Aditya L1, India’s first ever solar mission, was launched by the ISRO on Saturday at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikotta in Andhra Pradesh. The spacecraft will be positioned within a ‘haloo orbit’ around Lagrange point 1 (L1) in the Sun-Earth system, located approximately 1.5 million km away from Earth. Study will be conducted of Chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionized plasma, initiation of the coronal mass ejections and flares.
| Photo Credit: Raghunathan SR / The Hindu

With the success of Chandrayaan-3 landing on the moon, ISRO has set its sights on the Sun. On September 2, it launched Aditya-L1 which is programmed to study the Sun. Read about this week’s latest studies and discoveries from the field of science here.

ISRO launches Aditya-L1 to study the Sun

India’s first solar observatory mission — Aditya-L1 — was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on September 2. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its 59th flight with the Aditya-L1 onboard, took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 11.50 a.m. About 63 minutes after take-off, the separation from the satellite took place with the PSLV launching the Aditya-L1 spacecraft in a highly eccentric orbit around the Earth at 12.53 p.m. This was among the longest flights of ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle in recent times.

Pragyan safely parked and set into sleep mode: ISRO

ISRO said on September 2 night that Chandrayaan-3’s rover Pragyan had completed its assignments and had been safely parked and set into sleep mode. The lander and the rover, with a mission life of one Lunar day (14 Earth days), have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface. Since its landing on the Moon on August 23, they have carried out many in-situ measurements and taken pictures. The battery is fully charged and the solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, it added.

Rare blue supermoon brightened the night sky this week in the closest full moon of the year

Stargazers were in for a double treat this week: a rare blue supermoon with Saturn peeking from behind. On Wednesday night, a second full moon of the month rose which is dubbed a supermoon because it was closer to Earth than usual, appearing especially big and bright. This will be the closest full moon of the year, just 222,043 miles (357,344 kilometres) or so away. That’s more than 100 miles (160 kilometres) closer than the August 1 supermoon. As a bonus, Saturn was also visible as a bright point 5 degrees to the upper right of the moon at sunset in the east-southeastern sky, according to NASA. The ringed planet will appear to circle clockwise around the moon as the night wears on.

Scientists in Japan scared flies to understand fear

Previous research has shown that flies exhibit defensive responses that resemble fear-like emotional states. Now, a group of scientists in Japan built a virtual reality arena – a mini theatre for flies – fit with lights, cameras, screens, and a scary action scene to understand fear. Researchers found that the flies would turn away from the scary stimuli. Some flies froze or jumped, but most turned and ran away from the threat. The research also identified a cluster of 20-30 neurons in the visual regions of the fly’s brain is responsible for this behaviour.

Oldest yet fossils of a plant-eating dinosaur found in Rajasthan

In a paper published recently in Scientific Reports, scientists from IIT Roorkee have characterised dinosaur fossils from the Middle Jurassic period, found in the Thar desert near the Jaisalmer Basin by the Geological Survey of India. They discovered that they had uncovered remains of a sauropod dinosaur, which is the same clade as the long-necked herbivores in Jurassic Park – only these happened to be the oldest known fossils of this particular kind of sauropod.

Cyclone frequency may rise over Indian coast from the warming of Pacific: study

Tropical cyclones that originate near the Equator, while being devastating, have been unusually subdued in recent decades. The last major cyclone of this kind in the Indian neighbourhood was the 2017 Cyclone Okchi which devastated Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. However, a combination of global warming and a cyclical event called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) that repeats every 20-30 years, could make such cyclones more frequent in the coming years, a new study revealed.

New study establishes link between greenhouse gases and polar bear survival

Fifteen years after polar bears were listed as threatened, a new study says researchers have overcome a roadblock in the Endangered Species Act that prevented the federal government from considering climate change when evaluating the impacts of projects such as oil and gas drilling. Researchers estimated the relationship between how long bears fasted and each gigaton of cumulative emissions, which they said allowed them to calculate the impact of emissions from specific projects on future polar bear cub survival.

