On May 25, 2008, approaching 5 p.m. PDT, NASA scientists will be wondering: Just how green is their valley?

That's because at that time the Phoenix Mars Mission space vehicle will be touching down on its three legs to make a soft landing onto the northern Mars terrain called Green Valley.

Of course, no valley is actually green on the Red Planet. The place got its name after analysis of images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE instrument. HiRISE can image rocks on Mars as small as roughly a yard and a half across. Green is the color that that landing site selection team used to represent the fewest number of rocks in an area, corresponding to a desirable place to land. Thus, "green valley," a relatively rock-less region, is a "sweet spot" where the Phoenix spacecraft will land.

Also playing a key role in the Phoenix Mars mission is Raymond E. Arvidson, Ph.D., the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the earth and planetary sciences department in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Arvidson has extensive experience in planetary landing operations. He participated in the two Viking Lander missions in 1976 and has spent the past four years, first helping select the landing site for the 2004 Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, then guiding the activities of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity as the mission's deputy principal investigator.

Accordingly, Arvidson is NASA's Phoenix landing site working group chair. He also is the co-investigator for the Phoenix robotic arm, a crucial instrument that will collect soil and ice samples; the lead for archiving mission data, and a key science lead for the first week of surface operations.

Phoenix will touch down in Green Valley with the aid of a parachute, retro rockets and three strong legs with shock absorbing footpads to slow it down.

That's sol (a Martian day) zero.

"We'll know within two hours of landing if Phoenix landed nominally," said Arvidson. "It will land, deploy its solar panels, take a picture and then go to bed."

The next day, Sol 1, begins a crucial period of operations for the mission. Arvidson said, "We'll be checking out the instruments and begin robotic arm operations within about a week, if everything goes well, and collect soil and ice samples over the summer for analyses with the on-board instruments."

Phoenix will dig to an ice-rich layer expected to lie within arm's reach of the surface. It will analyze the water and soil for evidence about climate cycles and investigate whether the environment there has been favorable for microbial life. It also carries a weather station to monitor changes in the atmosphere. The primary mission is brief, just 90 days.

Martian weather channel

That first tense, exciting, crucial day, four Washington University students will work with Arvidson at the University of Arizona. Two of them, sophomore Kirsten Siebach, and junior Rebecca Greenberger, are Fossett Fellows, a scholarship program established at WUSTL by the late adventurer J. Steven Fossett. A third, Tabatha Heet, will have just graduated with a bachelor's degree nine days earlier, and WUSTL doctoral candidate Selby Cull will be present as well. Thomas C. Stein, a WUSTL computer systems manager, will work with the Phoenix geology theme group and also archive data for NASA's Planetary Data System.

The four students are Phoenix Mission documentarians, responsible for recording all that is done on the mission and for informally naming geological sites in the area.

Heet played a key role in counting rocks in HiRISE images to enable a safe landing for Phoenix. She began the rock measurement and counting project in October of 2006.

Both Heet and Arvidson are excited to have the mission so close at hand after years of planning.

"It's still very exciting," the veteran Arvidson said. "This is a new place on an intriguing planet, and we can't wait to see what we'll find."

PSLV-C9 blasts off from Sriharikota on 28th April, 2008

2008-04-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

SRIHARIKOTA: India's PSLV-C9 blasted off into space, carrying ten satellites including the country's latest remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2A, from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre here on Monday. ( Watch )

Scientists cheered as the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its thirteenth flight, soared into the clear sky in a perfect lift off at 9.23 am from the second launch pad.

Besides the 690 kg CARTOSAT-2A, the PSLV is also carrying ISRO's Indian Mini Satellite-1 (IMS-1), weighing 83kg, and eight nano satellites built by universities and research institutes in Canada and Germany.

While the CARTOSAT-2A, carrying state-of-the-art panchromatic camera (PAN), will be used for mapping purposes and management of natural resources, the IMS-1 will be used as a platform for trying out advanced technology in future launches.

Giant, Unknown Animals Found off Antarctica

2008-03-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

March 28, 2008—Giant sea stars or starfish that measure 24 inches (60 centimeters) across are held by Sadie Mills, and Niki Davey of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research on February 15, 2008.

They and other researchers collected 30,000 sea creatures—many new to science—during a 35-day census in Antarctic waters in February and March, according to a March 26 announcement.

The large-scale survey was part of the International Polar Year and Census of Antarctic Marine Life programs, which study the diversity of Antarctic marine life.

for more information click here.

