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INS Mormugao: Sailing with the times

Named after the historic port city in Goa, the warship has around 75% indigenous content.

India has achieved a new milestone in indigenous warship building. The Indian Navy has commissioned the indigenously built guided missile destroyer INS Mormugao. But do you know what it is?

INS Mormugao

INS Mormugao is the second of four Visakhapatnam’-class destroyers, which are classed as P-15B stealth, guided-missile destroyers. A ship ‘class’ describes a group of vessels of similar tonnage, usage, capabilities, and weaponry.

The warship has been named after the historic port city in the coastal State of Goa. Built by the Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDSL), the ship was commissioned a day before the Goa Liberation Day celebrations.

The ship was launched by then Defence Minister late Manohar Parrikar on September 17, 2016. INS Mormugao undertook its first sea sortie on December 19 last year, when Goa celebrated its 60 years of liberation from Portuguese rule.

Since the ship has been designed by the Indian Navy’s Warship Design Bureau, it has around 75% indigenous content.

INS Mormugao and the other three ships in the class are 163 metre long and 17.4 metre wide, with a displacement of 7,300 tonnes.

They are operated by a crew of 350, including 50 officers and 250 sailors. Accommodation and working areas have superior ergonomics and habitability compared with its predecessor classes.

Features

It can fight under nuclear, biological and chemical warfare conditions.

Propelled by four powerful gas turbines, the warship is capable of achieving speeds of over 30 knots.

Besides being equipped with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, it has modern surveillance radar that helps in getting target data to the weapon systems.

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What is the Attari-Wagah retreat ceremony?

Do you know that booking for witnessing the Attari-Wagah retreat ceremony on India-Pakistan international border goes online?

If you have been following the news, you might have read that booking for the Attari-Wagah retreat ceremony can be made online. The online booking facility opens on Jan 1, 2023. What is this ceremony and when can it be watched? Let’s find out.

A daily ceremony

The Attari-Wagah front is along the India-Pakistan international border in Punjab. The Attari-Wagah retreat ceremony the daily national flag lowering and retreat ceremony taking place along the border. It is open for viewing by visitors. Symbolising rivalry as well as brotherhood and cooperation between the two nations, the purpose of the Attari-Wagah retreat ceremony is to formally close the gate at the border for the night. The Border Security Force (BSF) that guards the frontier conducts the event. The Attari border front, also called the joint check post or JCP, is located about 26 km from Amritsar city, and hundreds of domestic visitors and foreign tourists watch the daily ceremony conducted in a synchronised manner by smartly-dressed BSF personnel along with their counterparts, the Pakistan Rangers, on their side known as Wagah.

The background

India and Pakistan have been traditionally hosting the evening flag-lowering ceremony on the Attari-Wagah border since 1959 and the event is attended by people from both the countries on their respective sides. The ceremony which starts between 3.30 and 4 every evening lasts 60-120 minutes. The synchronised ceremony involves lowering of the flags of the two countries, foot stomping manoeuvres of the troops and loud shouts with patriotic songs being played in the background on either side. The ceremony ends with a retreat after a brief handshake between the soldiers on both sides.

Web portal launched

At present, people reach the retreat area without prior booking and the BSF allows them to take seats in the gallery on producing an ID card. A web portal for people desiring to witness the joint retreat le ceremony in person – http://attari.bsf.gov.in – has been launched by the BSF.

Online booking can be made from January 1 onwards. The new facility is not chargeable and visitors will be initially allowed to book 12 persons in one group, 48 hours prior to the desired day, after furnishing photo ID card details online. The booking details will be sent through an SMS to the mobile number of the group leader or the first visitor listed.

The BSF has now numbered the seats in the viewing gallery so that it can hold about 20,000-25,000 visitors daily. The online booking will also allow the tourists to visit the BSF museum and border pillar No. 102 that is erected next to the Attari border gate.

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Winged robots that can land like a bird

A new method has been developed by researchers that allows a flapping-wing robot to land on a horizontal perch using a claw-like mechanism.

Mimicking nature has allowed us to master many things. The sight of a bird landing on a branch makes it seem like the manoeuvre is probably the easiest thing in the world. The act of perching, however, is far from easy. It involves a delicate balance of timing, high-impact forces, speed, and precision.

The move is so complex that no flapping-wing robot or ornithopter has been able to achieve it so far. That has changed now with researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland along with colleagues at the University of Seville, Spain being able to achieve it in a controlled environment. The results of the study have been published in Nature Communications in December 2022.

Engineering challenges

The engineering challenges for an ornithopter included slowing down significantly as it perched while still maintaining flight; building a claw strong enough to support its weight while grasping and perching, without being too heavy that it can’t be held aloft; and being able to perceive its environment with respect to its own position, speed, and trajectory.

By equipping their ornithopter with a fully on-board computer and a navigation system that was complemented by a motion-sensor system, the researchers were able to overcome all these challenges. Once perched, the robot was able to remain perched, without expending energy.

