1. Hubble Space Telescope
• Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered a dwarf galaxy in a globular cluster which is only 30 million light-years away.
• The researchers determined that this galaxy — nicknamed Bedin 1, after discovery team leader L. R. Bedin of the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova in Italy — is a “spheroidal dwarf” just 3,000 light-years wide.
• The Hubble Space Telescope is a large telescope in space. NASA launched Hubble in 1990.
• It was built by the United States space agency NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency.
• Hubble is the only telescope designed to be serviced in space by astronauts.
• Expanding the frontiers of the visible Universe, the Hubble Space Telescope looks deep into space with cameras that can see across the entire optical spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet.
2. Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC)
• The HSFC, the hub of ISRO’s future manned missions, was inaugurated at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru.
• HSFC shall be responsible for the implementation of Gaganyaan project — which involves mission planning, development of engineering systems for crew survival in space, crew selection and training and also pursue activities for sustained human space flight missions.
3. International Year Of The Periodic Table
• To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the organisation of the periodic table, UNESCO has launched the International Year Of The Periodic Table.
• Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev published the first periodic such table in 1869.
• The table organizes all chemical elements by the number of protons in a given atom and other properties.
• There are seven rows, called periods, and 18 columns, called groups, in the table.
• Elements in the same group share similar properties. Those in the same period have the same number of atomic orbitals.
• Most elements on the table are metals divided into six broad categories – alkali metals, alkaline earths, basic metals, transition metals, lanthanides and actinides. They are located on the left, separated from the non-metals on the right by a zig-zag line.
• Lanthanides and actinides, often called “inner transition metals”, are commonly hived off as a separate section under the main table as including all 30 – including Uranium – would make the table too wide.
• The table is a useful tool for people to derive relationships between the different properties of the elements. It can also help predict the properties of new elements that have yet to be discovered or created.
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