This image from video provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation shows the surface of the moon as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft prepares for landing on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, which scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water.
| Photo Credit: AP

Indian Space Research Organisation charted history this week as Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon’s surface, making it the fourth country to do so and the only country to do so at the south pole. Find this week’s latest findings and discoveries from the field of science.

Chandrayaan-3 lands on the south pole of Moon

At 6.03 pm IST on August 23, the Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the moon’s surface, in the south polar region. The landing followed a 19-minute sequence in which the spacecraft used its engines, thrusters, and a suite of sensors to guide itself from an altitude of around 30 km and a speed of 1.7 km/s down to the ground. The success made India the fourth country to have soft-landed a robotic instrument on the moon and the first to have done so in the moon’s south polar region. This elite stature also boosts other countries’ confidence in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which built, launched, and now operates the Chandrayaan-3 instruments.

Sun-observing spacecraft sheds light on the solar wind’s origin

New observations by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft may provide an answer to the origin of solar winds. Researchers have said that the spacecraft has detected numerous relatively small jets of charged particles expelled intermittently from the corona – the sun’s outer atmosphere – at supersonic speeds for 20 to 100 seconds. The jets emanate from structures on the corona called coronal holes where the sun’s magnetic field stretches into space rather than back into the star. They are called “picoflare jets” due to their relatively small size. Scientists think that these jets could actually be a major source of mass and energy to sustain the solar wind.

New findings suggest that LK-99 is probably not a superconductor

In July 2023, a group of scientists in South Korea uploaded two preprint papers claiming that a lead apatite material called LK-99 was an ambient condition superconductor. The group’s two papers elicited a mixture of surprise and scepticism in the scientific community – surprise because of the apatite, and scepticism because of the history of superconductivity. A group from India from the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, was one of the first to report that it didn’t find any signs of superconductivity in LK-99. As far as current evidence suggests, LK-99 is not a superconductor.

Missed childhood TB cases impede achieving 2025 goal

With childhood TB continuing to remain a “staggering problem” in India, “eliminating” TB by 2025 might be extremely challenging. Nearly 0.34 million children <15 years of age in India are estimated to get TB disease every year. While children in this age group are estimated to contribute about 13% of the total TB caseload, only 6% are notified. As per the 2022 WHO global TB report, last year, children aged less than 15 years across the world accounted for 11% of the total estimated incident TB cases. Notwithstanding the 56% estimated TB detection gap in children globally, India contributes nearly one-third to the global childhood TB caseload.  

The ‘weird’ male Y chromosome has finally been fully sequenced

Scientists have finally been able to sequence the Y chromosome in its entirety. The findings provide a solid base to explore how genes for sex and sperm work, how the Y chromosome evolved, and whether – as predicted – it will disappear in a few million years. The Y chromosome is male-determining because it bears a gene called SRY, which directs the development of a ridge of cells into a testis in the embryo. The embryonic testes make male hormones, and these hormones direct the development of male features in a baby boy. Without a Y chromosome and a SRY gene, the same ridge of cells develops into an ovary in XX embryos.

Tropical forests may be getting too hot for photosynthesis

A small percentage of leaves on trees in tropical forests may be approaching the maximum temperature threshold for photosynthesis to work, suggests a study published in Nature. An estimated 0.01% of all leaves currently surpass this critical temperature but there are uncertainties in the range of potentially critical temperatures in tropical trees. Modelling suggests that tropical forests can withstand up to a 3.9 degree C increase over current air temperatures before a potential tipping point, therefore action is needed to protect the fate of tropical forests under future climate change.

No emperor penguin chicks survived last year due to melting of Antarctic ice

The loss of ice in one region of Antarctica last year likely resulted in none of the emperor penguin chicks surviving in four colonies, researchers said. Researchers used satellite imagery to look at breeding colonies in a region near Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea. The images showed no ice was left there in December during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, as had occurred in 2021. Researchers said it is likely that no chicks survived in four of the five breeding colonies they examined. Penguin chicks don’t develop their adult waterproof feathers until close to the time they usually fledge, in late December or January, scientists say.

