Chandrayaan reveals changes in rock composition on Moon

BANGALORE: Chandrayaan-1 India's first Moon mission has confirmed the presence of iron in the lunar soil and, for the first time, revealed changes in rock and mineral composition. The sighting of the mineral is the first in the past five years and only the second in 10 years following a US mission in 1998-99 and European mission in 2003. 

"Obviously many missions before have found iron, but Chandrayaan-1 has reiterated the presence. We believe it is very significant because the mission has already fulfilled one of its objectives, which was to sight minerals. More is to come and it should be exciting if we can confirm the presence of uranium and other minerals,'' said an ISRO official. 

Within two months of its launch, Chandrayaan-1 has found iron on the moon through a Nasa instrument, moon mineralogy mapper (M3). 

M3 principal investigator and NASA scientist Carle Pieters also confirmed the instrument's finding. Speaking on behalf of Nasa, Pieters said: "The mapper spectrometer has beamed images of the Orientale Basin region of the moon, indicating abundance of iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene. Using different wavelengths of light, the instrument has also revealed, for the first time, changes in rock and mineral composition.'' 

Isro officials said M3 would help in characterising and mapping lunar minerals to ultimately understand the moon's early geological evolution. "The compositional map that will come out of M3 will have fantastic data on geological formation of the moon,'' the official said. 

Researchers said the relative abundance of magnesium and iron in lunar rocks could help confirm whether the moon was covered by a molten, magma ocean early on in its history. Iron and magnesium will also indicate melting of the moon, if it happened and how it formed later. This metallic element has been found in lunar meteorites, but scientists know little about its distribution in the lunar crust. 

After Luna 24 returned samples of lunar soil to Earth in August 1976, no otherspacecraft went to the moon until January 1994, when the US sent the orbiter Clementine. Then, the US probe Lunar Prospector orbited the moon from January 1998 to July 1999. The craft mapped the concentrations of chemical elements in the moon and surveyed the moon's magnetic fields. 

Interestingly, Chandrayaan's findings come after the last probe in 2003 -- SMART-1 spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, went into orbit around the moon in 2004. The craft's instruments were designed to investigate the moon's origin and conduct a detailed survey of the chemical elements on the lunar surface. 

COLOUR IS THE KEY 

Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) is the first instrument to provide highly uniform imaging of the lunar surface. M3 provides scientists their first opportunity to examine lunar mineralogy at high spatial and spectral resolution. The Orientale Basin of moon, mapped by the Nasa instrument, is located on its western limb. Along with the length and width dimensions across a typical image, the instrument analyzes a third dimension — colour. The image showing blue to red tones reveal changes in rock and mineral composition, and the green colour is an indication of the abundance of iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene. The image strip on the right is from a single wavelength of light that contains thermal emission, providing a new level of detail on the form and structure of the region's surface.

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http://annakhtoniv.blogspot.com/

National Children Science: Are We Even Ready?

Dimapur, December 26 (MExN): As the curtain rises on the 16th National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC), Nagaland is set be exposed to a spectrum of scientific excellence. With the primary attraction on child scientists from all corners of the country, ICSC will also see the participation of children from grass-root levels and presentations in local dialects. Interacting with media persons a day ahead of the inauguration, Dr. BK Pandey, scientist with the department of Information & Technology, New Delhi, Dr. AK Goswami, Network Chairman of NCSC, Dr. RN Rai, physicist, and organizers of the NCSC highlighted the importance of the programme and the seriousness with which the state government must now accept and foster them. 
With so much scientific knowledge and research going into producing the projects to be showcased at the event, the state government has a lot to learn from it. However, it is lamented that the state’s response is slow; apparent from the go-ahead only last month. The support of the state government is essential, Dr. Goswami said, and suggested there should be allocation of a budget for science and technological research in the annual state budget. He also said that the government should supplement what the organizers are unable to meet. With the governor of Nagaland as Chief Patron, the chief minister as Patron and a host of top state-level bureaucrats included in the programme, this should be an opportunity for the state to learn and prioritize solutions to local problems, a media analyst said. 
The Nagaland Institute of Health, Environment & Social Welfare (NIHESW) has tried intervention programmes on science and technology in schools but the response has been very poor especially from government schools. It is also apparent that the state government is weak, in the field of science and technology, an officer pointed out. However, it is hoped that the 16th NCSC will be a booster and eye-opener for the government and the people in general. NCSC is considered a revolutionary programme which has gone into finding solutions to local area problems basing on the response of local people. But how far the NCSC will attract the people of Nagaland will only be known during the course of the event and after. 
Meanwhile, the 16th NCSC which will be inaugurated by former President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam on December 27, will see quality projects from children between ages 10 to 17. There will also be an interactive session with DR. Kalam on December 28 at Delhi Public School.