Next up, unpredictable environment

The flight experiments were carried out indoors so that the flight zone could be a more controlled environment. The next task is to increase the robot’s autonomy to perform these perching and manipulation tasks outdoors in uncontrolled environments.

Once that is achieved, these ornithopters would be ready for more real word applications, such as unobtrusively collecting biological samples or measurements from a tree. This is because ornithopters, like many unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). have limited battery life. The ability to land on a perch would enable flapping-wing robots to possibly recharge using solar energy, making them viable options for long-distance missions.

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Why did UTC replace Greenwich Mean Time?

The Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) replaced the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the world standard of time on January 1, 1972. For 50 years now, UTC has been the standard that is used to set all time zones around the globe.

Time is now an integral part of our lives every day. We wake up at a particular time, go to schools or offices at a set time, have our classes or meetings scheduled to take place at a given time… there is an endless list like this. Every aspect of life is now driven by time.

It wasn't always like this though. Until some centuries ago, there wasn't any need to measure time as accurately as we do today. There was basically daytime and nighttime in all the different places on Earth as the sun, moon, and the stars dictated time. But then, as the world grew smaller, and more connected with increasingly better technology, things changed.

Need for standardisation

When rail and shipping lines started connecting the world, economic activity started requiring standardised timetables to coordinate activities. The idea for a universal time stemmed from this requirement and it was first conceived late in the 1800s.

A way to synchronise clocks across the world was first discussed in 1884 by the members who met at the International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. While latitudes running east to west had always been measured from the equator, there was no such consensus around longitudes, or lines running north to south around our planet.

The prime meridian

It was at this conference that delegates from 25 countries chose to set the prime meridian or the zero point for longitude lines as that which passes through Greenwich, England. Time standards and time zones were built around this line, and hence came to be known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

The advent of the atomic clocks after World War II enabled time to be measured with astounding accuracy in the second half of the 20th Century. These atomic clocks were able to show that Earth's rotational period actually varied ever so slightly on an everyday basis, owing to tectonic movements, melting ice sheets, and natural oscillations in our planet's movements.

Atomic time vs solar time

The idea behind Coordinated Universal Time or UTC (though it wasn't yet known by that name) was thus born in the 1960s. It was a way to accommodate the differences in timekeeping that arise between atomic time and solar time. While atomic time refers to the time derived from atomic clocks and is hence extremely accurate, solar time is the time arrived at using astronomical measurements of the rotation of the Earth on its axis relative to the sun, and is hence, variable. UTC is not only kept within an exact number of seconds of International Atomic Time (TAI), but is also kept within 0.9 second of solar time or astronomical time, denoted as UT1.

Result of a compromise

UTC started being used in the 1960s, but it wasn't until January 1, 1972 that it became the world standard for time, serving as the international basis of civil time as well as scientific time. This meant that UTC had effectively become the successor of GMT, providing for the basis of time worldwide. In case you are wondering how Coordinated Universal Time is abbreviated to UTC, then you will be pleased to learn that it is the result of a compromise. The acronym is a compromise between English and French speakers. While the English name for it, Coordinated Universal Time, would normally be abbreviated as CUT, the French name for it, Temps Universel Coordonne, would have been TUC. Instead of having it as CUT or TUC, a compromise was reached, and the acronym UTC was born.

Every time zone in the world is now given in terms of UTC. The Indian Standard Time (IST), for instance, is UTC+5:30. This means that IST is 5 hours and 30 minutes ahead of UTC. Irrespective of where you are on Earth, the time in that region can be given in terms of UTC.

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What are the meaning, origin and usage of word ‘Subvert’?

(Pronounced suhb.vuht)

Meaning: A verb, subvert refers to trying to destroy or ruin something such as an established government or political system in a sneaky way or overturning something from the foundation or base. In other words, “to subvert something” means “to destroy its power or influence.”

Origin: The term originates from the Latin root subvertere, meaning “to turn upside down or overthrow”; a combination of sub-“from below or under” and vertere “to turn”. It’s been in use in English since the late 14th Century.

Usage: Extradition acts as a deterrent against potential offenders who consider escape an easy way to subvert justice.

The rebel army is trying to subvert the government.

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What are the meaning, origin and usage of word ‘Revitalize’?

(pronounced as ri,vai,tal,aiz)

Meaning: The word revitalize corresponds to imbuing something with new life and vitality.

Origin: The word, which has been around since the 1840s, is arrived at by combining re with vitalize. While the re denotes “back, again”, the vitalize is used to imply “giving life to”. The word vitalize has been around since the 1670s and is arrived at by giving vital the suffix ize.

The word grew steadily in popularity in the second half of the 20th Century and reached a peak around the turn of the century. While its usage has come down since then, it still enjoys considerable popularity.

Usage: Her introduction as a substitute revitalised the entire team to perform better.

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What are the meaning, origin and usage of word ‘Audacious’?

(pronounced aw-day-shuhs)

 Meaning: As an adjective it refers to someone who is very bold or daring.

