Science and Technology MCQ Set 42
Showing question 206 to 210 of total 301 MCQs
MCQ Set: 42
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Question No: 206
In another first, NASA will launch the first mission ever to study what aspect of the cosmos?
- Stars
- Black holes
- Neutron Stars
- Quasars
Answer and Explanation
Answer: C
Explanation
NASA is all set to launch the world’s first ever mission devoted for studying neutron stars.
NASA will launch the Neutron Stars Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
The NICER will be installed aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as an external attached payload.
About a week after its installation, the NICER will begin observing neutron stars. The mission will focus especially on Pulsars.
During the mission, NASA will also carry out the world’s first demonstration of X-ray navigation in space. Pulsars are those neutron stars that appear to wink on and off like a cosmic lighthouse.
As these pulsars send pulsations that are predictable.
They can be used as celestial clocks for providing high-precision timing similar to that of the atomic-clock signals supplied through the Global Positioning System (GPS).
GPS signals, however, gets weakened if one travels beyond the orbit of the Earth.
On the other hand, Pulsars remain accessible virtually everywhere in space making them an apt navigational solution for deep-space exploration.
NICER will perform tests for the first time in a space technology that relies on pulsars as navigation beacons.
Pulsars and Neutron stars are nothing but the remnants of massive stars which exploded and collapsed into super-dense spheres after exhausting their nuclear fuel.
Pulsars: Know More
Pulsars were discovered in 1967 by British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell. It is estimated that just one teaspoonful of neutron star matter would weigh a billion tonnes on Earth.
There have been many models that attempt to describe the physics governing the interiors of neutron stars.
The NICER mission will help in finally testing these theories with precise observations
Observation of neutron stars in the energetic X-ray band provides the greatest insights into their structure and the phenomenon like starquakes, thermonuclear explosions as well as of the most powerful magnetic fields known in the cosmos.
Question No: 207
IIT Kharagpur has developed a wireless technology called _____ for monitoring ambulance patients.
- AmbuSens
- AmbuSans
- AmbuSense
- None of the above
Answer and Explanation
Answer: A
Explanation
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur has developed a wireless technology called AmbuSens for remote monitoring of condition of those patients who are ferried in ambulances.
AmbuSens will help in wireless monitoring of various physiological conditions of patients who are ferried in ambulances.
The AmbuSens system includes both hardware and software. The ambulance and the hospitals will have laptops or tablets with internet connection to continuously monitor the health condition of the patients in real-time.
The patients will be fitted with wireless body sensors.
The technology will monitor the parameters like ECG, heart-rate, temperature and blood-pressure and can ensure remote monitoring of the patient’s condition even before they reach the hospital.
The web interface of the system will offer easy-to-use graphical interface with data visualisation tools such as real-time ECG graph rendering.
The graphical interface can be accessed from internet-enabled laptops, tablets and smartphones. The collected patient’s data will be held confidentially.
This new system assumes significance at the backdrop of limited knowledge of medical technician who accompanies a critical patient in an ambulance.
With this technology, the doctors will be able to instruct life saving medical interventions to the technician.
Question No: 208
What is GW170104 in the context of LIGO?
- Third confirmed detection of gravitational waves coming from binary black hole merger
- First confirmed detection of gravitational waves coming from binary black hole merger
- Third confirmed detection of gravitational waves coming from binary quasar merger
- First confirmed detection of gravitation waves coming from binary quasar merger
Answer and Explanation
Answer: A
Explanation
LIGO detects G-waves from black hole merger the 3rd time
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in January 2017 detected another merger of two black holes forming gravitational waves.
The findings were published in the Physical Review Letters on 1 June 2017.
Named as GW170104, this is the third confirmed detection of gravitational waves coming from a binary black hole merger.
This time, the detection has revealed not merely a black hole merger, but also the alignment of the spins of the black holes. This can help the scientists in finding out the way the black holes were formed.
