[DAY 5] 60 DAY RAPID REVISION (RaRe) SERIES for UPSC Prelims 2022 – Sci & Tech, CURRENT AFFAIRS & CSAT; Test Series, Videos & Notes!

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (d)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (b)

Explanation:

NASA wants to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by the year 2024 under the Artemis lunar exploration program. ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun. Its objective is to measure what happens when sun’s radiation hits our rocky moon, when there is no magnetic field to protect it.

Solution (a)

Explanation:

Solution (b)

Explanation:

Fast Radio Bursts (FRB) are bright bursts of radio waves (radio waves can be produced by astronomical objects with changing magnetic fields) whose durations lie in the millisecond-scale, because of which it is difficult to detect them and determine their position in the sky. It was detected by several satellites including NASA‟s Wind mission and Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), a radio telescope located in British Columbia.

Solution (c)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (c)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (a)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (d)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (c)

Statement Analysis:

Notes:

Artificial Sun:

• China successfully powered up its “artificial sun” nuclear fusion reactor for the first time recently, marking a great advance in the country’s nuclear power research capabilities.
• The HL-2M Tokamak reactor is China’s largest and most advanced nuclear fusion experimental research device, and scientists hope that the device can potentially unlock a powerful clean energy source.
• HL-2M Tokamak device is used in it to replicate the nuclear fusion process that occurs naturally in the sun.
• It uses a powerful magnetic field to fuse hot plasma and can reach temperatures of over 150 million degrees Celsius, approximately ten times hotter than the core of the sun.
• Located in Sichuan province, the reactor is often called an “artificial sun” on account of the enormous heat and power it produces.

Artificial Moon:

• China is planning to launch first man-made moon from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan, with three more to follow in 2022.
• The artificial moon would be a mirror orbiting Chengdu at a height of 500 km.
• It would reflect the sun’s light at night.
• The artificial moon’s brightness will be around eight times that of the moon.
• The project was announced at an innovation and entrepreneurship conference in Chengdu, China.

Solution (a)

Statement Analysis:

Notes:

DART Space Probe-

• Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a planned space probe that will demonstrate the kinetic effects of crashing an impactor spacecraft into an asteroid moon for planetary defense purposes. 
• DART would be NASA’s first mission to demonstrate such capability.
• The mission is intended to test whether a spacecraft impact could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
• The target for DART is an asteroid that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022, and then again in 2024. 
• The approaching asteroid is called Didymos — Greek for “twin” — because it’s an asteroid binary system that consists of two bodies: 

Didymos A, about 780 meters in size, and a smaller asteroid orbiting it called Didymos B, about 160 meters in size.

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (c)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (c)

Statement Analysis:

Note:

Gravitational Waves-

• Gravitational waves are disturbances in the curvature of spacetime, generated by accelerated masses, that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light.
• While formulating his General Theory of Relativity, Einstein proposed that gravitational attraction was a result of the bending of the fabric of space-time by the equivalent of a heavy object. 
• Discovery of gravitational waves would establish the correctness of General Theory of Relativity and opposes the Sir Isaac Newton’s visualization of gravitational force as a pulling force between objects.
• The detection of gravitational waves would enable astrophysicists and astronomers to “see” the universe which is, as of now, invisible to them. Almost 95 percent of the universe is known to consist of dark matter and dark energy, which does not emit any light or any other electromagnetic waves, and therefore, has not been detected even by the most sophisticated instruments. 
• Black holes, for example, cannot be “seen” but they do produce gravitational waves, and now can be detected using these.
• Astrophysicists have been previously forced to infer the presence of black holes by looking at the behavior of the material around them. Thought to be the super heavy remains of collapsed stars, the gravity they produce is so great that not even light escapes. Anything that passes the boundary of a black hole, known as the event horizon, stays there. This is why we cannot see black holes. Black holes are a big mystery still.
• Gravitational waves, however, are allowing scientists to view black hole directly. They are sort of a messenger of the spacetime around these objects, without using any intermediate.
• LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) helps in recording these gravitational waves. First such detection was done in 2015 by the two LIGO detectors in the U.S., in Louisiana, and Washington.
• European Virgo detector in 2017 also detected another such event.
• To expand the detection area for these waves, The Japanese detector, KAGRA, or Kamioka Gravitational-wave Detector, is expected to join the international network soon and a new LIGO project will be set up by 2025 in India.
• The LIGO India project will come up in Maharashtra, near Aundha in Hingoli district. 
• In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish for their role in the direct detection of gravitational waves.

Solution (c)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (d)

Statement Analysis:

Notes:

Space Bricks-

• A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has developed a sustainable process for making brick-like structures on the moon.
• It exploits lunar soil, and uses bacteria and guar beans to consolidate the soil into possible load-bearing structures.
• These space bricks could eventually be used to assemble structures for habitation on the moon’s surface.
• The process developed by the IISc and ISRO team uses urea which can be sourced from human urine and lunar soil as raw materials for construction on the moon’s surface, it said.
• This decreases the overall expenditure considerably. Sending bricks from Earth is not viable as it takes 7.5 lakh rupees to transport one pound of construction material.
• The process also has a lower carbon footprint because it uses guar gum instead of cement for support.
• A bacteria is added to further crystallize the brick in any shape needed. Some micro-organisms can produce minerals through metabolic pathways. One such bacterium, called ‘Sporosarcinapasteurii’ produces calcium carbonate crystals through a metabolic pathway called the ureolytic cycle: it uses urea and calcium to form these crystals as byproducts of the pathway.