Come, all ye science teachers!  

On a right platform provided at the  16th National Children Science Congress for children and resource persons in the guise of science teachers’ workshop, the following persons will demonstrate in a workshop the reality of earth science – Samar Bagchi, former director of Birla Industrial & Technological Museum, Dr. Sudip Mitra, disaster management specialist, Dr. Sultan Ismail, Life Scientist, Dr. Janaki Rajan, Education Scientist, Dr. Dinesh Goswami, Physicist, RRL Horhat, Professor Khiradhar Baruah, Chemistry Science Communicator and Nripen Saikia, Low cost teaching aid specialist. Teachers have been specially invited to take part in the opportunity in the workshop from December 27 to 9 at Delhi Public School, Dimapur.  Meanwhile, with the theme “Planet Earth, Our Home, Explore, Share and Care,” the National Children Science & Technology- Network, Government of Nagaland and Nagaland Institute of Health and Science are sending out the message to all citizens to “save ourselves from destroying the earth”. 

Be Indian for India berth right-A NEW POST ABOUT SUNITHA WILLIAMS

They are proud to play for India but not proud enough to be Indian. That is the basic premise on which the government's policy should be examined. Whether the IOA wants to adhere to international federation rules or not is bunkum. The plain fact is that the national federations, and this is especially true for tennis, have been taking the escape route of importing talent for they have abysmal systems in place to groom our own.

The AITA has a tragic track record in running 'academies'. The much-hyped National Tennis Academy (NTA) in the boondocks beyond Gurgaon has a state-of-the-art textile factory of Indian tennis' ruling family - the Khannas - hulking over it but decidedly primitive training facilities. So much so that our best players have regularly refused to turn up to practice at the place which was billed as the breeding ground for future champions. In the past either sponsors gave up in disgust - like the Hinduja academy situated in Delhi - or largesse was distributed to the influential in the form of grants for five zonal tennis centres which proved to be just as much of a farce as the NTA is now.

The present issue of denying players minus Indian passports the opportunity to represent the country has met with widespread support within the tennis community. Not because Prakash Amritraj, Shikha Uberoi and Sunitha Rao are not considered our own but rather because there is an overwhelming feeling that these players come back to represent India as they are nowhere near getting a chance to play for the United States.

The issue of them not being eligible for government grants is anyway not much of a factor in tennis given the clandestine way in which they are handled by the AITA. Other pertinent bit that rears rampant is as to whether the government would have done any such thing if Amritraj would have been a Leander Paes or Mahesh Bhupathi. At the same time, glorifying and claiming as our own foreign citizens like Sunitha Williams and V.S. Naipaul send out confusing signals in light of the new policy. We are willing to celebrate the famous as our own but not the fringe players?

As to just how the government intends to justify the present stand vis-a-vis plans of providing dual citizenship is of course a puzzle that will only unravel when policy for the same is unveiled. The other pertinent ask is as to just why these players have been cleared in the past for events as prestigious as the Olympics and the Asian Games. Ministry babus only seem to wake up to issues when they are forced to confront them through judicial activism instead of using plain common sense.

water powers thse rockets.

 The heart of Mumbai recently turned into a mini rocket launch site between 1 pm and 2pm on 26 Dec 2008

The  venue was the green slopes of the Discovery of India building opposite Nehru Planetarium at Worli, where both ISRO and the planetarium did a trial run of a water rocket competition to be held for the first time in Mumbai next month. 

However, the two rockets that were "launched successfully'' were not assembled in a bigaerospace workshop, but in the office of Piyush Pandey, the planetarium's director. 

