Multiple-planet solar system discovered

Posted: 2011-11-28 17:57:26 UTC+05:30 Planetary scientists have discovered what they claim is an unusual multiple-planet solar system containing a super-Earth and two Neptunesized planets orbiting in resonance with each other. A team led by Bill Cochran of The University of Texas at Austin, used NASAs Kepler spacecraft to discover the multi -planet system. The planets have been designated b, c, and d. All three planets orbit much closer to Kepler-18 , a star similar to the sun , say the scientists. Planet b weighs in at about 6.9 times the mass of Earth, and is twice Earths size and considered a super-Earth with a 3.5-day period; planet c has a mass of about 17 Earths, is about 5.5 times Earths size and orbits Kepler-18 in 7.6 days. Planet d weighs in at 16 Earths, at 7 times Earths size, and has a 14.9-day orbit.

New planet found with water and ice

Posted: 2011-11-28 17:57:05 UTC+05:30 Astronomers have discovered a mysterious little dwarf planet which they believe is covered in ice and may sport the wispy remnants of an atmosphere. The planet, nicknamed Snow White, lies outside Neptune and is orbiting the Sun as part of the Kuiper beltthe ring of icy bodies that orbit the sun beyond Neptune. Officially known as 2007 OR10, it is actually red, half of its surface is covered by water ice that probably spewed from ancient cryovolcanoes, researchers said. Its believed that the dwarf planets reddish hue likely comes from a thin layer of methane, the last gasps of an atmosphere that has been bleeding off into space for eons.

Asias largest solar farm commissioned

Posted: 2011-11-28 17:56:38 UTC+05:30 Moser Baer energy Limited (MBCEL) has successfully commissioned the 30 MW solar farm at Gunthawada, District Banaskantha, Gujarat. It is the largest solar energy farm of Asia, built on 305 acres of land, using 2,36,000 thin film modules. The project will generate 52 million KWh energy per year, and will help save about 50,000 tonnes of carbon emission annually.

Major Himalayan Rail Projects

Posted: 2011-11-28 17:56:14 UTC+05:30 The Planning Commission is considering the early execution of five major railway projects in the Himalayan region, as it has directed the railway ministry to prepare a blueprint of the estimate on funds, technical inputs and prospective time for their completion. The commission plans to allocate funds for the projects in the 12th Five Year Plan that starts from April 2012. The railway projects include the 125-km Rishikesh-Karanprayag railway line involving a project cost of Rs 4,295 crore, the 154-km Rs 2,791crore Tanakpur-Bageshwar line (both in Uttarakhand), the Rs 13,631-crore Jammu-Akhnoor-Poonch railway link covering 233 km in Jammu and Kashmir, the 498-km Bilaspur-Mandi railway link in Himachal Pradesh and the 110-km Rupai-Parasuramkund railway link in Arunachal Pradesh. These five main railway projects are part of the 14 such Himalayan-region projects that have been hanging fire for long because of strategic issues.

Worlds Highest Webcam Installed on Everest

Posted: 2011-11-28 17:55:49 UTC+05:30 The worlds highest webcam has been installed in the Nepalese Himalayas, beaming live images of Mount Everest back to scientists studying the effects of climate change on the planets tallest peak. The solar-powered camera, set at 5,675 metres on Kala Patthar, a smaller mountain facing Everest, will withstand temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius and operates during daylight hours. The device, developed by German surveillance firm Mobotix, is more than a kilometre higher than the previous record for a high-altitude webcam set by a 4,389-metre-altitude camera at the base camp of Mount Aconcagua in Argentina. The image is updated every five minutes, allowing climatologists to track the movement of the clouds around the mountains summit. The camera uses a wireless connection to transmit images to the Ev-K2-CNR Pyramid Laboratory, located at an altitude of 5,050 metres. The footage is then analysed by scientists in Italy who hope to learn more about climate change and global warming using the images in

conjunction with meteorological data gathered from Everest. The exact height of the worlds tallest peak is also being re-measured in a separate Nepali project attempting to end confusion on the issue.

