China leading in air pollution, India not far behind!

The reports about China's air pollution problem is flooding the newspapers. "National Environmental Analysis", a report prepared by the Asian Developmental Bank has observed that out of the world's 10 most polluted cities, 7 are in China. They are Taiyuan, Beijing, Urumqi, Lanzhou, Chongqing, Jinan and Shijiazhuang. While in Shanghai, air quality index, a new air quality reporting system that monitors sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, PM10 and PM2.5, reached 254 on Wednesday. The figure, highest in last two months, indicates that the air had reached the level of heavy pollution. Shanghai's hourly density of PM2.5, air particles smaller than 2.5 microns, also reached 250 micrograms per cubic meter by 10 am today, while the reading was only 60 micrograms per cubic meter early Tuesday morning! On the other hand, NASA images showed thick cloud covers over Beijing. According to their report, people in China are breathing air three times more toxic than what's hazardous to humans! Below is the comparison of the images prepared by NASA. 

(Click on the image for full-size image)

The image in the left (January 3, 2013) shows clear skies with lingering smog and haze on the ground whereas in the right image (January 14, 2013), we can observe dense cloud cover filled with the yellow/ gray tint of air pollution.

While China is in headlines these days, but reports suggest that India is not very far behind! In fact, a report by Tel Aviv University reports that Indian megacities are seeing a double-digit increase in pollution than the cities in the classic environmental villain to the east, China. It states that from 2002 to 2010, Bangalore saw the second highest increase in air-pollution levels in the world at 34%, and Indian cities including Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur and Ahemdabad, are not very far behind. In Delhi, it is reported many times that the PM 2.5 rose above 500mg/cu whereas the normal levels should be only 60 to 80 mg/cu as per Indian national quality standards.

It is an upcoming issue and needs to given priority as according to World Heath Organisation, more than 2 million people die every year due to air pollution. A study showed that 3.2 million people died from air pollution in 2010, compared to 8,00,000 in 2000. The annual Global Burden of Disease (GBD) report ranked air pollution in the world's top 10 list of killer disease for the first time. It reported 1.2 million deaths a year in east Asia and China, and 712,000 in south Asia, including India. We do not have medicines or drugs to cure air pollution except for the controlling the emissions from anthropogenic activities! Hope we can control our own activities and solve the problems!

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SpaceX's Grasshopper successfully takes a leap towards reusability!

SpaceX’s dreams of creating a fully reusable launch vehicle is getting closer to fulfillment via the third test of their test vehicle - Grasshopper. The third and the most ambitious test of the vehicle took place on December 17,2012 when the Grasshopper took a 40 meter leap into the skies at their test facility in Texas – followed by a stable hover and smooth landing – was conducted without a hitch. The first two tests were conducted in September when the Grasshopper flew to 1.8 meters (6 feet), and in November, when it flew to 5.4 meters (17.7 feet/2 stories) including a brief hover.  

Grasshopper, SpaceX's vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (VTVL), rose 131 feet (40 meters), hovered and landed safely on the pad using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control. The total test duration was 29 seconds. There are the videos:

Single Camera Grasshopper Test flight video 17/12/2012: 

Multi- Angle Grasshopper Test flight video 17/12/2012:

The Grasshopper – consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage, Merlin 1D engine, four steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure. The plan revolves around a modified version of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle design, creating a version of the flyback booster concept – one where all of the vehicle’s components return back to Earth for reuse. SpaceX founder and chief executive, Elan Musk talked about these plans, "This is a very difficult thing to do. Even for an expendable launch vehicle, where you don’t attempt any recovery, you only get maybe two to three percent of your lift-off weight to orbit. That’s not a lot of room for error. Now you say ‘OK, now let’s make it reusable’. You have to strengthen the stages, add a lot of weight, a lot of thermal protection – a lot of things that add weight to that vehicle – and still have a useful payload to orbit. You’ve got to add all that’s necessary to bring the stages back to the launch pad to be able to re-fly them and still have useful payload to orbit."

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Science Fact - 8

Did you know that astronauts cannot belch. This is because there is no gravity to separate liquid from the gas  in their stomachs.

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Doha Climate Gateway: Extended Kyoto Protocol

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18) which extended for two weeks in Doha, finally came to an end with the favorable result. 194 countries have agreed to implement the second phase of Kyoto Protocol which is initiating from 2013 to 2020. The Doha round of talks mark the beginning of a transition to a new global climate change regime that will come into effect from 2020 and include within its ambit all countries.

The talks in Doha have agreed that the last 20 years intended to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change were not much of a success. The Kyoto Protocol, the only existing and binding agreement which developed countries commit to cutting greenhouse gases, has been amended so that it will continue as of 1 January 2013. The first commitment period ends on 31 December 2012. The length of the second commitment period will be eight years.

The outcome came 24 hours after the negotiations were supposed to close because of countries like Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus demanding use of the extra credit that had been given to them in the first phase. Doha Climate Gateway, the outcome of these two week long conference is being described as "historic" by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres. She said, "Now, there is much work to do. Doha is another step in the right direction, but we still have a long road ahead. The door to stay below two degrees remains barely open. The science shows it, the data proves it. The UN Climate Change negotiations must now focus on the concrete ways and means to accelerate action and ambition. The world has the money and technology to stay below two degrees. After Doha, it is a matter of scale, speed, determination and sticking to the timetable."

In order to achieve this, countries will hold meetings and workshops next year to prepare the new agreement and to further ways to raise ambition; to submit information, views and proposals on actions, initiatives and options to enhance ambition to the UN Climate Change Secretariat, by 1 March 2013; and that elements of a negotiating text are to be available no later than the end of 2014, so that a draft negotiating text is available before May 2015.

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Science Fact - 7

The Orangutan is the largest tree-dwelling mammal in the world.

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Science Fact - 6

The Stegosaurus dinosaur measured up to 30 feet (9.1 meters) long but had a brain the size of a walnut.

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Second-largest black hole found in NGC 1277

Astronomers have found a giant black hole in a tiny galaxy, which is quite opposite of the general belief of scientists that the size of the black hole is perpendicular to the size of the galaxy it is present in. Our own galaxy, Milky Way, also hosts a black hole in the centre of the galaxy named Sagittarius A. The galaxy, NGC 1277, is one-fourth the size of our galaxy but hosts a black hole 4000 times the size of the Sagittarius A. This is the second-heaviest black hole ever discovered whose mass is 17 billion times of our Sun.

The black holes cannot be measured for size because they cannot be seen. This is because they absorb all the light reflected at them and thus their size is measured by their sphere of influence. The sphere of influence measures the gravitational effect the black hole has on its surrounding stars and gases. 

Remco van den Bosch and his colleagues at University of Texas have found that some of the largest black holes are found in the small galaxies. NGC 1277 is one of these small galaxies in the constellation Perseus, which is 220 million light years away from our galaxy. It's black hole is as large as our Solar System and it contains 14% mass of the entire galaxy. Dr Van den Bosch said, "The only way to you can actually make those high dispersions in the centre is by having that really big black hole, there's really no other way around it."

With the help of NGC 1277's black hole, astronomers are now trying to advance their theories about the evolution of black holes and the relation between their size and the galaxy's size they are present in.

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