Chandrayaan-3’s rover Pragyan begins exploration of Moon's south pole
The ISRO said on Thursday evening that after rolling out from Vikram lander to
the Moon's surface in the previous night, Pragyan's rover mobility operation
commenced during the day on Thursday. The exploration has started.
Chairman Somanath said everything is working very well.
The rover will mainly study the mineral composition of the moon, the ions and
water ice***, its atmosphere and any seismic activities.
Chandrayaan-3 had successfully landed on the Moon's south pole on
Wednesday at 6:03 pm as per schedule, making India the first country ever to
touch down on the polar surface.
BENGALURU, Aug 24: Chandrayaan-3’s 26 kg six-wheeled solar-powered rover Pragyan
rolled out of lander Vikram's belly to the lunar surface via a panel doubling
as a ramp after a few hours of landing and began its job of exploring the polar
features on Thursday.
While roving around, Pragyan will send back to the earth vital data and images
through Vikram which will transmit them to the space centre. The rover will mainly study the mineral composition of the moon and its atmosphere, including the soil and the rocks and water ice*** and ions, as also any seismic activities. It will also look into the thermal properties of the polar surface.
The ISRO said on Thursday evening that after rolling out from Vikram lander
to the Moon's surface in the previous night, Pragyan's rover mobility operation
commenced during the day on Thursday. All systems are normal and all activities
are on schedule, it said. The exploration has started.
Chairman Somanath said everything is working very well.
India's Chandrayaan-3 had successfully landed on the south pole of the Moon
on Wednesday at 6:03 pm where rough terrain makes landing and roving a challenging
task. This historic feat follows a failed attempt four years ago when the lander
crashed into the Moon.
The successful landing has made India the fourth country after the US, the
former Soviet Union and China to land on the Moon and also the first to land
on its south pole.
After the exploration of a lunar day comprising 14 earth days, a lunar night
will begin of the same length when the surface will be extremely cold. In the
absence of sunlight, the rover and lander will become idle for want of solar
energy for its operations. The mission over, the lander and rover will remain
on the Moon as they are not slated to come back. Vikram and Pragyan together
weighed a total mass of 1,752 kg on earth.
The people world over watched the landing on Wednesday and applauded India's
historric feat. A record seven million people viewed the YouTube livestream
alone. Schools especially had live screening.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a post on Thursday morning,
“The Ch-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander and India took a walk on the moon!”
Lessons learnt from the failed attempt four years ago has contributed to the
success of India's third lunar mission, former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan
commented.
Reacting to India's successful landing on the Moon, SpaceX and Twitter boss
Elon Musk just said, "Super cool!" and congratulated the country: "Congratulations
India."
ISRO chief S Somanath remarked that the monumental achievement of Chandrayaan-3's
successful lunar landing was an accomplishment of the collective dedication
of generations of ISRO leadership and scientists.
Chandrayaan-1 was successfull and orbited the Moon while Chandrayaan-2 failed
in its objective iof landing on the Moon. Its Vikram crash-landed on the Moon
due to snapping of communication. In 2014 Mangalyaan spascecraft successfully
entered Mars' orbit.
What is water ice: An inorganic mineral, water ice is ice fromed from water and not by precipitation or by compacting of snow.
Two days earlier, in a similar incident in the area, a domestic help was bitten by a pet dog in the lift when she was going for work.
Tailpiece: Sometimes appearing to outnumnber men and women on the streets, the stray dogs are turning more and more daring with sections of anti-social elements out there to feed and protect them in order to find a window for their unfulfilled love! There is an all-pervading feeling of lack of authority.
Ankit Tiwari had told the employee that “instructions had been received
from the Prime Minister’s Office to conduct an enquiry” and reopen the
“already disposed of” case and asked him to appear before the ED office
at Madurai on October 30, DVAC said. The doctor was allegedly
threatened with arrest and told to pay a bribe of Rs 3 cr to avoid the ED
probe, which was later negotiated down to Rs 50 lakh.
Tailpiece: We are made to believe RBI, CBI, ED, Judiciary as sacrosanct
and all others like railways, transport, revenue, education, PWD
departments are composed of us the mortals, absolutely corrupt! As if in
the sacrosanct places the angels descend from the heavens to work in the
night and fly away before day-break! Let's be true to ourselves, we are all
cut from the same cloth.
Apart from cash, Gill had also taken three planes as bribe and two of them
were leased out to Redbird Aviation Academy. With the result, flying
schools compromised on safety requirements and trainers met with
accidents several times.
Five people were arrested from a banquet hall in Sector 51 Noida on Thursday
where they were called to hold a rave party in a trap laid by the animal
rights group, PFA. They named Yadav but he was not present.