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

Notes:

Collisional Cascading phenomenon-

• Spent rockets, satellites and other space trash have accumulated in orbit increasing the likelihood of collision with other debris. 
• Unfortunately, collisions create more debris creating a runaway chain reaction of collisions and more debris known as the Kessler Syndrome after the man who first proposed the issue, Donald Kessler. It is also known as collisional cascading.
• This cascade of collisions first came to NASA’s attention in the 1970s when derelict Delta rockets left in orbit began to explode creating shrapnel clouds. 
• Kessler demonstrated that once the amount of debris in a particular orbit reaches critical mass, collision cascading begins even if no more objects are launched into the orbit. 
• Once collisional cascading begins, the risk to satellites and spacecraft increases until the orbit is no longer usable.
• Kessler proposed it would take 30 to 40 years for such a threshold to be reached and today, some experts think we are already at critical mass in low-Earth orbit at about 560 to 620 miles (900 to 1,000 kilometers).

Solution (d)

Statement Analysis:

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

Notes:

The mandate of NSIL includes-

• Owning satellites for Earth Observation and Communication applications and providing space-based services.
• Building satellites and launching them as per demand. 
• Providing Launch Services for satellite belonging to the customer .
• Building launch vehicles through Indian Industry and launch as per satellite customer requirement .
• Space based Services related to Earth Observation and Communication satellites on a commercial basis .
• Satellite building through Indian Industry .
• Technology Transfer to Indian Industry.

Solution (d)

Statement Analysis:

Context- e-RUPI was launched by the Prime Minister to allow cashless payment solution for covid-19 vaccine.

Solution(c)

Statement Analysis:

Context- On occasion of World Elephant Day, Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change has announced joint exercise for the All-India elephant and tiger population estimation in 2022

Solution (c)

Ministry of Housing and Urban Affair (MoHUA) launched ‘SonChiraiya’ – (A brand and logo) for marketing of urban Self-Help Group (SHG) products. It will increase visibility and global access for products made by urban SHG women.

Context- It was recently launched 

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

Context- Twelve locations in Northeast are included in 32 approved geo-tourism or geo-heritage sites in the country

Solution (c)

Statement Analysis:

Context- Previously, the governor cannot pardon the death sentence, which only the Indian President can do. But recently the Supreme Court held that the Governor of a State can pardon prisoners, including death row ones, even before they have served a minimum of 14 years of a prison sentence.

Solution (d)

The question demands the selection of 5 men from 7 men and 2 women from 3 women.
Number of ways to do this
= 7C5 × 3C2
= 7C2 × 3C1 [∵ nCr = nC(n-r)]
=(7×6)/(2×1)×3=21×3=63

Hence, Option(d) is the right answer.

Solution (b)

Since no box can be left empty, there can be only two cases.

Case 1: 1, 1, 3
(i.e., 3 balls are put in 1 box and 1 ball is put in each of the remaining 2 boxes).

Total number of ways in which this can be done = 1 (as both boxes and balls are identical)

Case 2: 1,2,2

(i.e., two balls are put in each of the two boxes and 1 ball is put in the remaining 1 box).
Total number of ways in which this can be done =1=1 (as both boxes and balls are identical).

From (1) and (2),
Required number of ways
=1+1=2 ways . Hence, Option(b) is the right answer.

Solution (a)                                                                                          

Initially invite the 3 particular friends. This can only be done in 1 way …(1) 

Now he needs to invite 3 (=6-3) more friends from the remaining 6 (=9-3) friends. This can be done in 6C3 ways …(2) 

From (1) and (2), required number of ways = 1 × 6C3 = 6C3 = (6 × 5 × 4) /(3 × 2 × 1) = 5 × 4 = 20

Hence, Option(a) is the right answer.

Solution (c)

The word ‘BUTTER’ contains 6 letters. The letters U and E should always come together.

 So the letters are B, T, T, R, (UE). Number of ways in which the letters above can be arranged = 5!/2! = 60 (since the letter ‘T’ is repeated twice). 

Number of ways in which U and E can be arranged = 2! = 2 ways 

Therefore, total number of permutations possible = 60*2 = 120 ways.

Hence, Option (c) is the right answer.

Solution (d)

The main idea of the paragraph is conveyed in the last sentence: “Indeed, that movie scene exemplifies the so-called “CSI effect”—the phenomenon in which judges hold unrealistic expectations of the capabilities of forensic science.” Option d rephrases this. Also note that all other option are specific to voice recognition. The paragraph is more general and talks of forensic science.