Daily Current Affairs for Competitive exams; September 25, 26, 2016

ISRO launches 8 satellites from Sriharikota

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched eight satellites into two different orbits in a single mission. This was ISRO’s longest and most complex mission. These satellites were launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C35 (PSLV C35) at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikotta.

• Among the eight satellites launched, three satellites were from India, three from Algeria and one each from Canada and United States.
• SCATSAT-1 satellite of India weighing 371 kg was the primary payload and remaining other seven customer satellites were secondary payloads (5 foreign and 2 domestic satellite) weighing 304 kg in total. It will provide weather forecasting services meant for ocean and weather forecasts, cyclone detection and tracking through wind-vector products. It will have a service life of five years.
• Pratham is a 10-kg satellite developed by students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay. It will be used to study the total electron count in space with a resolution of 1km x 1km location grid.
• PISAT: It is a 5.25-kg satellite made by students of Bengaluru’s PES University. It will take pictures of Earth for remote sensing applications.
• Three Algerian satellites: Alsat-1B (103 kg), Alsat-2B (110 kg) and Alsat Nano (7 kg), will be used for remote sensing, earth observation, and technology demonstration.
• Pathfinder-1 is a satellite owned by BlackSky, USA. It weighs 44 kg and has a high-resolution imaging microsatellite.
• NLS-19 is a Canadian satellite developed by the University of Toronto. It is a nano-satellite weighing 8 kg. It will be used for experiments for reducing space debris.

China builds world's largest telescope

China has built the world’s largest radio telescope, the five-hundred-metre aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST), nicknamed Tianyan (The Eye of Heaven).It is located in the Dawodang depression (vast natural crater), a natural basin in Pingtang County in the Guizhou Province, Southwest China.

• It will take nearly three years to calibrate the instruments of the telescope to become fully operational. The facility is part of China’s drive to become a science powerhouse.
• It is an ambitious project of the National Astronomical Observatories of China.
• It is the world’s largest filled aperture (single dish) radio telescope and the second largest radio telescope after the Russian RATAN-600, which has a sparsely filled aperture.
• It is made up of 4,450 panels and Its reflector is as large as 30 football pitches. Its diameter is 500 meters, giving it more sensitivity.
• It will be used to search for signs of intelligent life and to observe distant pulsars – tiny, rapidly spinning neutron stars believed to be the products of supernova explosions.
• It will be also used to study stellar radio emissions, gravitational waves and potentially signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. China’s best supercomputers the SkyEye-1 will be used to process the massive amounts of data supplied by FAST.

Pinky Balhara wins bronze medal in 5th Asian Beach Games

India’s Pinky Balhara has won the bronze medal in the sporting event of Kurash at the 5th Asian Beach Games held at Da Nang, Vietnam. Kurash is a form of wrestling originated from Uzbekistan.

• She won the medal in women’s 52kg category after she lost to Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy of Vietnam in the semi-finals.
• Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy won the gold medal in this event while another Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Quynh won the silver medal.
• To participate in the 5th Asian Beach Games, India had sent a contingent of 208 members.

First Russia-Pakistan military exercise Druzhba-2016 beginsThe first military exercise between Russia and Pakistan named Druzhba-2016 (Friendship-2016) has kicked off in Pakistan. With this, the Pakistani Army and the Russian Ground Forces (RGF) have come together for the first time in military exercises reflecting growing military ties between two former Cold War rivals.

• The military exercise is being conducted at the Army High Altitude School in northern Pakistan’s Rattu and at a special forces training centre in Cherat.
• The two-week-long joint military drills aim to bolster and build military cooperation between the two countries.
• It will involve experience sharing and develop coordination in carrying out practice combat tasks in a mountainous environment, including operations against illegal armed groups. About 200 troops from the two countries will take part in the two-week-long military drills.