My Science School

Agni I, India's first intermediate-range ballistic missile, was successfully test-fired for the first time in May 1989. It was inducted into service in 2004. It has a range capability between 700 and 900 kilometres.

Weighing 12 tonne with a length of 15 metres, Agni-1 has a range of 700–900 km and is capable of carrying a conventional payload of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) or a nuclear warhead at a speed of 2.5 km/s. Agni missiles consist of one (short range) or two stages (intermediate range). These are rail and road mobile and powered by solid propellants. Agni-I is used by the Strategic Force Command (SFC) of the Indian Army. The latest missile test occurred on 13 July 2012, when India test fired Agni I successfully at Wheeler Island off Orissa coast. On 11 April 2014 the missile was test fired for the first time in a night trial exercise to its full range of 700 km from the Wheeler island off the Odisha coast. The missile randomly picked from production line was test fired by the Strategic Forces Command after 11 pm. This test was first night after 2 previous test failed due to technical glitches. The missile was test fired from a mobile launcher with logistics support from DRDO at the Integrated Test Range as part of the regular training exercise by the armed forces.

With a special weapons loadAgni-I can reach 1200 km. As compared to Agni-II, Agni-I is less costly, simple, accurate and more mobile. 

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Apollo 14 launched in the late afternoon of January 31, 1971 on what was to be our third trip to the lunar surface. Five days later Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon while Stuart Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper, orbited above in the command module. Packed in small containers in Roosa's personal kit were hundreds of tree seeds, part of a joint NASA/USFS project. Upon return to Earth, the seeds were germinated by the Forest Service. Known as the "Moon Trees", the resulting seedlings were planted throughout the United States (often as part of the nation's bicentennial in 1976) and the world. They stand as a tribute to astronaut Roosa and the Apollo program.

Stan Krugman collected the seeds and an attempt at germinating some of the seeds was made in Houston. Somewhat surprisingly, it proved successful and the seeds started growing, but they did not survive long because the facilities there were inadequate. A year later the remaining seeds were sent to the southern Forest Service station in Gulfport, Mississippi (sycamore, loblolly pine, and sweetgum) and to the western station in Placerville, California (redwood and Douglas fir) to attempt germination. Many of the seeds, and later cuttings, were successful and grew into viable seedlings. Some of these were planted with their Earth-bound counterparts as controls, (as might be expected, after over forty years there is no discernable difference) but most were given away in 1975 and 1976 to many state forestry organizations to be planted as part of the nation's bicentennial celebration. These trees were southern and western species, so not all states received trees. A loblolly pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to the Emperor of Japan, among others. Trees have also been planted in Washington Square in Philadelphia, at Valley Forge, in the International Forest of Friendship, and at various universities and NASA centers. 

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The first vegetable grown and eaten on the International Space Station space was Outredgeous red romaine lettuce, in 2015. Bred by Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed. 64 days to maturity on earth, 33 days in space, with intensely dark red, slightly ruffled leaves forming loose upright heads. 

The Veggie system was developed by Orbital Technologies Corp. (ORBITEC) in Madison, Wisconsin, and tested at Kennedy before flight. Veggie, along with two sets of pillows containing the romaine seeds and one set of zinnias, was delivered to the station on the third cargo resupply mission by SpaceX in April 2014.

The collapsible and expandable Veggie unit features a flat panel light bank that includes red, blue and green LEDs for plant growth and crew observation. Using LED lights to grow plants was an idea that originated with NASA as far back as the late 1990s, according to Dr. Ray Wheeler, lead for Advanced Life Support activities in the Exploration Research and Technology Programs Office at Kennedy.

Wheeler worked with engineers and collaborators to help develop the Veggie unit from a Small Business Innovative Research project with ORBITEC. Dr. Gioia Massa is the NASA payload scientist for Veggie at Kennedy. Massa and others worked to get the flight unit developed and certified for use on the space station. The purple/pinkish hue surrounding the plants in Veggie is the result of a combination of the red and blue lights, which by design emit more light than the green LEDs. Green LEDS were added so the plants look like edible food rather than weird purple plants.