Origin: It first appeared in English language in the mid-1500s. It was borrowed from the French adjective audacieux, which was derived from the noun audace (boldness). Audace can be traced to the Latin verb audere (“to dare”)

Usage: Audacious adventurers risked everything they had for a shot at glory.

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What is zika virus?

 A five-year-old girl in Karnataka recently tested positive for Zika virus.

Mosquitoes are notorious for their itchy bites, but what makes them a cause for concern is their ability to carry and spread deadly diseases to humans. Diseases spread by mosquitoes include Zika fever, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, and malaria. Recently, a five-year-old girl in Karnataka tested positive for zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease.

 The Zika virus is transmitted by the Aedes species of mosquito. It is transmitted by Aedes aegypti, which bites during the day and is generally found throughout the world.

Though the infection is not serious for most people, it can be dangerous for pregnant women. The infection during pregnancy can cause infants to be born with microcephaly, a condition where a baby’s head is much smaller than expected restricting brain growth. Aedes mosquitoes can be distinguished by their narrow, black body, and alternating light and dark bands on the legs.

What we need to do is to be aware of the symptoms of Zika fever and keep ourselves safe. The symptoms of Zika virus are fever, rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint ache, and headache that last about a week.

Avoiding mosquito bites in places where the Zika virus has been reported is a way of preventing the disease. Stay fully covered in the mornings and sleep under a mosquito net during the night if your area is mosquito-prone. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes breed in clean water. So removing stagnant water helps. Keep your clean to prevent mosquitoes from breeding.

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What does a dust devil sound like on Mars?

Mars rover’s microphone captures ten seconds of rumbling noise created by dust devil on the Red Planet. It’s the same microphone that provided the first sounds of Martian wind in 2021.

What does a dust devil sound like on Mars? A NASA rover by chance had its microphone on when a whirling tower of red dust passed directly overhead, recording the racket.

It’s about 10 seconds of not only rumbling gusts of up to 40 kph, but the pinging of hundreds of dust particles against the rover Perseverance. Scientists released the first-of-its-kind audio. It sounds strikingly similar to dust devils on Earth, although quieter since Mars’ thin atmosphere makes for more muted sounds and less forceful wind, according to the researchers.

The dust devil came and went over Perseverance quickly last year, thus the short length of the audio, said the University of Toulouse’s Naomi Murdoch, lead author of the study appearing in Nature Communications.

At the same time, the navigation camera on the parked rover captured images, while its weather-monitoring instrument collected data.

“It was fully caught red-handed by Persy,” said co-author German Martinez of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Photographed for decades at Mars but never heard until now, dust devils are common at the red planet.

This one was in the average range: at least 400 feet (118 metres) tall and 80 feet (25 metres) across, travelling at 16 feet (5 metres) per second.

The microphone picked up 308 dust pings as the dust devil whipped by, said Murdoch, who helped build it.

Given that the rover’s SuperCam microphone is turned on for less than three minutes every few days, Murdoch said it was “definitely luck” that the dust devil appeared when it did on Sept. 27, 2021. She estimates there was just a 1-in-200 chance of capturing dust-devil audio. Of the 84 minutes collected in its first year, there’s “only one dust devil recording,” she wrote in an email from France.

WHAT IS A DUST DEVIL?

  • Common across Mars, dust devils are short-lived whirlwinds loaded with dust that form when there is a major difference between ground and air temperatures.
  • They are a common feature in the Jezero crater, where the Perseverance rover has been operational since February 2021 – but it had never before managed to record audio of one of them.
  • By chance on September 27, 2021, a dust devil 118 metres high and 25 metres wide passed directly over the rover.
  • This time, the microphone on the rover’s SuperCam managed to catch the muffled, whirring sounds.

Sounds…so far

  • The same microphone on Perseverance’s mast provided the first sounds from Mars namely the Martian wind soon after the rover landed in February 2021.
  • It followed up with audio of the rover driving around and its companion helicopter, little Ingenuity, flying nearby, as well as the crackle of the rover’s rock-zapping lasers, the main reason for the microphone.

ROCK SAMPLES

On the prowl for rocks that might contain signs of ancient microbial life, Perseverance has collected 18 samples so far at Jezero Crater, once the scene of a river delta. NASA plans to return these samples to Earth a decade from now. Its helicopter Ingenuity has logged 36 flights, the longest lasting almost three minutes.

CAN ACOUSTIC DATA SOLVE THE MARTIAN MYSTERY?

  • These recordings allow scientists to study the Martian wind, atmospheric turbulence and now dust movement as never before.
  • The impact of the dust-made “tac tac tac sounds will let researchers count the number of particles to study the whirlwind’s structure and behaviour.
  • It could also help solve a mystery that has puzzled scientists. On some parts of Mars, whirlwinds pass by sucking up dust, cleaning the solar panels of rovers along the way.
  • Understanding why this happens could help scientists build a model to predict where the whirlwinds might strike next.
  • It could even shed light on the great dust storms that sweep across the planet, famously depicted in the 2015 science-fiction film “The Martian”.

Picture Credit : Google