Sanskriti Awards, 2011

Posted: 2011-11-28 17:55:09 UTC+05:30 Vinayak Lohani, a graduate from IIT Kharagpur and an alumnus of IIM Calcutta, is the recipient of Sanskriti Award for social achievement. Inspired by the ideals of Swami Vivekananda, Lohani had set up an organisation in 2003 to take care of destitute and street children. Murad Ali, a sixth generation Sarangi player from Moradabad, hailed as one of the most promising Sarangi players in the country, has been chosen for the award in the category of performing arts. Bangalore-based Abhishek Hazra (Art), an assistant editor with the periodical Tehelka, Rana Ayyub (Journalism) and a Kashmiri poetess and short story writer Shahida Shabnum (Literature) are the other recipients of the award. Sanskriti Awards are given to people in the 25-35 years age group, in the fields of literature, journalism, art, performing arts and social achievement.

Nobel Prizes, 2011

Posted: 2011-11-28 17:54:44 UTC+05:30 For Peace: Declaring womens rights vital for world peace, the Nobel Committee awarded its annual Peace Prize to three indomitable campaigners against war and oppression. Africas first freely elected female head of State Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf shares the prize with compatriot Leymah Gbowee, who led a sex strike among her efforts against Liberias civil war and Arab activist Tawakul Karman, who hailed the award as a victory for democracy in Yemen. For Literature: Tomas Transtromer, a Swedish poet whose surrealistic works about the mysteries of the human mind won him acclaim as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since World War II. His works have been translated into more than 50 languages and influenced poets around the globe, particularly in North America. Born in Stockholm in 1931, Transtromer started writing poetry while studying at the Sodra Latin school in Stockholm. For Medicine: American Bruce Beutler and French biologist Jules Hoffmann, who studied the first stages of immune responses to attack, share the award with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, whose discovery of dendritic cells in the 1970s is key to understanding the bodys next line of defence against disease. Their work has opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer and inflammatory diseases However, Steinman was not lucky enough to taste the fruit of his success. He won the Nobel for medicine for work on fighting cancer, but died of the disease himself just three days before he could be told of his award. For Physics: American Saul Perlmutter shares the award with US-Australian Brian Schmidt and US scientist Adam Riess, for their studies of exploding stars that revealed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Working in two separate research teams during the 1990s, Perlmutter in one and Schmidt and Riess in the other, the scientists raced to map the universes expansion by analysing a particular type of supernovas, or exploding stars. They found that the light emitted by more than 50 distant supernovas was weaker than expected, a sign that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate. For Chemistry: Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman, for his discovery of quasicrystals, a mosaic-like chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible. Shechtmans discovery in 1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. Contrary to the previous belief that atoms were packed inside crystals in symmetrical patterns, Shechtman showed that the atoms in a crystal could be packed in a pattern that could not be repeated. Since then, quasicrystals have been produced in laboratories and a Swedish company found them in one of the most durable kinds of steel, which is now used in products such as razor blades and thin needles made specifically for eye surgery. For Literature: Americans Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims share the prize for work that helps governments and central banks weigh up responses to crises, though it offers no immediate answer to current global problems. For Economics: Americans Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims shared the Nobel prize in economics, for work that helps governments and central banks weigh up responses to crises, though it offers no immediate answer to current global problems. The economics prize is the only one of the six Nobels that was not originally included in the 1895 will of the creator of the prize, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. It was created by the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, in 1968, to commemorate its tercentenary and was first handed out in the year 1969.

Vivek Express is the longest running train in India

Posted: 2011-11-20 11:18:49 UTC+05:30

Vivek Express is the longest running train in India, and 8th longest in the world. This weekly train runs a total distance of 4,286 km from Dibrugarh in upper Assam, to Kanyakumari at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu, that will be covered in 82:30 hours. There are 52 halts spanning across a total of 615 intermediate railway stations Himsagar Express was previously the longest running train in India.