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In 1982, the crew of the Soviet Salyut 7 space station conducted an experiment, prepared by Lithuanian scientists (Alfonsas Merkys and others), and grew some Arabidopsis using Fiton-3 experimental micro-greenhouse apparatus, thus becoming the first plants to flower and produce seeds in space.

Plant research continued on the International Space Station. Biomass Production System was used on the ISS Expedition 4. The Vegetable Production System (Veggie) system was later used aboard ISS. Plants tested in Veggie before going into space included lettuce, Swiss chard, radishes, Chinese cabbage and peas. Red Romaine lettuce was grown in space on Expedition 40 which were harvested when mature, frozen and tested back on Earth. Expedition 44 members became the first American astronauts to eat plants grown in space on 10 August 2015, when their crop of Red Romaine was harvested. Since 2003 Russian cosmonauts have been eating half of their crop while the other half goes towards further research. In 2012, a sunflower bloomed aboard the ISS under the care of NASA astronaut Donald Pettit. In January 2016, US astronauts announced that a zinnia had blossomed aboard the ISS.

In 2017 the Advanced Plant Habitat was designed for ISS, which was a nearly self-sustaining plant growth system for that space station in low Earth orbit. The system is installed in parallel with another plant grown system aboard the station, VEGGIE, and a major difference with that system is that APH is designed to need less upkeep by humans. APH is supported by the Plant Habitat Avionics Real-Time Manager. Some plants that were to be tested in APH include Dwarf Wheat and Arabidopsis. In December 2017 hundreds of seeds were delivered to ISS for growth in the VEGGIE system.

In 2018 the Veggie-3 experiment at the ISS, was tested with plant pillows and root mats. One of the goals is to grow food for crew consumption. Crops tested at this time include cabbage, lettuce, and mizuna. In 2018, the PONDS system for nutrient deliver in microgravity was tested.

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Plant Habitat (APH) abroad the International Space Station in 2020?

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins harvested fresh radishes grown in space, opening new doors for producing food in microgravity to sustain future longer-term missions to the moon and Mars.

The radishes were grown in the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) aboard the International Space Station. NASA shared a time-lapse video of the radishes as they grew inside the APH over the course of 27 days. 

Radishes are the latest type of fresh produce to be successfully grown and harvested in microgravity, and were chosen for the Plant Habitat-02 (PH-02) experiment because the vegetable is well understood by scientists and reaches maturity in just 27 days. 

Radishes are also a viable test plant for future longer-term missions because they are edible and nutritious. The vegetable is genetically similar to Arabidopsis, which is a small flowering plant related to cabbage that has been studied frequently in microgravity, according to the NASA statement. 

Credit : Space.com

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Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. It can be orbital, suborbital or lunar travel. In 2001, U.S. millionaire Dennis Tito arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) via a Russian Soyuz rocket, becoming the world's first space tourist. Since then, a handful of tourists have travelled to the ISS. There have also been many failed attempts by private players. But the recent developments in space tourism are something to watch out for.

In July 2021, space tourism gained a new boost as wealthy businessmen Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, travelled to space as tourists in their company's VSS Unity spacecraft and Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket respectively. Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, SpaceX and other private space firms have kick-started a commercial space race with each announcing their plans to launch more tourists into space. Already, people are buying their million-dollar tickets to space. As the industry is poised for major growth, environmentalists are worried about its carbon footprint. Will space tourism harm our environment?

When rockets launch into space, they require a huge amount of propellants to make them out of the Earth's atmosphere. Those fuels emit a variety of substances into the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, and other chemicals. The carbon emissions from rockets are small compared to those from the aircraft industry, but they could get worse if space tourism becomes popular.

The emissions of a flight to space is of concern because just a few people hop aboard one of these vehicles, so the emissions per passenger are much higher. According to The Guardian, rockets emit up to 100 times more carbon-dioxide per passenger than aeroplanes.

