Apophis! – Earth’s death knell?

Image of Apophis as a snake in Egyptian Mythology Egyptian mythology has a character called Apophis which was an ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon determined to plunge our world into eternal darkness. Astronomers reason that the name befits a menace that is currently hurling towards Earth from outer space. Scientists for the …

New planet discovered in trinary system – Another milestone in exoplanet research!

Most exoplanets are Hot Jupiters Though the number of extrasolar planets continued to grow over the years, exoplanet researchers were sceptical about existence of planets around multiple star systems since it was suspected that if the stars are not sufficiently farther apart, the constantly varying gravitational force would eventually tug the planet out of orbit. …

Astronomers celebrate Neptune’s Birthday!

Image of Neptune showing the Great Dark Spot – Courtesy NASA Neptune turned “one year” old yesterday when it completed its first revolution around the sun since its discovery 165 years ago. Astronomy world celebrated this event as Neptune completed its one year which is 164.79 earth years yesterday. Named after the Roman Sea God, …

Spacecraft captures sungrazing comet’s demise – A historical event!

  Sungrazing Comet’s Demise Captured by SDO and SOHO – Courtesy NASA Scientists witnessed an extraordinary event for the first time in history when NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory stationed in outer space captured a “sun-grazing comet” descending into its demise by melting under the solar heat while grazing the star, reported MSNBC. The high definition …

2005 YU55 to arrive on November 8, 2011

Discovered by Robert McMillan of the Spacewatch Program near Tucson, Arizona on December 28, 2005, the third near-earth asteroid of 2011, named 2005 YU55 will pass between the Moon and the Earth on November 8. The dark, near spherical rock of 400 meters diameter will move as close as 0.85 lunar distances from earth, confirmed …

2011 MD leaves warning to Earthlings

2011 MD Trajectory The Asteroid 2011 MD, discovered on 22nd at the LINEAR near-Earth object survey in Socorro, New Mexico by the amateur Australian Astronomer, Peter Lake flew by the Earth on 27th at a close proximity of 7600 miles which is closer than most satellites. The approach did startle scientists but the prospect of the asteroid …

The 3G Saga – TATA Docomo and Me!

It is a warm evening of March and I am writing this post from my new TATA Docomo 3G Internet connection. Since I moved to my new house, there had been no Internet and I feel as if I stumbled upon some magic elixir.  This post is named “The 3G Saga” because there is a …

The Vivekananda Decomposition – A New Type of Destructive distillation!

Destructive Distillation of Coal We learned about charcoal and coke during 8th grade but we didn’t learn how they are produced until 10th grade  when  our beloved Prema madam taught us the process of destructive distillation. I kind of liked the idea since the process reminded us of another experiment I conducted with my brother …

Life giving formula!

Yeah I know. You must be thinking I am crazy! But read on and you will find out what I mean. It is funny that I don’t exactly remember in which standard this story took place. It is probably 9th or 10th. I went to my friend Shyamlal’s house with my brother to work on …

Calorific Value!

Working of Rocket Engine using Liquid Propellants – Courtesy NASA My 8th and 9th standard science texts were replete with concepts like calorific value, ideal fuel, molarity etc etc. Fortunately I was one of the few who could understand those conundrums. I was thinking about rocket propellants in those days. I knew that it burned …