ISRO official B R Guruprasad said it was a simple device made of two pressurised soft drink bottles, thick plastic sheets, scotch tapes and various stationery items. "It takes about 90 minutes to make a water rocket,'' he said, adding that the cost of making a rocket was less than Rs 100. 

Each rocket was filled with water, which was pressurised using a pump. For a moment, the small group of spectators was as anxious as it would have been at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota before a rocket launch. Guruprasad began the countdown: "5-4-3-2-1 and now!'' 

The first rocket achieved an altitude of 50 ft and covered a distance of 100 ft in a parabolic path. During the third attempt, the rocket flew 300 ft at a height of 50 ft. 

ISRO chief spokesperson S Satish said the event would encourage people to pursue a career in space sciences.

CHA CHA JI

Prime Minister Nehru responds to the greetings of inmates of the Sindri Township, which he visited . President Dr. Rajendra Prasad is seen walking behind the Prime Minister.

Mr. C. Rajagopalachari with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel immediately after his arrival in Delhi airport.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru paid his first visit to the National Physical Laboratories, New Delhi on October 14, 1950 and inspected its various equipment, evincing keen interest in their working. The Prime Minister is seen watching mediatively the instrument which explains " diffraction effect of sound".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was among a big crowd of children when he visited and opened a Bal Mela ( Childrens fair ) arranged in connection with anniversary celebrations of Delhi State Balkan Ji Bari in November 1950 in Delhi. Nehru is seen garlanding a girl for her fine performance on the stage.

NASA instrument on Chandrayaan finds minerals on moon

Bangalore (IANS): The moon mineralogy mapper (M3), a scientific instrument of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) onboard India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, found iron-bearing minerals on the lunar surface, the US space agency said on Thursday.

"The mapper spectrometer has beamed images of the Orientale Basin region of the moon, indicating abundance of iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene. Using different wavelengths of light, the instrument has also revealed for the first time changes in rock and mineral composition," M3 principal investigator Carle Pieters said in a statement hosted on NASA Website.

Data from the 7-kg mapper provides space scientists first opportunity to examine lunar mineralogy at high spatial and spectral resolution.

The Orientale Basin is located on the moon's western limb. M3 captured the data last week when Chandrayaan was orbiting the moon at an altitude of 100 km.

"The imaging spectrometer provides us with compositional information across the moon that we have never had access to before. Our ability to identify and map the composition of the surface in geologic context provides a new level of detail needed to explore and understand the earth's nearest celestial neighbour," affirmed Pieters, who teaches at Brown University in Rhode Island.

The mapper was selected as a mission of opportunity through the NASA discovery programme. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed and built the instrument at Pasadena in California.

"M3 will also help in characterising and mapping lunar minerals for knowing the moon's early geological evolution. Its compositional maps will improve our understanding of the early evolution of a differentiated planetary body and provide a high-resolution assessment of lunar resources," Chandrayaan project director M. Annadurai averred.

M3 is one of the 10 instruments onboard the unmanned Chandrayaan, conducting experiments while the spacecraft orbits over the moon next two years.

Five instruments were indigenously built by the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), while the remaining six payloads are of foreign origin, including three from the European Space Agency, two from NASA and one from Bulgaria.

Chandrayaan was launched on October 22 onboard the 316-tonne polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C11) from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota spaceport, about 80 km north of Chennai.

After traversing 3,84,000 km through the deep space for 18 days, the spacecraft entered the lunar orbit on November 8 and its moon impact probe was lowered on the moon's surface on November 14.

Isro’s Antrix commercial arm eyes major growth

Bangalore: The commercial arm of India’s space agency Antrix Corp. Ltd is in talks to build three satellites for foreign firms and has at least four launch orders. It is also expecting domestic demand for communication transponders and satellite imagery to drive growth over the next few years.

Launching pad: A 20 Dec photo of the Ariane rocket, carrying the W2M satellite, taking off. Martin / AFP

The Indian space research organisation, or Isro, built and managed the launch last week of W2M, a communication satellite of Eutelsat SA for $33 million (about Rs147 crore), and is building another satellite for Avanti Communications Group Plc.

Astrium, the satellite-making unit of European Aeronautic, Defence Space Co., or EADS, which subcontracted these satellites to Antrix, signed a pact in September to promote the polar satellite launch vehicle, or PSLV, its workhorse rocket for global customers.

