SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
CURRENT EVENTS
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• The Indian Space Research Organisation( ISRO) is planning to set a new world record in space history by launching 103 satellites in one go on a single rocket in the first week of February, 2017. These satellites will be launched on board of ISRO’ s workhorse PSLV( C37) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The mission will carry three satellites from India and rest from other countries.
• India formally became an associate member of CERN( European Organization for Nuclear Research) with the government completing the internal approval procedures for the agreement it signed in November 2016.
• Astronomers have discovered two of the most powerful phenomena in the universe, a supermassive black hole and the collision of giant galaxy clusters about 2 billion light years from Earth. It was discovered combining data from India’ s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope( GMRT), NASA’ s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.
• Scientists from Ireland have claimed discovery of a new human organ named the
mesentery that exists in the digestive system. It will be human body’ s 79th organ. Mesentery connects the intestine to the abdomen. The organ was previously thought to consist of fragmented and disparate structures.
• An atomic clock at National Physical Laboratory( NPL) in New Delhi added‘ leap second’( extra one second) to the Indian Standard Time( IST) at 5:29.59 hours on 1 January 2017 to synchronise with the Earth’ s rotational clock. The clock was programmed to add an extra second to the year 2017 in order to compensate for a slowdown in the Earth’ s rotation.
Why extra second was added?
The Earth and rotation around its own axis is not regular, as sometimes slows down and sometimes speeds up due to various factors, including moon’ s gravitational forces and earthquakes. As a result, astronomical time( UT1) gradually falls out of sync with atomic time( UTC). When the difference between UTC and UT1 approaches 0.9 seconds, a leap second is added to UTC through atomic clocks worldwide to match both times. Paris based International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service( IERS) tells when to add leap seconds on the basis of difference between UTC and UT1.
SPORTS
• Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo was named the world’ s best player for the year 2016 at the inaugural Best FIFA Football Awards held in Zurich, Switzerland. To win this title he received 34.54 % of total votes. He defeated Barcelona’ s Lionel Messi( 26.42 %), Atletico Madrid’ s Antoine Griezmann( 7.53 %) to win the coveted prize
• Indian badminton ace Saina Nehwal clinched the 2017 Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold women’ s single
title in the summit clash in Sibu, Malaysia on January 22, 2017.
• Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik are among those in the to be conferred the Padma awards. Others include gymnast Dipa Karmakar, disc thrower Vikas Gowda, Indian hockey captain PR Sreejesh, and Paralympic gold medallist Thangavellu Mariyappan.
WINSPIRE: Empowering youth | February, 2017