Software that recognises facial expressions

2008-02-29T21:30:00.000-08:00

Washington, February 29:

Spanish software developers have written a program that can process 30 images per second to read a person’s face in real time, and categorize them into six facial expressions—namely anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

The new algorithm results from the efforts of collaborators from the Technical University of Madrid’s School of Computing (FIUPM) and the Rey Juan Carlos University.

The software’s makers say that it can be applied to video sequences in realistic situations, and even to identify the facial expression of a person seated in front of a computer screen.

They also say that, though their software is just a prototype, it is still capable of working on a desktop computer or even on a laptop.

For determining a person’s facial expression, the system monitors the user’s facial movements, and compares them with expressions captured from different people (333 sequences) from the Cohn-Kanade database.

The system’s success rate on the Cohn-Kanade database is 89%, and it can work under adverse conditions where ambient lighting, frontal facial movements or camera displacements produce major changes in facial appearance.

The makers of the software say that it may help advance human-computer interfaces by enabling the construction of avatars that really do simulate a person’s facial expression, something that may be of interest to the video games industry.

The technology may also benefit electronic commerce (E-commerce) by enabling a seller to identify through a person’s facial expressions whether he is likely to make a purchase, or even to gauge customers’ satisfaction.

The results of this research were published in the journal Pattern Analysis and Applications.

Jet-fighter tech vehicle at 340mph

2008-02-29T21:14:00.000-08:00

London, February 28:

The world’s fastest-ever road vehicle can pick up the speed of 300mph in just 30 seconds before hitting a maximum of 340mph.

Well, this vehicle is neither a car nor a motorcycle, but something in between.

Acabion, the creator of the Acabion GTBO concept car, describe it as a “road streamliner”.

The manufacturer applies jet fighter and Formula One technology in the super-light two-seater dream machine, comprising a turbo-charged 1300cc engine.

Two stabilisers have been fitted at the back of the vehicle, similar to those used in toddlers’ bikes, so as to keep it steady at low speeds.

Dr Peter Maskus, a former Porsche engineer who is developing the GTBO in Britain and Switzerland, says that he is “remixing the whole automotive recipe”.

“The Acabion does not even want to be a car, nor a bike. It is a new class – a road streamliner,” the Sun quoted him as saying.

Dr Maskus has plans to launch the GTBO in the UK and USA within three years.

He says that the vehicle may be priced at a whopping 1.5 million pounds.

So far, the fastest road car is America’s SSC Ultimate Aero TT, which can run at a speed of 257mph.

`STOP terrorism` software unveiled

2008-02-29T21:08:00.000-08:00

Washington : February 28, 2008:

An Indian origin researcher at the University of Maryland's Institute of Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) has unveiled software that may facilitate faster analysis and forecasting of terrorism.

VS Subrahmanian, a computer science professor who heads that project, calls the new program the SOMA Terror Organization Portal (STOP).

He says that the new program will allow analysts to query automatically learnt rules on terrorist organization behaviour, forecast potential behaviour based on such rules, and, most importantly, to network with other analysts examining the same subjects.

SOMA (Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents) is a formal, logical-statistical reasoning framework that uses data about past behaviour of terror groups in order to learn rules about the probability of an organization, community, or person taking certain actions in different situations.

In collaboration with computer scientists and political scientists, SOMA has generated tens of thousands of rules about the likely behaviour of each of about 30 groups, which include Hezbollah, Hamas, and Hezb-I-Islami.

"SOMA is a significant joint computer science and social science achievement that will facilitate learning about and forecasting terrorist group behaviour based on rigorous mathematical and computational models," said Subrahmanian.

"But even the best science needs to work hand in hand with social scientists and users. In addition to accurate behavioural models and forecasting algorithms, the SOMA Terror Organization Portal acts as a virtual roundtable that terrorism experts can gather around and form a rich community that transcends artificial boundaries," he added.

So far, the SOMA Terror Organization Portal has users from four defence agencies.

Besides performing queries and running a prediction engine, the users can also mark rules as useful or not useful, and leave comments about the rules. This feature of the program will enable them to learn what others have found useful, and to identify interesting rules and comments.

"Security analysts need more than piles of data. It takes a network to fight a network. Analysts need to learn from other analysts. This system allows multiple users to arrive at a shared understanding of how a terror group operates and what it might do in the future. Using the queries analysts can examine the underlying data and then, using the forecasting capabilities, test their theories," says UMIACS researcher Aaron Mannes.