“There is a huge unmet local demand for DTH and communication transponders,” said Madhavan Nair, chairman of Isro, in a phone interview.

Isro plans to increase communication transponder capacity to 500 from the existing 224 by 2012, on growing demand from direct-to-home satellite operators and very small aperture terminals or VSAT for business communication. It has 11 remote sensing satellites in orbit and plans nine more, including a few scientific satellites.

The demand for urban mapping in India and high-resolution images at nearly $7 per km, nearly half of that foreign satellite firms charge, is also adding revenue. “Nearly 60% of our revenue comes from domestic customers,” Nair said.

India is still a fledgling player in the satellite manufacturing and launch industry, which is expected to grow to $145 billion to 2016, according to Paris-based research firm Euroconsult.

U. Sankar, professor at the Madras School of Economics, who did a cost-benefit analysis of the space agency in 2006, said the cost of launching a satellite on PSLV was one-third lower than foreign launchers. It is due to the high degree of indigenisation and lower cost of labour, he said.

An analyst says the global satellite and launcher market has entry barriers for India, despite lower costs and capability, due to the limited number of players and launches of satellites a year.

“However, to covert all of them into market opportunities is tough. Europe, America, Russia and China, every one will protect their interests,” said Y.S. Rajan, principal adviser on the space industry for the Confederation of Indian Industry.

According to Rajan, Indian space industry will benefit from down stream activities of space such as receivers, ground support services, satellite imagery and processing, which is expected to double to Rs12,000 crore in five years.

How to prepare for meetings

If there is one activity that unites professionals from different occupations all over the world, it is meetings. Executives, managers, or software developers -- they all spend a large part of their working hours closeted in conference rooms discussing issues, significant and insignificant.

But the truth about meetings is they are largely a waste of time if not organised well or not planned in advance. Here are some tips to help you get the best out of these congregations.

Time and venue 
The initiator of the meeting must take up the task of sending out meeting requests to all parties who are required to attend, specifying the date, time and venue. If the meeting is a teleconference or a videoconference with participants from multiple locations, it is essential that the meeting request contain the date and time of the various time zones.
This is a common mistake, as a colleague in Tokyo found out when she forgot to specify the time zone in her e-mail, which meant that disparate groups of people were waiting for her to teleconference them at different times of the day!
The initiator must ensure a discussion room or conference room large enough to hold the requisite number of attendees is booked for the scheduled time.

Material
It is also up to the initiator to arrange for any materials such as a projector, computer, slides, handouts, or even just a whiteboard and markers. A manager at a telecommunications firm narrates how a meeting he was invited to was delayed by 45 minutes because the computer and projectors were not set up, leading to senior managers walking out and requesting a reschedule.

If you are invited to a meeting for which handouts are distributed, make sure you read those notes before attending. It will keep you in tune with the discussions once you are part of the meeting, and will demonstrate your preparedness with ideas and thoughts on the topic at hand.

Agenda
Once the time and venue of the meeting is fixed, it is vital that the initiator of the meeting decide the points on the agenda. Each of these points must be covered in detail and decisions taken on them before the meeting wraps up.

Preferably, these points can even be enumerated in brief on the whiteboard in the room, allowing everyone to be aware of the agenda and helping the initiator keep an eye on it at all times.

Minutes of the meeting 
In the duration of the meeting, several points and ideas will be thrown up which, if not documented, will evaporate into thin air well before the end. It will be impossible for anyone to retain all the discussed points in memory. Therefore, it is best for the initiator or the meeting-in-charge to appoint one person to jot down notes during the meeting. It is better still if two or three people take notes just in case one misses out something important.
At the culmination of the meeting, it is the duty of the person assigned to note down the minutes to create a document and circulate it amongst all attendees. Such a document typically contains the date and time of the meeting, number and names of attendees, the agenda and, against each of the points on the agenda, the action items.

The focus on agenda 
Often, despite maintaining an agenda and adhering strictly to time and schedule on a few points, the discussion deteriorates into heated debates. At this point, it is the prerogative of the meeting-in-charge or the initiator to ensure an objective discussion. Also, if a member starts rambling for hours without any end in sight, he must be brought back on track. It should be made clear that although brainstorming is acceptable, digression into irrelevant territory is entirely unwelcome.