This image from video provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation shows the surface of the moon as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft prepares for landing on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, which scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water.
| Photo Credit: AP

Indian Space Research Organisation charted history this week as Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon’s surface, making it the fourth country to do so and the only country to do so in the south polar region. Find this week’s latest findings and discoveries from the field of science.

Chandrayaan-3 lands on the south pole of Moon

At 6.03 pm IST on August 23, the Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the moon’s surface, in the south polar region. The landing followed a 19-minute sequence in which the spacecraft used its engines, thrusters, and a suite of sensors to guide itself from an altitude of around 30 km and a speed of 1.7 km/s down to the ground. The success made India the fourth country to have soft-landed a robotic instrument on the moon and the first to have done so in the moon’s south polar region. This elite stature also boosts other countries’ confidence in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which built, launched, and now operates the Chandrayaan-3 instruments.

Sun-observing spacecraft sheds light on the solar wind’s origin

New observations by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft may provide an answer to the origin of solar winds. Researchers have said that the spacecraft has detected numerous relatively small jets of charged particles expelled intermittently from the corona – the sun’s outer atmosphere – at supersonic speeds for 20 to 100 seconds. The jets emanate from structures on the corona called coronal holes where the sun’s magnetic field stretches into space rather than back into the star. They are called “picoflare jets” due to their relatively small size. Scientists think that these jets could actually be a major source of mass and energy to sustain the solar wind.

New findings suggest that LK-99 is probably not a superconductor

In July 2023, a group of scientists in South Korea uploaded two preprint papers claiming that a lead apatite material called LK-99 was an ambient condition superconductor. The group’s two papers elicited a mixture of surprise and scepticism in the scientific community – surprise because of the apatite, and scepticism because of the history of superconductivity. A group from India from the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, was one of the first to report that it didn’t find any signs of superconductivity in LK-99. As far as current evidence suggests, LK-99 is not a superconductor.

Missed childhood TB cases impede achieving 2025 goal

With childhood TB continuing to remain a “staggering problem” in India, “eliminating” TB by 2025 might be extremely challenging. Nearly 0.34 million children <15 years of age in India are estimated to get TB disease every year. While children in this age group are estimated to contribute about 13% of the total TB caseload, only 6% are notified. As per the 2022 WHO global TB report, last year, children aged less than 15 years across the world accounted for 11% of the total estimated incident TB cases. Notwithstanding the 56% estimated TB detection gap in children globally, India contributes nearly one-third to the global childhood TB caseload.  

The ‘weird’ male Y chromosome has finally been fully sequenced

Scientists have finally been able to sequence the Y chromosome in its entirety. The findings provide a solid base to explore how genes for sex and sperm work, how the Y chromosome evolved, and whether – as predicted – it will disappear in a few million years. The Y chromosome is male-determining because it bears a gene called SRY, which directs the development of a ridge of cells into a testis in the embryo. The embryonic testes make male hormones, and these hormones direct the development of male features in a baby boy. Without a Y chromosome and a SRY gene, the same ridge of cells develops into an ovary in XX embryos.

Tropical forests may be getting too hot for photosynthesis

A small percentage of leaves on trees in tropical forests may be approaching the maximum temperature threshold for photosynthesis to work, suggests a study published in Nature. An estimated 0.01% of all leaves currently surpass this critical temperature but there are uncertainties in the range of potentially critical temperatures in tropical trees. Modelling suggests that tropical forests can withstand up to a 3.9 degree C increase over current air temperatures before a potential tipping point, therefore action is needed to protect the fate of tropical forests under future climate change.

No emperor penguin chicks survived last year due to melting of Antarctic ice

The loss of ice in one region of Antarctica last year likely resulted in none of the emperor penguin chicks surviving in four colonies, researchers said. Researchers used satellite imagery to look at breeding colonies in a region near Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea. The images showed no ice was left there in December during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, as had occurred in 2021. Researchers said it is likely that no chicks survived in four of the five breeding colonies they examined. Penguin chicks don’t develop their adult waterproof feathers until close to the time they usually fledge, in late December or January, scientists say.