Soot and heat

Roughly two-thirds of the propellant exhaust is released into the stratosphere and mesosphere, where it can persist for at least two to three years. The very high temperature during launch and re-entry also convert stable nitrogen in the air into reactive nitrogen oxides. These gases and particles have many negative effects on the atmosphere. They can eventually lead to depletion of the ozone layer, which guards life on Earth against harmful UV radiation.

Certain fuels used in rockets generate soot. Soot is a carbonaceous particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometres in diameter or smaller. Such fine particles are even smaller than dust and mould spores. It is comprised of a variety of pollutants, including chemicals, acids, metals, soils, and dust, which are suspended in the air after emission.

Carbon dioxide and soot trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. A study from 2010 found that the soot released by 1,000 space tourism flights could warm Antarctica by nearly one degree Celsius.

At a time when the impact of climate change is quite stark, it is hard to ignore the contention that the huge money poured into space technology could instead be invested in making life better on our planet.

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If you thought disability restrains one from travelling to space, a happening place these days, think again. To make space travel inclusive, the European Space Agency hopes to hire and launch the world's first physically challenged astronaut. Several hundred would-be para-astronauts have already applied for the job, says ESA chief Josef Aschbacher. What is it all about? Let's find out.

The European Space Agency, abbreviated as ESA, is Europe's comprehensive space agency. Established in 1975, it is an intergovernmental organisation comprising 22 member States. Dedicated to exploration and use of space for the benefit of people, the agency has promoted the European countries' interests in space for over four decades. It provides independent access to space for scientific and commercial missions through Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Its Ariane rocket once dominated the market for commercial satellite launches. But now, from flying cargo missions and sending astronauts to the International Space Station to undertaking suborbital flights with the aim of leveraging space tourism, private players such as SpaceX are posing stiff competition. Space, which was once the preserve of public agencies such as ESA and NASA, is now open to all for exploration.

First-ever attempt

It's no mean task to go to space - astronaut candidates must complete months of intensive training and preparation to survive in the hostile space environment. A physical disability would normally prevent candidates from being selected to fly to space due to requirements imposed by current space hardware. In a first-ever attempt, the ESA has announced plans to launch an astronaut with a disability. The ESA's "Parastronaut feasibility project seeks to clear the path to space for astronauts with disabilities. It aims at offering them professional spaceflight opportunities. As part of the project, ESA plans to develop necessary technologies to enable these professionals to serve as crew members.

The way forward

According to Aschbacher, the ESA's recruitment ad for new astronauts has attracted a whopping 22,000 applicants. Among them are over 250 candidates with disabilities. After several rounds of selection process, six applicants will be able to join the existing ESA astronaut corps by the end of 2022.

The parastronaut project will provide an opportunity of flight to one or more individuals. Under the project, the selected candidate(s) will get to work with the agency to help assess the conditions that allow people with disabilities to operate in space. While educational and psychological requirements for these candidates are the same as those for the agency's astronaut selection, physical disabilities such as a lower limb deficiency, a marked difference in leg length and a short stature are allowed. It is said that after arriving at an understanding of the potential challenges regarding safety and operations for such people, the scope of disabilities may be widened to ensure a broader inclusion.

Quick facts

• The current group of ESA astronauts include French Thomas Pesquet, Italians Samantha Cristoforetti and Luca Parmitano, Germans Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, Danish Andreas Mogensen, and Briton Timothy Peake.
• The ESA's previous recruitment for astronauts took place in 2008.

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In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) are awarded astronaut wings.

A professional space traveler is called an astronaut. The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book Across the Zodiac, "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word astronautique (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists. An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society.

The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year.

NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps. The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps.

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On April 30, 2001, US millionaire Dennis Tito arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) via a Russian Soyuz rocket, becoming the world's first space tourist.

