News on Science, Technology and Research in India
“Instead of retro-fitting an existing vehicle, we thought we would build one up from scratch, especially because the design is so important for an electric vehicle. Each design has been conceived, analysed, prototyped and the cycle repeated many times before the actual product came out,” said Prof. Racherla.
His prototype device employs radiative cooling, the phenomenon that makes buildings and parks feel cooler than the surrounding air after sunset. As Raman’s device releases heat, it does so unevenly, the top side cooling more than the bottom. It then converts the difference in heat into electricity. In the paper, Raman described how the device, when connected to a voltage converter, was able to power a white LED.
The nano-chip fabricated by team of scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati is enzyme-free and can be used for hydrogen peroxide detection. Researchers used peroxidase activity of gold to detect hydrogen peroxide, and plated gold on indium tin oxide plate which is used for performing scanning electron microscopy in laboratories but discarded after one use.
The importance of hydrogen gas has grown in recent times because of its promise as a clean energy source. However, there are major challenges – hydrogen gas is difficult to produce and it is hard to detect if it leaks. Since it is highly inflammable, leaks can be catastrophic if not detected immediately.
“We have found the location of Vikram lander on lunar surface and orbiter has clicked a thermal image of the lander,” said Sivan. “But there is no communication yet. We are trying to have contact. We do not know if the Vikram module was damaged during the hard-landing on the lunar surface.”
The new algorithm is more efficient in searching compatibility between ride-orders. Called “Share” (Sharing with History-Aware Route Recommendations), it finds routes beyond shortest paths and recommends a route that is close in length to the shortest path and offers higher chance of finding a compatible ride-order.
The mission was announced on August 15, 2018, and the first selection round has been completed in just over a year at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM), a part of the Indian Air Force (IAF), in Bengaluru.
BENGALURU: International space experts and media around the world on Saturday called the communication loss with Vikram lander a “partial loss” and said “all is not lost” as the orbiter with key scientific instruments on board is still circling Moon’s orbit.
The powered descent, which India will attempt for the first time, was described as “fifteen minutes of terror” by the ISRO chairperson K Sivan. “It will be a terrifying moment for us. Everybody’s eyes would be glued to their consoles. The telemetry parameters will keep telling us that we are going in the right direction, but at the same time, there will be a lot of anxiety about what will happen in the next moment,” ISRO chairperson K Sivan
The separation of Vikram, which is set for soft landing on September 7 on the lunar surface along with rover ‘Pragyan’, was carried out at 1.15 pm and all systems of Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and the lander were healthy, it said.