This supports the theory which says that black holes form independently in a star cluster, then sink to the centre of the cluster and eventually merge.
Until the first detection of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015 (GW150914), it was not known that such massive black holes could exist.
The study had a major Indian contribution and the LIGO-India facility which will join the club in 2024. US-based LIGO has discovered a new population of black holes with masses that are larger than what had been seen before with X-ray studies.
The three confirmed detections by LIGO (GW150914, GW151226, GW170104) and one lower-confidence detection (LVT151012) point to a population of stellar-mass binary black holes that are larger than 20 solar masses.
The gravitational wave detection was for the first time, a chance event; second time a coincidence and third time a pattern.
The observation also yields support to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. According to this theory, gravitational waves, unlike light waves, will not disperse as they travel through space.
This too has been confirmed by the analysis of the presently detected signal.
Einstein's Theory: Know More
The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity.
Einstein wasn't the first to come up with such a theory — back in 1686 Isaac Newton formulated his famous inverse square law of gravitation.
In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers.
This was the theory of special relativity.
It introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time.
Question No: 209
Faceless fish have been discovered in which part of the world in May 2017?
- Australia
- Oceania
- America
- None of the above
Answer and Explanation
Answer: A
Explanation
A team of Australian scientists in May 2017 discovered a faceless fish and other weird and wonderful creatures in the deep waters of Australia during their scientific journey to the parts of the ocean never explored before.
The search area was the most unexplored environment on earth. The scientists have been surveying the dark and cold abyss that was four kilometres (2.5 miles) below the surface through nets, sonar and deep-sea cameras.
They came across an unusual faceless fish, which has only been recorded once before by the pioneering scientific crew of HMS Challenger off Papua New Guinea in 1873.
It hasn’t got any eyes or a visible nose and its mouth is underneath.
Bright red spiky rock crabs, puffed-up coffin fish, blind sea spiders and deep sea eels were collected by the team during their voyage from Launceston in Tasmania north towards the Coral Sea.
Another discovery was of carnivorous sponges that have lethal spicules made of silicon, effectively glass.
They get small crustaceans hooked on their Velcro-like spines to be slowly digested in-situ. This technique differs from most deep-sea sponges which feed on bacteria.
Life at such depths is one of crushing pressures, as there is no light, little food and freezing temperatures with animals evolving in unique ways to survive.
As food is scarce in such depths, these animals spend their lives floating about and lie in wait until food comes to them.
At such huge depths, it is so dark that creatures often have no eyes or produce their own light through bioluminescence.
Question No: 210
Which NASA probe was named after Eugene Parker?
- Solar Plus Probe Spacecraft
- Solar Minus Probe Spacecraft
- First mission to a star to be launched in 2018
- Both a and c
Answer and Explanation
Answer: A
Explanation
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on 31 May 2017 renamed the Solar Probe Plus Spacecraft, NASA’s first mission to a star which will be launched in 2018, as the Parker Solar Probe in honour of astrophysicist Eugene Parker.
The announcement was made at a ceremony at the University of Chicago, where Eugene Parker serves as the S Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Eugene Parker was the first to predict the existence of the solar wind back in 1958. He theorized that the sun constantly sends out a flow of particles and energy called the solar wind.
This is the first time NASA has named a spacecraft for a living individual.
The article was based on the observations of Parker which showed that there was high speed matter and magnetism constantly escaping the sun which affected the planets and space throughout our solar system.
He proposed a number of concepts about how stars including sun give off energy. This phenomenon has been proven to exist repeatedly through direct observation and it was named as the Solar Wind.
Parker’s observation forms the basis for understanding about how stars interact with the worlds that orbit them.
Parker also theorized an explanation for the superheated solar atmosphere, the Corona, which is contrary to what was expected by physics laws.
As per his theory, Corona is hotter than the surface of the sun itself.
Many NASA missions since then have continued to focus on this complex space environment known as Heliophysics.
Parker Solar Probe will be launched during a 20-day window that opens on 31 July 2018.