The project was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Atlantis Takes Off for Space Station

2008-02-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Thursday Feb. 7, 2008. Atlantis' seven member crew is on a 11-day mission to deliver Columbus, a laboratory module built by the European Space Agency, to the international space station

Shuttle Atlantis took off in fiery pursuit of the international space station, carrying Europe's $2 billion Columbus lab into orbit after two months of technical delay.

Every circling of Earth brought Atlantis and its seven astronauts closer to the space station on Friday. The shuttle was due to arrive there Saturday.

European space officials cheered and shed tears Thursday afternoon as Atlantis rocketed away, overcoming fuel gauge trouble that prevented it from launching in December. The weather also cooperated; rain and thunderstorms stayed well to the west.

"We're all as excited as heck," said Alan Thirkettle, the European Space Agency's station program manager. "I've lost about 500 grams (about 1 pound) so far, and that's just been tears."

Twenty-three years in the making, Columbus is Europe's primary contribution to the space station. The lab has endured space station redesigns and slowdowns, as well as a number of shuttle postponements and two shuttle accidents.

Atlantis' commander, Stephen Frick, and his U.S., German and French crew will begin installing Columbus on Sunday. Three spacewalks are planned during the flight, scheduled to last 11 or, more likely, 12 days.

Columbus will join the U.S. lab, Destiny, which was launched aboard Atlantis exactly seven years ago. The Japanese lab Kibo, or Hope, is so big it will take three shuttle trips to get everything up, beginning in March.

"Certainly, no launch can be any more momentous than the launch of Columbus, which brings to the space station truly international capability and participation," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said.

To NASA's relief, all four fuel gauges in Atlantis' external fuel tank worked properly during the final stage of the countdown. The gauges failed in December because of a faulty connector, and NASA redesigned the part to fix the problem, which had been plaguing the shuttles for three years.

Thursday's launch kept NASA on track for six shuttle flights this year. The space agency faces a 2010 deadline for finishing the station and retiring the shuttles. That equates to four or five shuttle flights a year between now and then, something Griffin considers achievable.

"We're coming back, and I think we are back, from some pretty severe technical problems that led to the loss of Columbia. We understand the foam now," Griffin said, referring to the chunks of insulating foam that kept breaking off the fuel tanks.

Later in the day, Mission Control informed the crew that cameras spotted at least three pieces of foam or other debris coming off the fuel tank two minutes after liftoff. There was no evidence that the debris hit Atlantis, but the astronauts planned to pull out their laser inspection pole Friday to survey their spaceship, as per the normal procedure.

Cellphones could sniff out 'dirty' bombs

2008-02-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

A NETWORK of cellphones fitted with radiation detectors could monitor cities for "dirty" bombs.
So say Andrew Longman and colleagues at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. They have equipped phones with detectors so small they add only an imperceptible weight to a regular smartphone, and just a few dollars to the cost. Readings from thousands of phones, plus their location, can be combined to produce a "radiation map" of a city, says Longman. "Every cellphone sold should be carrying a detector," he says, to guard against terrorist bombs.
In 2004, cellphones containing sophisticated radiation detectors (New Scientist, 11 December 2004, p 21) were designed. But they were so big and expensive, they could only be carried by police and would not have blanketed a city.
Weapons Technology - Keep up with the latest

NASA to announce new commercial space partner

2008-02-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

NASA is set to announce a new commercial partner that will try to develop a spaceship to service the International Space Station. The new partnership is possible because the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has officially upheld NASA's decision to sever a previous partnership with aerospace company Rocketplane Kistler.

With the space shuttle set to retire in 2010, NASA is looking for alternative ways to transport

In 2006, NASA signed agreements earmarking $485 million to be split between two companies trying to develop vehicles to service the orbital outpost. As part of its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme, it set aside $278 million for SpaceX, based in El Segundo, California, and $207 million for Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City, both in the US.
The money was to be gradually doled out between 2006 and 2010 – as long as the two companies kept meeting performance milestones along the way. But after Rocketplane Kistler failed to raise a required $500 million in private financing, NASA cancelled its agreement with the company in October 2007.
The space agency wanted to quickly sign an agreement with another company to take Rocketplane Kistler's place, but the company disputed the cancellation, filing a complaint with the GAO.

