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Researchers Discover Massive 900-Feet-Deep Blue Hole in Mexico
The second-deepest blue hole in the world has been discovered off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The giant, underwater cavern is about 900 feet deep and has an area of 147,000 square feet. It is located in Chetumal Bay. As per Discovery.com, blue holes are home to ancient limestone caves carved into the ocean floor. Due to an accumulation of dead bacteria from fallen trees and leaves, these lesser-known inland blue holes are black in appearance and devoid of light. From the surface, they appear as nothing more than swamps, but what lies beneath is incredible.
Dubbed Taam ja’ – which means “deep water” in Maya, these blue hole has little oxygen and sunlight only shines on the surface. Even with these conditions, these gigantic voids are teeming with life that has adapted to the low-oxygen environment. It is the second deepest known blue hole in the world, after the Dragon Hole in the South China Sea which is believed to extend down some 980 feet, according to the study. Blue holes may offer a snapshot of what life was like thousands of years ago. It may also tell us more about life on other planets.
An Indian Space Startup to Test Electric Propulsion for Satellites
Bengaluru-based space startup Bellatrix Aerospace will send its experimental payload, Hall-effect thruster (HET), on Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C55 on April 22, 2023. The ARKA-series HET, which will demonstrate the solar electric propulsion engine for small satellites, will be flying in the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM), where the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) uses the final stage of the rocket as an orbital platform to carry out experiments in orbit.
The HET developed by Bellatrix imparts a very high specific impulse or mileage when compared with conventional rockets, reducing the dependence on traditional fuels such as hydrazine, which is very toxic and carcinogenic. With this launch, Bellatrix would be in a position to validate the indigenisation capabilities across the spectrum for all the subsystems that have gone into it. The POEM component of a PSLV derives the power from the solar panels mounted around the PS4 tank and a Li Ion battery. It navigates using four sun sensors, a magnetometer, gyros and NavIC, and carries dedicated control thrusters using a helium gas storage, and it is enabled with the telecommand feature.
India Approves National Quantum Mission
The government today approved the National Quantum Mission to nurture and scale up scientific and industrial research and development in quantum technology. The mission involves a cost to Rs. 6,00,365 crore from 2023-24 to 2030-31. The National Quantum Mission (NQM will accelerate quantum technology-led economic growth and nurture the ecosystem in the country. India will be the sixth country to have a dedicated quantum mission after the US, Austria, Finland, France and China.
The new mission targets developing intermediate scale quantum computers with 50-1000 physical qubits in eight years in various platforms like superconducting and photonic technology. It will also support design and synthesis of quantum materials such as superconductors, novel semiconductor structures and topological materials for fabrication of quantum devices. It will provide a huge boost to National priorities like Digital India, Make in India, Skill India and Stand-up India, Start-up India, Self-reliant India and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Pentagon Says UFO Sightings Could Be Probes From An Alien MothershipPentagon officials said in a draft document that recent UFO sightings could be alien space probes sent to Earth from a giant ‘mothership’. The draft research is authored by Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and Avi Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department.
Mr Loeb in the draft paper said that the interstellar objects such as the cigar-shaped “Oumuamua” that scientists spotted flying through the galaxy in 2017 “could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth.” The authors then compared the probes to “dandelion seeds” that could be separated from the parent craft by the sun’s gravitational force. “Habitable planets would be particularly appealing to extra-terrestrial trans-medium probes, capable of moving between space, air and water,” the authors wrote in the paper.
Astrophotographer Captures 60,000-Mile-Tall ‘Wall of Plasma’ On The Sun
Argentina-based astronomer Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau captured a structure that looked like a wall of plasma on the surface of the sun. The pictures of the sun were clicked by the astrophotographer shows an enormous wall of plasma falling down toward the sun’s surface at fast speeds, according to LiveScience. Mr Poupeau used specialised camera equipment to capture the striking image. The plasma wall rose some 100,000 km (62,000 miles) above the solar surface. That is as tall as around eight Earth stacked on top of one another.
According to reports these structures have been seen on the sun many times before. They frequently appear in rings around the sun’s poles, and are called Polar Crown Prominences (PCP). The PCPs are similar to normal solar prominences, which are loops of plasma, or ionized gas, that is ejected from the solar surface by magnetic fields. However, PCPs occur near the sun’s magnetic poles at latitudes between 60 and 70 degrees North and South, which often causes them to collapse back towards the sun because the magnetic fields near the poles are much stronger, according to NASA. This collapse back to the sun has earned them the nickname “plasma waterfalls.”
NASA Unveils Mars Habitat On Earth For Year-Long Experiments
Every space enthusiast wonders what a Martian house may be like. The independent space agency of the United States, the NASA has unveiled a 3D-printed housing for a future Mars expedition in an effort to partially allay that curiosity. In the house NASA created to mimic the Martian climate, volunteers rather than astronauts will reside and experience it. This is a 3D-printed Mars simulation habitat in which, in the coming months, the volunteer crew, who are not astronauts, will enter to live and experience.
The volunteers will live inside a 1,700-square-foot home, dubbed “Mars Dune Alpha,” which includes two bathrooms, a vertical farm to grow salad, a room dedicated to medical care, an area for relaxing, and several workstations. The members of the first experiment team have yet to be named, but the agency stated that selection “will follow standard NASA criteria for astronaut candidate applicants,” with a heavy emphasis on backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and math.