Conclusion

When all points on the agenda have been discussed to the satisfaction of all parties, the person writing the minutes or even the initiator can wrap up by briefly reading out the salient points of all that has been discussed, including action to be taken once people return to their work. The minutes of the meeting is a good starting point to follow up with team members in the following days if necessary action has been taken, as discussed.

INDIA GOES ON A STAR TREK WITH ISRO

NEW DELHI: Sweat it out, aim for the moon, and you’ll end up a star, says India’s space chief. The country’s first lunar astronaut needn’t be a rocket scientist or a pilot, but anyone who is “young, physically active, healthy, and with a terrific spirit of adventure”, according to G Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). “The shortlisting of the candidate will start three years prior to the mission,” Mr Nair told ET in an exclusive chat about Isro’s Mission 2015, the space agency's ambitious manned mission to the moon.Enough time for aspirants to build up endurance and work on those biceps. With Chandrayaan-1 firmly in lunar orbit and Isro’s successful launch of multiple satellites — 10 in one go — early this year, completing a great year of launches, the national space agency is now looking at bigger missions, he said. With its established credentials as a provider of low-cost access to space, Bangalore-based ISRO also sees itself in a unique position to get into the business of launching satellites for other countries, apart from developing an array of rocket components and satellite sub-systems for global customers, a $10-billion opportunity globally. Besides its own missions in 2009, ISRO will be launching satellites for Singapore, Italy, Algeria and a clutch of so called nano-satellites for the Netherlands on its proven Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). To play a bigger role in space activities, ISRO is hiring more people and expanding its infrastructure while its commercial arm, Antrix Corporation, is targeting a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore next year. Much of this will come from services like providing Global Positioning System (GPS) applications, direct-to-home (DTH) TV services, telecom, launch of satellites and development of rocket sub-systems.Over the next few years, ISRO will also be focusing on emerging as a bigger player in the space mission launch market. The area it has an edge over other countries is in its capability to do low-cost launches and development of control and propulsion systems. Last week, ISRO for the first time designed and built a satellite — W2M — for Eutelsat, the European satellite operator, at a cost of $80 million. 

“It’s a $130-billion global market with 80% being accounted for by services and $10 billion being spent on satellites and launch vehicle systems. With our successful launches this year, we have built market credibility and demonstrated reliability. The more successful launches we do (with bigger and heavier satellites), the bigger market share we will get,” said KR Sridhara Murthi, managing director, Antrix Corporation.The W2M satellite, at 3.46 tonnes, is the heaviest built by ISRO so far and the space agency made a profit of $40 million on it. India's Department of Space — ISRO is the largest organisation under it — has a manpower of 16,000 out of which 11,000 are scientists and engineers. ISRO will be hiring 300 scientists next year, Mr Nair said. “High bandwidth satellites capable of micro-wave imaging and new exploratory missions are much sought after worldwide. However much depends on investment in infrastructure and HR,” he said on the sidelines of CII's felicitation of ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 team. As more countries seek to put satellites for applications spanning DTH, GPS, telecom and education, ISRO’s launch services — which cost 60-70% cheaper than costs of similar services by western nations — could also help boost India's own commercial space programme.

Kakodkar, ISRO chief bag Bharat Asmita awards

Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar and ISRO head G Madhavan Nair will be given Bharat Asmita National Awards instituted by the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) group of institutions.

Maharashtra Institute of Technology gives away Bharat Asmita awards for different categories every year.

This year the main awards will be given to Kakodkar and Nair.

While Bharat Asmita Jan Jagaran Shreshtha award will be conferred on Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghtan, the Bharat Asmita Jana Pratinidhi Shreshtha award will be given to MP Bhavana Gawali. Director of IIM Calcutta Shekhar Choudhari will be awarded with the Bharat Asmita Acharya Shreshtha Award.

The main two awards consist of Rs 1 lakh, memento and citation, while the other awards consist of Rs 25,000, memento and citation.

The award will be distributed by Mohammad Hamid Ansari, the Vice President of India.

The award ceremony will be held on February 3, at Teen Murti Bhavan, New Delhi.