No appealThe company argued that NASA was required by US law to sign traditional procurement contracts with the COTS partners, rather than the "Space Act" agreements it actually signed. Those agreements allow NASA to back out of its partnerships without penalty if certain milestones are not met.
But the GAO rejected Rocketplane Kistler's argument. It pointed out that the law Rocketplane Kistler referred to only applies when the goods or services involved are intended to directly benefit the government.
The GAO agreed with NASA that the COTS programme is instead meant merely to "encourage, support and stimulate the development of a commercial market for space transportation, from which NASA could potentially acquire orbital transportation services".
The GAO's decision clears the way for NASA to select a new COTS partner in addition to SpaceX, whose partnership with NASA continues. Only $32 million was paid to Rocketplane Kistler, leaving $175 million for new partnerships.
"We're on track to award an additional partnership later in the month," NASA spokesperson

ISRO arm may get more satellite launch contracts

2008-01-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

The ISRO Chairman, Dr G. Madhavan Nair (left), with fellow scientists at a press conference after the successful launch of the PSLV-C10 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.

Madhumathi D.S.

Bangalore, Jan. 22 ISRO’s arm Antrix Corporation may be snapping up some more satellite launch contracts from global customers.

The ISRO Chairman, Dr G. Madhavan Nair, indicated as much. “We expect that in the near term, two major contracts will come through. We have already signed a contract for half a dozen small satellites,” he told Business Line. The small or nanosats have been built by Canadian and Dutch universities.

One of the prime but domestic contracts, which may be coming up in February, is Cartosat-2A. Mr Nair said the spacecraft, built at the Bangalore satellite centre, “has just been shifted today”. The earth observation satellite is a Ministry of Defence mission, with no details coming from ISRO.

He was speaking from Chennai hours after a PSLV rocket put an Israeli reconnaissance satellite, the 300-kg TecSAR/ Polaris, into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

There are reports that the launch contracts of two more upcoming TecSARs may also be coming to Antrix. Mr Nair merely said, “They [Israel] are happy with this launch perfect. If they come with a request for any other launch, we will have to see the merit of the case, if it is attractive and comes with a good price, etc.”

Mr Nair admitted a delay in the launch of TecSAR. “We had some technical problems around September-October. By the time we resolved them, we got into the severe monsoon period of Sriharikota.”

ISRO planning to launch satellite to study the sun

2008-01-21T00:04:00.000-08:00

100-kg ‘Aditya’ should be up in space by 2012 to study the dynamic solar corona, the outermost region of the sun.

Bangalore: In the midst of the buzz about Chandrayaan, the moon mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch a satellite to study the sun.

‘Aditya’ should be up in space by 2012 to study the dynamic solar corona, the outermost region of the sun. This fiery region has temperatures of over one million degrees, with raging solar winds that reach a velocity of up to 1000 km a second. The satellite will carry as its payload an advanced solar coronagraph.

“Aditya will be a small satellite weighing 100 kg, placed most likely in a near-earth orbit of 600 km,” said G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO. “The satellite is intended to study one of the most fundamental problems of coronal heating, and other phenomena that take place in the magnetosphere. “This will be one of the first projects scheduled in a road map formulated by the Advisory Committee for Space Research, said Mr. Nair.

Beyond being a research exercise, Aditya has a unique practical application: to protect ISRO’s satellites from the vagaries of solar phenomena, said R. Sridharan, Programme Director, Space Science Office, ISRO.

“The sun’s corona is highly active, releasing energy during solar flares in the form of bursts — manifesting as geomagnetic storms on earth. These associated charged particles can distort the earth’s magnetic field, and have a huge bearing on near-earth space where our satellites are located,” he explained.

The launch of Aditya will coincide with a ‘solar maximum’ a phase of high solar dynamism, which will occur in 2012, said Prof. Sridharan.

“The sun goes through an 11-year cycle of activity — we crossed the solar minimum in 2006,” he said. The coronagraph will study the solar corona through an artificial eclipse that will prevent sunlight from directly entering the instrument, revealing to the telescope only the halo of the corona.

The advisory committee has constituted a national-level study group to work out the optimum configuration for the coronagraph, among other parameters.

The study group comprises individuals from the ISRO Satellite Centre, Udaipur Solar Observatory, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Radio Astronomy Centre, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, and several universities, said Prof. Sridharan. Their report will be out by May, and the project finalised by the end of 2008, he added. The projected cost of the satellite is approximately Rs. 50 crore.

“We want to cut costs by avoiding a dedicated launch. With ISRO’s multiple launching capability, Aditya could go as a co-passenger in one of the many launches scheduled for the next four years,” said Prof. Sridharan. “The cost of the instrument can also be reduced by nearly a factor of 10 by using screened industrial grade components. We do not need this satellite for more than two years — it would have gathered an enormous amount of data in this span of time.”

