1) China To Launch First Hack Proof Quantum Communication Satellite.
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has announced that China will be launching the World’s first Quantum Communications Satellite into space in the month of July. The launch will take place at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China.
- The project involved building the Quantum Satellite as well as four base stations that will enable communication between Earth and the satellite.
- Ground stations will be set-up thousands of kilometers away from each other, and two of them will be connected to the satellite via quantum optical links that will facilitate the flow of information.
- The CAS has also built one Quantum-teleportation experiment station. The project has taken a total of five years to build.
2) China launches three satellites.
- China successfully launched a new civilian high-resolution mapping satellite along with two other foreign satellites.
- Satellites Launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi of China.
- The satellite which was on board the rocket were two new satellites from Uruguay. It was the 228th flight mission by a Long March carrier rocket.
- The 2.7-tonne Ziyuan III 02 satellite soared on the back of a Long March 4B rocket.
- The Ziyuan Satellite will be used in land resource surveys, natural disaster prevention, agricultural development, water resources management and urban planning.
3) Scientists Discovered Rare `Einstein Ring`.
- Scientists have discovered one of the most symmetrical Einstein rings - rare astronomical phenomena created by a galaxy located 10,000 million light years away that is hidden behind a more massive galaxy.
- Einstein rings, predicted by Einstein`s theory of General Relativity, are quite rare but scientifically interesting.
- Discovered by Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL) in Canary Islands is named the "The Canarias Einstein ring".
- An Einstein ring is a distorted image of a very distant galaxy, which is termed "the source". The distortion is produced by the bending of the light rays from the source due to a massive galaxy, termed "the lens", lying between it and the observer.
4) Alibaba Launches `Privacy Knight` Face Lock App for Android.
- Chinese mobile internet giant Alibaba Group launched "Privacy Knight" India`s first free app-lock with face-lock feature that enables users to unlock their protected apps through a one-second selfie.
- Face Lock is set to change the way people protect their privacy.
- "Privacy Knight" works on a one-second-step for face locking, saving users the trouble to remember patterns or pincode.
- The face lock and blink detection setting ensure a 99.47 % accuracy of face recognition.
- With the boost of smart phone utilization, India is now the largest consumer market for security app in the world.
5) Facebook launches 1,500 new emojis for Messenger.
- Facebook launched 1,500 new emojis for its Messenger service, including diverse emojis for different skin tones and women in professional roles.
- The social network platform also announced that its emojis will now look the same for all Messenger users on Android, iOS and other platforms.
- An emoji picker has been introduced to help the users select the perfect emoji.
- With the update, access to over 1,500 new emojis - 100 of which were designed `to better reflect gender and skin tones` with gender-agnostic options and multi-colored emojis.
6) TRAI makes it easier to get rid of telemarketers.
- Telecom regulator TRAI rolled out `DND (do not call) Services` mobile application for easier management of unsolicited calls and messages by the cell phone users.
- TRAI has developed a mobile App for easy registration of UCC complaints to the service providers. With this App, the consumer can also check the status of his complaint. The app is available in the Google App store and Mobile Seva App store.
- Currently, consumers can log complain about messages and calls from telemarketers through toll free number 1909.
7) Hubble finds universe may be expanding faster than expected.
- Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the universe is expanding 5 % to 9% faster than expected.
- Discovery in this regard was made by an international team of researchers of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Johns Hopkins University.
- They looked for galaxies containing both Cepheid stars and Type Ia supernovae.
- They measured about 2,400 Cepheid stars in 19 galaxies and compared the observed brightness of both types of stars.
- Finally, astronomers compared those distances with the expansion of space as measured by the stretching of light from receding galaxies.
8) New bionic leaf can turn sunlight into liquid fuel.
- A team of scientists from Harvard University has co-created a unique "bionic leaf" that uses solar energy to split water molecules and hydrogen-eating bacteria to produce liquid fuels.
- This artificial photosynthesis device has been dubbed bionic leaf 2.0. The new system can convert solar energy to biomass with 10% efficiency. Its efficiency is much higher than the 1% seen in the fastest growing plants.
- Scientists had used a new cobalt-phosphorous alloy catalyst for this experiment in order to increase efficiency.
- This artificial photosynthesis system can be used to generate usable fuels. This artificial leaf use solar power to split water and make hydrogen fuel.
9) Researchers find 39 unreported sources of major pollution.
- NASA scientists located 39 unreported and major human-made sources of toxic sulfur dioxide (so2) emissions. They used a new satellite-based method to locate the sources of toxic emissions.
- The unreported emission sources were found in the analysis of satellite data from 2005 to 2014.
- These sources are clusters of coal-burning power plants, oil and gas operations and smelters notably found in West Asia, Mexico and parts of Russia.
- SO2 is a known health hazard and cause of acid rain. Currently, SO2 monitoring activities include the use of emission inventories that are derived from ground-based measurements and factors, such as fuel usage.
- The unreported and under-reported sources account for about 12% of all human-made emissions of SO2.
- The research team also located 75 natural sources of sulfur dioxide like non-erupting volcanoes slowly leaking the toxic gas throughout the year.
10) Airbus unveils world’s 1st 3D-printed aircraft.
- The world’s first 3D-printed aircraft THOR was unveiled by European aerospace company, Airbus at the International Aerospace Exhibition held in Schoenefeld, Germany.
- The small Airbus marvel is the world’s first 3D-printed aircraft. Windowless, weighing in at just 21 kilos (46 pounds) and less than four meters (13 feet) long.
- The THOR is short for Test of High-tech Objectives in Reality.
- THOR has just 3 parts. It is lighter, faster and cheaper. It is windowless small pilotless propeller aircraft.
- All it parts (except the electrical elements) are 3D printed from a substance called polyamide.
- 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), refers to various processes used to synthesize a three-dimensional object.
- In 3D printing, successive layers of material are formed under computer control to create an object.
11) India and UAE air combat exercise Desert Eagle-II at Al-Dhafra airbase.
- Desert Eagle II, the second in the series of bilateral air exercises between the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the United Arab Emirates Air Force (UAE AF), concluded at the Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE.
- The ten-day air combat exercise saw IAF Su 30 MKI participating along with Mirage 2000-9 and F-16 block 60 of the UAE AF.
- Mission commanders from both sides participated in the Exercise and availed this opportunity to the maximum to draw valuable operational lessons.
- IAF maintenance support staff succeeded in maintaining high serviceability state of aircraft and equipment.
12) Lisa Pathfinder success paves way for space-based gravitational wave detection.
- A proposed milestone mission in the study of gravitational waves - LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna project received a boost, as the first, encouraging results from the LISA Pathfinde.
- The experiment has demonstrated that these two masses are almost motionless with respect to each other and show a relative acceleration which is less than one part in ten millionths of a billionth of Earth’s gravity.
- This extraordinary degree of precision is needed by this experiment as the measured strain caused by gravitational waves on their detectors is comparably minute.
- The LISA spacecraft will need to use the technology tested by LISA Pathfinder. LISA itself plans to use a combination of three spacecraft, trailing the earth at a distance of about 50 million kilometres, these will orbit the sun.
- Using special laser beams and telescopes, the trio will measure gravitational waves.
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