In a project first arranged by MirCorp, Tito was accepted by the Russian Federal Space Agency as a candidate for a commercial spaceflight. Tito met criticism from NASA before the launch, primarily from Daniel Goldin, at that time the Administrator of NASA, who considered it inappropriate for a tourist to take a ride into space. MirCorp, Goldin and Tito are profiled in the documentary film Orphans of Apollo. When Tito arrived at the Johnson Space Center for additional training on the American portion of the ISS, Robert D. Cabana, NASA manager, sent Tito and his two fellow cosmonauts home, stating, "...We will not be able to begin training, because we are not willing to train with Dennis Tito."

Later, through an arrangement with space tourism company Space Adventures, Ltd., Tito joined the Soyuz TM-32 mission which launched on April 28, 2001. The spacecraft docked with the International Space Station. Tito and his fellow cosmonauts spent 7 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes in space and orbited the Earth 128 times. Tito performed several scientific experiments in orbit that he said would be useful for his company and business.Tito paid a reported $20 million for his trip.

Since returning from space, he has testified at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space and the House Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics Joint Hearing on "Commercial Human Spaceflight" on July 24, 2003. Ten years after his flight, he gave an interview to BBC News about it.

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Neutron stars can rotate up to at least 60 times per second when born. If they are part of a binary system, they can increase this rotation rate through the accretion of material, to over 600 times per second! 

Neutron stars pack their mass inside a 20-kilometer (12.4 miles) diameter. They are so dense that a single teaspoon would weigh a billion tons — assuming you somehow managed to snag a sample without being captured by the body's strong gravitational pull. On average, gravity on a neutron star is 2 billion times stronger than gravity on Earth. In fact, it's strong enough to significantly bend radiation from the star in a process known as gravitational lensing, allowing astronomers to see some of the back side of the star.

The power from the supernova that birthed it gives the star an extremely quick rotation, causing it to spin several times in a second. Neutron stars can spin as fast as 43,000 times per minute, gradually slowing over time.

If a neutron star is part of a binary system that survived the deadly blast from its supernova (or if it captured a passing companion), things can get even more interesting. If the second star is less massive than the sun, it pulls mass from its companion into a Roche lobe, a balloon-like cloud of material that orbits the neutron star. Companion stars up to 10 times the sun's mass create similar mass transfers that are more unstable and don't last as long.

Stars more than 10 times as massive as the sun transfer material in the form of stellar wind. The material flows along the magnetic poles of the neutron star, creating X-ray pulsations as it is heated.

By 2010, approximately 1,800 pulsars had been identified through radio detection, with another 70 found by gamma-rays. Some pulsars even have planets orbiting them — and some may turn into planets.

Credit : Space.com

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Halley is the only known short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and thus the only naked-eye comet that can appear twice in a human lifetime. Halley last appeared in the inner parts of the Solar System in 1986 and will next appear in mid-2061.

The comet is named after English astronomer Edmond Halley, who examined reports of a comet approaching Earth in 1531, 1607 and 1682. He concluded that these three comets were actually the same comet returning over and over again, and predicted the comet would come again in 1758.

Halley didn't live to see the comet's return, but his discovery led to the comet being named after him. (The traditional pronunciation of the name usually rhymes with valley.) Halley's calculations showed that at least some comets orbit the sun.

Further, the first Halley's Comet of the space age — in 1986 — saw several spacecraft approach its vicinity to sample its composition. High-powered telescopes also observed the comet as it swung by Earth.

Credit : Space.com

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Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it's the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801.

Although it—and the next two asteroids discovered, Pallas and Juno—is located near the distance predicted by Bode’s law for the “missing” planet between Mars and Jupiter, most asteroids found subsequently are not so located, and so the agreement with that “law” appears to be coincidental.

Ceres’ shape and density are consistent with a two-layer model of a rocky core surrounded by a thick ice mantle. Ceres rotates once in 9.1 hours. Compositionally, the asteroid’s surface resembles the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Water vapour, the first detected in the asteroid belt, escapes into space when Ceres is closest to the Sun.