Asteroid to miss Mars, may hit Earth

2008-01-04T08:17:00.000-08:00

Friday, 4th Jan, 2008

An asteroid that has a one in 20 chance of striking Mars on January 30, might just fly past, which would probably make it target Earth at some point in future.

Designated 2007 WD5, the 160-foot wide asteroid was originally identified as a possible risk to Earth, though later analysis showed that it actually might be on a collision course with Mars.

According to a report in Discovery News, Donald Yeomans, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has said that the odds are that the asteroid is going to fly right past Mars.

In the long run, that may not be good news for Earth, which could find itself in the asteroid's path at some point in the future. "Something of this size could take out a fairly large metropolitan area," said Yeomans.

But unlike the 1908 Tunguska event, when a large asteroid exploded over central Siberia with the force of a large nuclear bomb, now there would be advance warning of a possible strike, as well as the tools and knowledge to divert the threat.

Insects caused dinosaur extinction?

2008-01-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

Thursday : 3rd jan, 2008
A new study by scientists has suggested that dinosaurs might have been wiped off the face off the Earth by biting, disease-carrying insects over a long period of time.

According to the study, the rise and evolution of insects, especially the slow-but-overwhelming threat posed by new disease carriers, could have been an important contributor to the demise of the dinosaurs.

The evidence for this emerging threat has been captured in almost lifelike-detail in the form of various insects preserved in amber that date to the time when dinosaurs disappeared.

As a semi-precious gem that first begins to form as sap oozing from a tree, amber has the unique ability to trap very small animals or other materials and – as a natural embalming agent – display them in nearly perfect, three-dimensional form millions of years later.

"We found in the gut of one biting insect, preserved in amber from that era, the pathogen that causes leishmania – a serious disease still today, one that can infect both reptiles and humans. In another biting insect, we discovered organisms that cause malaria, a type that infects birds and lizards today," said George Poinar Jr., a courtesy professor of zoology at Oregon State University.

"In dinosaur feces, we found nematodes, trematodes and even protozoa that could have caused dysentery and other abdominal disturbances. The infective stages of these intestinal parasites are carried by filth-visiting insects," he added.

These facts make the authors of the study argue that insects provide a plausible and effective explanation for the slow, inexorable decline and eventual extinction of dinosaurs over many thousands of years. This period is known as the famous "K-T Boundary," or the line between the Cretaceous and Tertiary Period about 65 million years ago.

In the Late Cretaceous period, the world was covered with warm-temperate to tropical areas that swarmed with blood-sucking insects carrying leishmania, malaria, intestinal parasites, arboviruses and other pathogens. These insects caused repeated epidemics that slowly-but-surely wore down dinosaur populations.

In fact, ticks, mites, lice and biting flies would have tormented the giant reptiles and weakened them considerably.

According to Poimar, back in the Cretaceous, these diseases were new and invasive, and vertebrates had little or no natural or acquired immunity to them. Massive outbreaks causing death and localized extinctions would have occurred, he said.

Also, insects could have spread plant diseases that destroyed large tracts of vegetation, and they could have been major competitors for the available plant food supply.

"We don’t suggest that the appearance of biting insects and the spread of disease are the only things that relate to dinosaur extinction," said Poinar. "Other geologic and catastrophic events certainly played a role. But by themselves, such events do not explain a process that in reality took a very, very long time, perhaps millions of years. Insects and diseases do provide that explanation," he added.

Insects caused dinosaur extinction?

2008-01-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

A new study by scientists has suggested that dinosaurs might have been wiped off the face off the Earth by biting, disease-carrying insects over a long period of time.

According to the study, the rise and evolution of insects, especially the slow-but-overwhelming threat posed by new disease carriers, could have been an important contributor to the demise of the dinosaurs.

The evidence for this emerging threat has been captured in almost lifelike-detail in the form of various insects preserved in amber that date to the time when dinosaurs disappeared.

As a semi-precious gem that first begins to form as sap oozing from a tree, amber has the unique ability to trap very small animals or other materials and – as a natural embalming agent – display them in nearly perfect, three-dimensional form millions of years later.

"We found in the gut of one biting insect, preserved in amber from that era, the pathogen that causes leishmania – a serious disease still today, one that can infect both reptiles and humans. In another biting insect, we discovered organisms that cause malaria, a type that infects birds and lizards today," said George Poinar Jr., a courtesy professor of zoology at Oregon State University.

"In dinosaur feces, we found nematodes, trematodes and even protozoa that could have caused dysentery and other abdominal disturbances. The infective stages of these intestinal parasites are carried by filth-visiting insects," he added.

