Kathmandu: Nasa's Perseverance rover has finished building a rock depot on Mars.



It's laid down a series of tubes on the ground containing a variety of rock and environmental specimens.



The depot will serve as a reserve cache to be brought back to Earth in the event Perseverance is unable to complete the next stage of its mission.



Scientists want rock samples brought home to study in the lab. It will be the best way to determine whether life has ever existed on the Red Planet.



Photos downlinked from the robot on Monday showed the last of the 10 titanium cylinders intended for the depot, lying in the dust between the vehicle's wheels.



The tube's exact position has been carefully documented.



Perseverance was sent to Mars to investigate a 45km-wide bowl called Jezero Crater.



It's a location thought to have held a lake billions of years ago.



It also has on its western fringe the remnants of a delta.



This is a structure created from the silt and sand dumped by a river as it slows on entry into a wider body of water.



It's the kind of feature that might just have trapped evidence of past microbial organisms.



Perseverance has drilled a mix of volcanic and sedimentary rocks that should tell the story of the crater and the lake it once held. Examples of those rocks are now in the depot on a flat piece of terrain dubbed "Three Forks".



To be clear, the collection is not the primary cache Nasa wishes to return to Earth; it's more of a "Plan B".



Perseverance retains copies of the Three Forks samples in the caching system inside its belly.



The hope is the rover can directly deliver these rocks - and others yet to be drilled - to the mission that comes to take them home.



But Nasa can't risk the scenario where the rover breaks down with all the rocks stuck inside it.



The depot is therefore an insurance. It guarantees something is available to pick up when the retrieval mission arrives at the end of the decade.



Should the nightmare happen and Perseverance dies, the fetch mission will be directed straight to Three Forks.



The rover is about to drive up on to the top of the delta, accompanied by its scout drone. This mini-helicopter, named Ingenuity, has already begun the climb.



Perseverance is going to investigate what appears to be evidence of flood activity, judging from the large size of some of the boulders scattered across the top of the delta.



The robot will then move to the edge of the crater where satellite imagery indicates there are carbonate-type sedimentary rocks. These again will be a good place to look for traces of ancient biology.



Perseverance still has more than 20 sample tubes waiting to be filled.



(News Source: BBC)

Nasa's Mars rover Perseverance completes rock depot

Kathmandu: Air pollution has increased across the country.



Compared to other regions, Kathmandu Valley has the highest air pollution. Similarly, pollution condition is worse in Dhankuta and Dang.



Air Quality Index (AQI) is over 160 in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.



AQI refers to the amount of particles smaller than 10 and 2.5 microns, carbon monoxide, sulfur, and nitrogen oxides in the air in an integrated form.



The higher the AQI, the more dangerous it is. Air with an AQI of up to 50 is considered healthy.



Due to the lack of rainfall for a long time, the drought has increased. Old vehicles and road dust are also considered to be factors in the increase in pollution.

Air pollution increases across the country

Kathmandu: Air pollution is increasing rapidly in Mumbai, India. Air pollution in the federal capital Delhi usually becomes a topic of discussion as soon as the winter season begins, but the situation in Mumbai is worse than that of Delhi several times this week, according to the BBC.



Due to the coastal line, the air quality has been good in Mumbai, this time the air quality has become bad, and it has been included in the list of cities with bad air in India.



Due to increased construction work, adverse weather conditions and smoke emitted by vehicles, the air quality of Mumbai is deteriorating, say experts.



Since the beginning of winter in cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Kanpur, Patna in India, the air quality has reached a dangerous level for human health.

Air pollution going up in Mumbai, India

Kathmandu: Most of the public vehicles in Kathmandu Valley have failed the pollution test.



On Friday, when the Department of Environment, Metropolitan Traffic Police and the Department of Transporation Management conducted pollution testing of vehicles with pollution measuring devices, it was found that most of the vehicles failed the pollution test.



In the pollution test of 54 vehicles conducted by the department today, 38 vehicles were found to have failed, while only 16 vehicles passed the test.



Along with vehicle pollution, the traffic police also checked mechanical condition and documents of the vehicle. According to the transport system procedure, even now, every rental vehicle must undergo a technical inspection of the vehicle every 6 months.