Betting through Dubai-based Mahadev Book in India is conducted through a countrywide network. Probes reveal that the online gambling is worth several millions and top politicians, officials and celebs have been beneficiaries.
TAILPIECE: Polling dates for some States are round the corner. Top
politicians have begun their acrimonious debate who looted more, even as
Mahadev is washing their dirty laundry in the open ghat. Come what may,
one needs to seize power to amass "thy wretched pelf!" One simple
question is, why else one should spend lakhs or crores to get elected! A
question every Indian should ask to oneself at least once a day!
His inaction amounts to defeating the rights of the people of the State to
welfare measures sought to be implemented through the Bills, the Kerala
Government's petition submitted, while the State of Tamil Nadu remarked
that its "Governor is acting as a political rival."
Tailpiece: Coming up back to back, the petitions in their totality seem to question the provision of Raj Bhavan, and not motives of a Governor as a
person.
Hundreds of cars piled up behind the wreckage of crashes occurring one
after other in backing up - continuous crashes to the rhythm of metallic
clanks and bangs back to back. According to reports, some ops required
'Jaws of Life' to pull apart the mangled cars to save lives inside.
The pilots struggled with Emerson to thwart a shut-off as he reached for
the T-handles (see pix). Later he admitted to police he had taken
psychedelic mushrooms and had a "nervous breakdown."
Doctors reasoned how the incidence of heart attacks is spiking over time and
advise the simple way to play safely is to take a break and rehydrate
yourself.
But how come ten people, including children, die of cardiac arrest at
Garba in 24 hours, and that at different places of Gujarat? Garba had been going on
for six days, and every year it is celebrated.
Shocking news from the UK: Leading grocers have started bribing policemen with free food and drinks to persuade them to take action against shoplifters.
Shoplifting has risen by about 27 per cent in 10 major cities across the UK
this year. The cost of retail crime last year was $2.15 billion. Besides, “We
are seeing organised gangs threatening staff with weapons and emptying
stores," Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium,
said. Data shows that the police failed to respond to 73 per cent of serious
retail crimes that included assault and abuse of workers, apart from
shoplifting.
Harris said hip-hop is “the ultimate American art form” that “shapes every
aspect of American popular culture.” “Hip-hop culture is American
culture,” she said in a talk at her official residence at the US Naval
Observatory in Washington, D.C.
The social media had mixed reaction. There was much appreciation that
she dances better than any VP in American history. But some called her
"moves" as “cringe” while others did not like her pink pants - "pink pants
don’t look good.” In fact, her ensembles have always been incongruous.
"Let’s see how the (Governor's) Vice-Chancellors are given salary."
Mamata's extreme statements will put the Marxist Government in Kerala,
which is also facing similar issues, to shame. Has she begun the
countdown for a war on the streets?
It's true Mamata has come to see a conspiracy to demolish the established systems across the country, but lacks the ability to foresee what exactly is being pushed.
Brandishing a sword, Mahant Paramhans told reporters on Tuesday he
himself will behead MK Stalin's son for his remarks against Sanatan
Dharma in case nobody came forward to accept his offer he made in his
video. Udhayanidhi reacted to the saint's Monday video, "I will speak
more. I am the grandson of the artist who put his head on the rail track for
Tamil Nadu."
Somanath elaborated, "I am an explorer. I explore the Moon. I explore the inner
space. So it's a part of the journey of my life to explore both science and
spirituality. So I visit many temples and I read many scriptures. So try to find the
meaning of our existence and our journey in this cosmos. So it's a part of the
culture that we are all built to explore, find out the inner self as well as outer
self. So for the outer, I do science, for the inner I come to temples." (See videos)
Rao the mathematical legend had fathered the path-breaking Rao-Blackwell
theorem, one of the most important theorems in mathematical statistics, at the
age of 25. That brought him global fame. He is also famous for his Cramér-Rao
Bound inequality theorem relating to quality of estimators in statistics which has
had a profound bearing on applications of modern economics and several other
diverse fields. Simply put, with the pioneering statistician computation became a
tool to analyse even socio-economic challenges of modern times.
The alleged incident has received such a flash publicity that a standardised
city's hugely middle class population will have second thoughts about eating
outside for some time. Now everything on the table looks suspicious!
“All subjects directly connected to the people should be shifted to the State List. Particularly the subject of education. Only if this is done can cruel exams like NEET be abolished,” Stalin said. Education was moved from the State List to the Concurrent List with the 42nd Constitution Amendment made by the Central Government in 1976.
Decentralisation has been at the core of Tamil politics since the times of CN Annadurai. Stalin indicated there will be political changes in the offing.
TAILPIECE: While the Centre and the States are at loggerheads, it takes a
different cognitive acumen to know that entrance tests are not the way for
students' admission to courses.