These facts make the authors of the study argue that insects provide a plausible and effective explanation for the slow, inexorable decline and eventual extinction of dinosaurs over many thousands of years. This period is known as the famous "K-T Boundary," or the line between the Cretaceous and Tertiary Period about 65 million years ago.

In the Late Cretaceous period, the world was covered with warm-temperate to tropical areas that swarmed with blood-sucking insects carrying leishmania, malaria, intestinal parasites, arboviruses and other pathogens. These insects caused repeated epidemics that slowly-but-surely wore down dinosaur populations.

In fact, ticks, mites, lice and biting flies would have tormented the giant reptiles and weakened them considerably.

According to Poimar, back in the Cretaceous, these diseases were new and invasive, and vertebrates had little or no natural or acquired immunity to them. Massive outbreaks causing death and localized extinctions would have occurred, he said.

Also, insects could have spread plant diseases that destroyed large tracts of vegetation, and they could have been major competitors for the available plant food supply.

"We don’t suggest that the appearance of biting insects and the spread of disease are the only things that relate to dinosaur extinction," said Poinar. "Other geologic and catastrophic events certainly played a role. But by themselves, such events do not explain a process that in reality took a very, very long time, perhaps millions of years. Insects and diseases do provide that explanation," he added.

Scientists discover new planet outside solar system

2008-01-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

Thursday, 03 January , 2008.

Heidelberg: Scientists in Germany have discovered what is believed to be the youngest planet outside the solar system, the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics announced on Wednesday.

The giant young planet, called TW Hydrae b, "is still linked to the dusty disk surrounding its parent star", the institute said ahead of publication of the discovery in the British science journal Nature.

The planet has a mass ten times greater than that of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, and orbits its mother star every 3.65 days at a distance of 6 million kilometres.

The astronomers estimate that the age of the new planetary system is about 10 million years, which is only about 0.2 per cent of the age of the solar system.

Planets are believed to form within disks of dust and gas around newly born stars, enabling them to tell scientists something about how their planetary systems were formed.

The discovery of the newborn extra-solar planet, located in the constellation of Hydra, shows that it formed rapidly after the birth of its nearby star, the institute said.

SatNav launches World Class PND at Rs 12000/-

2008-01-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

SatNav Technologies, a Hyderabad based IT Products Company; the pioneers of GPS Technology in India since 2002, today announced the launch of Personal Navigation Device (PND) for the Indian market at a remarkably low price of Rs. 12,000 /- only. The PND is a dedicated navigation device that guides users to their destination with SatNav’s very own SatGuide map software and maps.

For the PND Hardware, SatNav Technologies has partnered with Mio Technology which is a world leader in personal GPS devices that develops the most advanced personal navigation products available in the market today. The device offers a touch screen interface with simple intuitive software. It also has a built in MP3 player and a built in Photo Viewer. It runs on WinCE 5.0 which is the latest in the market, sports a 64MB Flash with 512MB RAM which allows a much higher performance of all applications. A USB charging facility coupled with both a car charger and a room charger ensures that the unit will never run out of power!

This device has sophisticated navigation functions with clear maps, turn-by-turn guidance and voice instructions. The device is extremely user friendly. The SatGuide software also comes with a demo on ‘how to use’ instructions. For people who need technical support, SatNav Technologies provides customer support from 6:30 am to 11:30 pm everyday of the working week and from 9am to 5pm on Sundays and National Holidays.

The PND is the perfect device to help the users reach their destinations with great ease. The PND device with SatGuide now has more maps, has more Points of Interests (POIs), better dependability and is about Rs.10,000 cheaper than its nearest competitor. SatNav Technologies focuses on providing the best end product at all the best price and does not bring in outdated technology into the country.

SatNav Technologies has also been pioneer in map development in India. After having spent nearly a decade on map research, SatNav Technologies came out with the first version of its map in 2005. They have now been able to bring 85% precision to their maps of India and its major cities. And, as a continued commitment to provide the best maps to its customers, the company offers updated maps every quarter. SatGuide currently covers detailed maps for 30+ cities and an All India Map to facilitate your traveling from city to city. After the maps have been surveyed over and over again and have been tried and tested by their 10300+ users, version 6 has now been launched.

For the software component, SatNav Technologies has partnered with Destinator Technologies, which is a global company that provides innovative and flexible navigation software. Through consistent innovation and with one of world’s largest research and development teams in the industry, Destinator creates the most compelling navigation experiences for the end user.