A mandatory condition of such inspection to be done at the transport office is the pollution inspection report. From now on, every big and rental vehicle must carry a report of pollution test.



Similarly, small and medium-sized vehicles should undergo such a check once in one year. In which the report of pollution inspection has been made mandatory.

Most of the public vehicles in the valley failed the pollution test

Kathmandu: COP 27, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, has begun in the touristic city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.



About 30,000 people will participate in the conference. Along with the issue that developed countries will be pressured to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this time the topic of damage-loss management and financial management will be discussed.



In COP 26, developed countries were unable to manage the separate financial management needed to address the damage, but the issue was not resolved.



Developed countries have been disagreeing on this issue, while countries that are experiencing climate damage are insisting on making damage the main issue.



In COP 27, Nepal is leading the mountain issue. Uma Regmi, Minister of Women, Children and Senior Citizens from Nepal, is leading the conference.



It has been confirmed that US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other heads of government of 40 countries will participate in the COP conference.

COP-27 begins in Egypt

Kathmandu: Glaciers across the globe - including the last ones in Africa - will be unavoidably lost by 2050 due to climate change, the UN says in a report.



Glaciers in a third of UN World Heritage sites will melt within three decades, a UNESCO report found.



Mount Kilimanjaro's last glaciers will vanish as will glaciers in the Alps and Yosemite National Park in the US.



They will melt regardless of the world's actions to combat climate change, the authors say.



The report, which makes projections based on satellite data, comes as world leaders prepare to meet in Egypt for next week's COP27 climate change conference.



About 18,600 glaciers have been identified across 50 UN World Heritage sites. They represent almost 10% of the Earth's glacierised area and include renowned tourist spots and places sacred to local populations.



The retreat and disappearance of glaciers was "among the most dramatic evidence that Earth's climate is warming", the report said.



"We hope we might be wrong, but this is the hard science," said UNESCO project officer Tales Carvalho Resende, one of the authors. "Glaciers are one of the valuable indicators of climate change, because they're visible. This is something we can really see happening."



The remaining glaciers in the other two thirds of UN World Heritage sites could be saved, but only if the world limits global warming to 1.5C, the authors say. Another UN report last week found that the world currently had "no credible pathway" to achieve that.



The projections build upon a previous report which used models to compute how World Heritage site glaciers would change over time.



"What is quite unprecedented in the historical record is how quickly this is happening," said Beata Csatho, a glaciologist from the University of Buffalo, who was not involved in the research.



"In the middle of the 1900s, glaciers were quite stable," she said. "Then there is this incredibly fast retreat."



(News Source: BBC)

Kilimanjaro's and Africa's last glaciers to go by 2050, says UN

Kathmandu: Nasa has called off the launch of its big new Moon rocket - the Space Launch System (SLS).



As reported by BBC News, controllers struggled to get an engine on the 100m-tall vehicle cooled down to its correct operating temperature.



They had previously worried about what appeared to be a crack high up on the rocket but eventually determined it was merely frost build-up.



The SLS is the biggest rocket ever developed by Nasa. It will be used to send astronauts back to the Moon, BBC reported.



The maiden flight, part of Nasa's Artemis programme, is just a demonstration with no-one on board. But ever more complex missions are planned for the future that will see people live on the lunar surface for weeks at a time.



Nasa has the option to try again on Friday, if the engine issue can be resolved by then.



(News Source: BBC)

Artemis: Nasa calls off new Moon rocket launch

Kathmandu: The American space agency is counting down to the lift-off of its giant new Moon rocket - the Space Launch System.



SLS is the most powerful vehicle ever developed by Nasa, and will be the foundation of its Artemis project which aims to put people back on the lunar surface after a 50-year absence.



As reported by the BBC News, the rocket is timed to go up from the Kennedy Space Centre at 08:33 local time (12:33 GMT; 13:33 BST) on Monday.



Its job will be to propel a test capsule, called Orion, far from Earth.



This spacecraft will loop around the Moon on a big arc before returning home to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in six weeks' time, reported the BBC.



Orion is uncrewed for this demonstration but assuming all the hardware works as it should, astronauts will climb aboard for a future series of ever more complex missions, starting in 2024.



