1. Iran launches satellite which failed to reach orbit in final stage
• Iran launched a satellite this morning, however, it failed to reach the orbit in the final stage. Quoting country`s Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, State television said, the Payam satellite was successfully launched with the Basir satellite carrier.
• Mr Jahromi said, the satellite and its carrier had gone through successful testing of its first and second stages.
• But in the actual launch, the satellite failed to reach the required speed on detachment from the rocket in the third stage.
• He said, Iran still plans to launch another low Earth orbit satellite, Doosti which mean Friendship in Persian.
• President Hassan Rouhani had said that both Payam and Doosti were intended to gather information on environmental change in Iran.
• Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said launch of satellites by Iran into orbit would violate the UN Security Council resolution that endorsed a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Tehran. However, Iran denied the planned launch was a violation of Resolution 2231.
2. Earth’s magnetic North Pole is moving
• The WMM is also part of map applications in smartphones, including the Google Maps App.
• Researchers from the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintain the WMM.
• Researchers say Earth’s magnetic North Pole is ‘skittering’ away from Canada, towards Siberia.
• The problem has got so bad, researchers around the world are scrambling to update a global model of the fields. Called the World Magnetic Model, it underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.
• The problem lies partly with the moving pole and partly with other shifts deep within the planet.
• Liquid churning in Earth’s core generates most of the magnetic field, which varies over time as the deep flows change.
• In 2016, for instance, part of the magnetic field temporarily accelerated deep under northern South America and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Satellites such as the European Space Agency’s Swarm mission tracked the shift.
• The charts, known as the World Magnetic Model (WMM), are used to convert between compass measurements of magnetic north and true north and can be found in the navigation systems of ships and airplanes as well as geological applications (such as drilling and mining).
• The WMM is also part of map applications in smartphones, including the Google Maps App.
• Researchers from the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintain the WMM.
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