Ceres was designated a dwarf planet, a new category of solar system objects defined in August 2006 by the International Astronomical Union. (For a discussion of that decision, see planet.) The U.S. space probe Dawn studied the dwarf planet from March 2015 to November 2018. Dawn observed two very bright spots, Cerealia Facula and Vinalia Faculae, in Occator crater on Ceres.

Credit : Britannica

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Astrobiology is the study of the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. This interdisciplinary field requires a comprehensive, integrated understanding of biological, planetary, and cosmic phenomena.

Astrobiology makes use of molecular biology, biophysics, biochemistry, chemistry, astronomy, physical cosmology, exoplanetology and geology to investigate the possibility of life on other worlds and help recognize biospheres that might be different from that on Earth. The origin and early evolution of life is an inseparable part of the discipline of astrobiology. Astrobiology concerns itself with interpretation of existing scientific data, and although speculation is entertained to give context, astrobiology concerns itself primarily with hypotheses that fit firmly into existing scientific theories.

According to research published in August 2015, very large galaxies may be more favorable to the creation and development of habitable planets than such smaller galaxies as the Milky Way. Nonetheless, Earth is the only place in the universe humans know to harbor life. Estimates of habitable zones around other stars, sometimes referred to as "Goldilocks zones," along with the discovery of hundreds of extrasolar planets and new insights into extreme habitats here on Earth, suggest that there may be many more habitable places in the universe than considered possible until very recently.

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Pluto has 5 moons. The largest, Charon, is so big that Pluto and Charon orbit each other like a double planet.

Pluto's highly elliptical orbit can take it more than 49 times as far out from the sun as Earth. Since the dwarf planet's orbit is so eccentric, or far from circular, Pluto's distance from the sun can vary considerably. The dwarf planet actually gets closer to the sun than Neptune is for 20 years out of Pluto's 248-Earth-years-long orbit, providing astronomers a rare chance to study this small, cold, distant world.

As a result of that orbit, after 20 years as the eighth planet (in order going out from the sun), in 1999, Pluto crossed Neptune's orbit to become the farthest planet from the sun (until it was demoted to the status of dwarf planet).

When Pluto is closer to the sun, its surface ices thaw and temporarily form a thin atmosphere, consisting mostly of nitrogen, with some methane. Pluto's low gravity, which is a little more than one-twentieth that of Earth's, causes this atmosphere to extend much higher in altitude than Earth's. When traveling farther away from the sun, most of Pluto's atmosphere is thought to freeze and all but disappear. Still, in the time that it does have an atmosphere, Pluto can apparently experience strong winds. The atmosphere also has brightness variations that could be explained by gravity waves, or air flowing over mountains.

Credit : Space.com

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Neptune was the first planet to be discovered by using mathematics. After the discovery of Uranus in 1781, astronomers noticed that the planet was being pulled slightly out of its normal orbit. 

In retrospect, after it was discovered, it turned out it had been observed many times before but not recognized, and there were others who made various calculations about its location which did not lead to its observation. By 1847, the planet Uranus had completed nearly one full orbit since its discovery by William Herschel in 1781, and astronomers had detected a series of irregularities in its path that could not be entirely explained by Newton's law of universal gravitation. These irregularities could, however, be resolved if the gravity of a farther, unknown planet were disturbing its path around the Sun. In 1845, astronomers Urbain Le Verrier in Paris and John Couch Adams in Cambridge separately began calculations to determine the nature and position of such a planet. Le Verrier's success also led to a tense international dispute over priority, because shortly after the discovery George Airy, at the time British Astronomer Royal, announced that Adams had also predicted the discovery of the planet. Nevertheless, the Royal Society awarded Le Verrier the Copley medal in 1846 for his achievement, without mention of Adams. The Royal Society, however, also awarded Adams the Copley medal in 1848.

The discovery of Neptune led to the discovery of its moon, Triton, by William Lassell just seventeen days later.

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