(News Source: BBC)

Nasa ready to launch new era of Moon exploration

Kathmandu: Next month Nasa will send a new crew into space. And for the first time there will be a Native American woman aboard.



According to a report publised by BBC news, Astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann, of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, will be mission commander - responsible for all phases of flight.



She will go to the International Space Station on 29 September, Nasa says.



According to the Indigenous Foundation, dreamcatchers symbolise unity and provide protection.



Mann will be with three colleagues on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft as part of the Crew-5 mission.



She could also go to the Moon. In 2020 she was selected to be in a pool of astronauts eligible for Nasa's Artemis programme that will send humans to the Moon.



Mann, originally from California, studied mechanical engineering at Stanford university.



She become a colonel in the Marine Corps, flying various fighter aircraft. She has been deployed twice on aircraft carriers supporting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was awarded six medals for her service to the US military.



This expedition will be Mann's first spaceflight since she became an astronaut in 2013, Nasa confirms.



She is one of eight members of the 21st Nasa astronaut class, formed for space station operations and potential future assignments to the Moon and Mars.



This is the fifth rotational mission to the International Space Station where the team will conduct 250 scientific experiments which Nasa says will help benefit life on Earth and prepare for human exploration beyond the planet.



(News Source: BBC)

First Native American woman to travel to space

Kathmandu: The Medical Education Commission has said that the number of foreign students studying MBBS in Nepal has increased.



According to the Commission, 265 foreign students were enrolled for study this year and this number is six times more than last year.



Access to medical education is gradually increasing in the reach of ordinary people, member secretary of the commission.



At the same time 188 Nepali students have gone abroad to study MBBS so far this year. Similarly, 29 students in BAC Nursing, 66 in Elite Science and 17 students for pharmacy studies have registered with Nepal Health Practitioners Council and gone to study abroad.

Number of foreign students studying MBBS in Nepal increases

Kathmandu: Stunning images of a "stellar nursery" and a "cosmic dance" have been acquired by Nasa's new $10bn space telescope.



The two pictures, and others, were presented to the world on Tuesday to mark the James Webb observatory's readiness to begin science operations.



The facility has spent the past six months since launch undergoing testing.



Viewed as the successor to the famous Hubble telescope, Webb is expected to be a dominant force for discovery for at least the next 20 years.



The new observatory is a joint project of the US, European and Canadian space agencies - with Nasa in the lead.



Webb has been specially tuned to see the sky in the infrared - that's light at longer wavelengths than can be sensed by our eyes.



This will give it the ability to look deeper into the Universe than its predecessor and, as a consequence, detect events occurring further back in time - more than 13.5 billion years ago.



Astronomers will also use its more advanced technologies to study the atmospheres of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy in the hope that signs of life can be detected.



The initial batch of images were just a taster of what would follow, said Prof Gillian Wright, the British researcher who's co-principal investigator on one of Webb's four infrared instruments.



(News Source: BBC)

NASA space telescope delivers spectacular pictures

Kathmandu: The UK's largest radio telescope - the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire - is being turned into a light and sound show.



For the first time since 2019, at the Bluedot festival, the giant radio telescope will take centre stage.



Images from space, including some stunning pictures from Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope will be beamed on to its 249ft (76m) dish.



"We'll use that dish as a huge film screen," said Prof Teresa Anderson.



The astrophysicist and director of the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre explained: "We'll project on to it some of the latest data from the Sun and beautiful images of the Moon."



Prof Anderson and her husband, the physicist Prof Tim O'Brien from University of Manchester, co-founded the festival and have created an accompanying a soundtrack using recordings from space.



The show they developed for the Lovell telescope is called Sky's Eye View.



It includes time-lapse sequences of:



<ul><li>the surface and atmosphere of the Sun, taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory</li><li>images of Earth from Nasa's Blue Marble Next Generation satellite data</li><li>near and far sides' pictures of the Moon</li></ul>



The soundtrack features recordings from space, including the "sonification" of the radio telescope's own scan of our galaxy, the Milky Way.



(News Source: BBC)

Science

Our Team

Contact Information

Address (USA):

Address (Nepal):

Email:

Phone: