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Looking to the moon to meet energy needs THE moon, earth’s nearest celestial neighbour, may very well hold the key to meeting futuristic global energy needs in an eco-friendly manner. As stated by Prof. U. R. Rao, a former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Helium-3, brought from the moon, could be a source of clean, abundant and sustainable energy. Skull shows early man’s epic journey to Asia Trends Prof Yash
Pal THIS UNIVERSE
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Looking to the moon to meet energy needs THE moon, earth’s nearest celestial neighbour, may very well hold the key to meeting futuristic global energy needs in an eco-friendly manner. As stated by Prof. U. R. Rao, a former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Helium-3, brought from the moon, could be a source of clean, abundant and sustainable energy. “Solar energy at its current level of innovation is just too costly. Helium-3, if brought to the earth from the moon, can last for thousands of years,” says Prof. Rao. Not long back, the ISRO, which has an ambitious on-going lunar exploration programme, had hinted at the possibility of putting in place a project for lunar Helium-3 extraction and its transportation back to India. This was said to be part of India’s vision of remaining at the forefront of cutting edge space industrialisation technology. Helium-3, a light, stable and non-radioactive isotope of Helium, exists on the earth in very small quantities. The reason for this is not too far to seek. The atmosphere of the earth pushes back this isotope carried by the solar wind. Helium-3 on the earth is produced as a byproduct of the maintenance of nuclear weapons. Because of the lack of an earth-like atmosphere on the moon, Helium-3, carried by solar wind, gets deposited in regolith, the layer of rock and dust covering the moon. Although the existence of Helium-3 on the lunar surface has been verified by a number of lunar missions, extracting it from the lunar surface and transporting it back to the earth would be a challenging job involving a mind-boggling investment. To extract Helium-3 in quantities good enough for operating fusions reactors on the earth, millions of tonnes of lunar soil need to be screened and refined. Helium-3 would be separated from lunar soil by heating the soil mass to over 600 degree centigrade. For transporting the Helium-3 collected from the moon to the earth, a cost-efficient and technologically sound space transportation system capable of undertaking routine space journeys would need to be realised. Another tough task will be developing a spaceship to accommodate hardware and crew which need to be transported to the moon atop a space vehicle capable of generating massive thrust. Due to a mind-boggling investment, huge energy and complex technologies required to extract and transport Heluim-3 to the earth, it may not be a cost-effective energy source to begin with. However, it would be a clean and abundant energy source. For instance, 25 tonnes of Helium-3 could meet the entire energy needs of the US for a year. Spurred on by the existence of Helium-3 on the lunar surface, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced a plan to set up a permanent base on the moon by 2024. Japan and Germany too have evinced interest in lunar exploration in the backdrop of a kind of global race to extract Helium-3 from the lunar surface. Way back in 2006, