1) Indian Air Force Inducts Indigenous Tejas Aircraft.
- The first two contemporary or fourth generation Light Combat Aircraft ‘Tejas,’ designed and built in India, joined the Indian Air Force
- LCA Tejas called ``Flying Daggers``.Tejas aircraft will replace the MiG-21 Bis aircraft.
- Tejas is a single-engine lightweight multi-role fighter jet. It has been pegged as world’s smallest and lightest supersonic fighter.
- LCA Tejas has a limited reach of a little over 400 km. It will be mainly used for close air-to-ground operations.
2) US-led regional maritime warfare exercise RIMPAC kicks off in Hawaii.
- The multinational exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2016 has begun in the Pacific Ocean at Hawaii, United States.
- RIMPAC 2016 will see participation of navies from 26 countries. It is the 25th edition of biennial exercise in the series that began in 1971.
- India is being represented by Indian Naval ship (INS) Satpura, an indigenously built guided missile stealth frigate.
- In RIMPAC 2016, three new nations are participating for the first time. They are Denmark, Germany and Italy.
- The RIMPAC is the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise. It is held biennially during June and July of even-numbered years from Honolulu, Hawaii.
RIMPAC 2016 Theme: ``Capable, Adaptive, Partners``.
3) NASA extends New Horizons mission to Kuiper Belt.
- New Horizons team received official confirmation that they will get extra funding from NASA to continue doing science with their faraway spacecraft, which visited Pluto in the summer of 2015.
- In the extended mission New Horizons space probe will investigate a mysterious object known as 2014 MU69 located deep in the Kuiper Belt.
- It is expected that the New Horizons will reach 2014 MU69 on 31 December 2018 or 1 January 2019.
- 2014 MU69 is an ancient object considered one of the early building blocks of the solar system. It lies about 1.5 billion kilometres beyond Pluto and is roughly 45 kilometres in diameter. Its exploration may help to give insights on the building blocks of the solar system.
- New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA’s New Frontiers program. It was launched in 2006.
4) Trai launches app to check real-time internet speed.
- Telecom Regulatory (TRAI) has launched a mobile application which will help consumers to measure Internet speed on their Smartphone and send results to the authority.
- The "TRAI MySpeed" app will help its installers check their data speed on 3G/4G networks.
- ``MySpeed" app will work on any smartphone that runs on an OS above Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean).
- The mobile app to check internet speed experience comes in the wake of customer complaints of poor speed.
5) World`s largest radio telescope installed in China.
- China has successfully finished the installation of the world`s largest radio telescope in Guizhou province.
- The 500 metre-diameter telescope covers an area larger than 30 football pitches.
- The largest-ever radio telescope completed installation as the last piece of 4,450 panels was fitted in the center of the big dish.
- The new telescope is set to be involved in the search for extra-terrestrial life. With its sensitive telescope, it can detect weaker radio signals.
- It is also due to be used to study the Milky Way in more detail and look for the first shining stars.
- The five-hundred-metre Aperture spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) project began in the south-western province of Guizhou in 2011.
6) New species of `ant-mimicking` spider found.
- A new species of spider, which mimics the characteristics of ants, has been discovered in the moist deciduous forest of the Wayanad wildlife sanctuary.
- This spider, which lives along with ants in the corrugated bark of large trees, is difficult to differentiate from ants.
- This spider belongs to Aetius genus of the ant-mimicking spider family Corinidae.
- Even though there are more than 200 variety of ant-mimicking spiders, this is first time a spider, which is so much similar to an ant.
7) Researchers Develop Electronic Nose Capable of Detecting Low Concentrations of Pesticides and Nerve Gas.
- Researchers from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium have built a sensitive electronic nose with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that can detect pesticides and nerve gas in very low concentrations.
- MOFs are like microscopic sponges. They can absorb quite a lot of gas into their minuscule pores.
- The best-known electronic nose is the breathalyzer. As drivers breathe into the device, a chemical sensor measures the amount of alcohol in their breath.
- This chemical reaction is then converted into an electronic signal, allowing a police officer to read the result.
8) NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully begins orbit of Jupiter.
- NASA celebrated a key triumph as its $1.1 billion Juno spacecraft successfully slipped into orbit around Jupiter on a mission to probe the origin of the solar system.
- The spacecraft was launched by NASA as part of its New Frontiers program in 2011 to study Jupiter’s composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere.
- The spacecraft was traveling at a speed of more than 209,200 kilometres per hour when it fired its engines to slow down enough to be captured into Jupiter`s orbit.
- Juno is the first mission designed by NASA to see beneath Jupiter’s clouds.
9) China inducts its largest homegrown military transport plane.
- China inducted its largest indigenously-built transport aircraft Y-20, a breakthrough in military aviation technology for the PLA that allows the world`s largest force to transport cargo and troops over long distances in diverse weather conditions.
- Y-20 officially joined the PLA Air Force in Chengdu.It has a maximum take-off weight of 200 tonnes.
- Its induction will make easier for Chinese PLA to deploy troops, enable military to act more promptly and respond to emergencies in a better manner.
- The plane is comparable to the Russian-made IL-76 and US made C-17. It is more advance than the IL-476.