NASA is in the early stages of preparation for a mission to Mars, though most of the agency’s focus is on the upcoming Artemis missions, which aim to return humans to the Moon for the first time in half a century.
Scientists Use Bacteria To Convert CO2 In The Air Into Bioplastic
Carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector reached a new high last year, although the impact of rising coal and oil use was mitigated by the development of more eco-friendly technologies like solar energy and electric vehicles. Scientists have been involved in finding the solution to this pollution problem, and it appears that the experts have come up with an environmentally acceptable alternative.
At the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), a group of chemical engineers has created a prototype system in which a well-known bacterium may transform carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into a useful bioplastic, resolving two global issues simultaneously.
This hybrid system linked the electrochemical CO2 conversion and microbial bioconversion methods together. The team developed a technology to produce bioplastics from CO2 by linking electrochemical conversion technology with a bioconversion method that uses microorganisms. This electrochemical-bio hybrid system is in the form of an electrolyzer, in which electrochemical conversion reactions occur, connected to a fermenter, in which microorganisms are cultured.
A New Recyclable Plastic That Isn’t Derived From Crude Oil
A new type of plastic has just been created by researchers at Boise State University in the US that, unlike other plastics, is not made from crude oil and its byproducts. Boise State University in Idaho have used ethyl cyanoacrylate -the main ingredient in super glue – to create a plastic that could replace polystyrene, which is commonly used in yoghurt pots, disposable cups, and cutlery and accounts for 6 percent of plastic waste.
The scientists explained the process, saying ethyl cyanoacrylate can be made from formaldehyde, which in turn can be made from carbon dioxide. When super glue is exposed to moisture, ethyl cyanoacrylate molecules bond to form polymer chains, but the reaction is so fast that you only get short chains. The researchers created a way to slow that process down in order to form longer polymer chains and therefore a stronger material, known as poly (ethyl cyanoacrylate), or PECA.
Webb Telescope Discovers Oldest Galaxies Ever Observed
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the four most distant galaxies ever observed, one of which formed just 320 million years after the Big Bang when the universe was still in its infancy. The galaxies date from 300 to 500 million years after the Big Bang more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was just two percent of its current age.
That means the galaxies are from what is called “the epoch of reionisation,” a period when the first stars are believed to have emerged. The epoch came directly after the cosmic dark ages brought about by the Big Bang. All four galaxies are “very low in mass,” weighing roughly a hundred million solar masses. The Milky Way, in comparison, weighs 1.5 trillion solar masses by some estimations.
The Webb telescope has unleashed a torrent of scientific discovery since becoming operational last year, peering farther than ever before into the universe’s distant reaches — which also means it is looking back in time.
NASA, SpaceX Launches Device To Monitor Air Pollution From Space
NASA has launched an instrument that will improve how scientists observe air quality from space. The American space agency in collaboration with Elon Musk’s launched an air-quality monitor called TEMPO or Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution Instrument.
The NASA-Smithsonian instrument TEMPO is the first space-based tool to monitor major air pollutants hourly in high spatial resolution – down to four square miles – in a region stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Canadian Oil Sands to below Mexico City, encompassing the entire continental United States.”
The American space agency said that TEMPO would provide hourly, daytime measurements of air quality in North America. It will monitor three main pollutants and reveal disparities in exposure in our cities and communities. A unique feature of TEMPO, which is about the size of a washing machine and has been described as a chemistry laboratory in space, is that it will be hosted on an Intelsat communications satellite in geostationary orbit.
A New Non-Antibiotic Method to Cure Drug-Resistant Infections
The effectiveness of antibiotics and antivirals has been in danger for some time as a result of the emergence of germs that are resistant to a number of antimicrobial therapies that used to work.
But now that a novel chemical has shown promising results in treating staphylococcus infections in people with cutaneous lymphoma, researchers may have discovered the solution. This is great news for the patients and for the threat of antibiotic resistance around the world.
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have discovered an unique enzyme that can be used to destroy Staphylococcus aureus, sometimes known as golden staph. It is a common bacterium that grows on the skin or in the nose and has developed drug resistance. Antibiotic resistance is an increasing problem, especially on a global scale. And when you have this relatively simple infection that suddenly cannot be treated with antibiotics, the situation can turn serious, sometimes life-threatening.
US Scientist Living Underwater for 100 Days Claims to Have Discovered “Brand New Species”
A scientist who has been living underwater for almost a month now claims to have discovered a new species. Professor Joseph Dituri of the University of South Florida, who is also known as “Dr. Deep Sea” on social media, is attempting to break a world by spending 100 days in a habitat 30 feet (9 meters) below a Florida lagoon, and testing how the body reacts to long-term exposure to extreme pressure. However, one month into the experiment his team may have unexpectedly made a different scientific finding.
“We found a single-cell ciliate, a single-celled organism that we believe is a brand new species to science,” Dr Dituri told The Independent. “People have dived in this area thousands and thousands of times- it’s been here, we just didn’t look,” he added.
The specimen will continue to be examined by microbiologists to confirm that it is a new species. It is one of the many discoveries Dr Dituri is hoping to make by spending an extended amount of time beneath the waves, diving in the surrounding area and conducting experiments in a small lab set up in a 100-square-foot underwater capsule, he said.
-Team ScienceNow Digital
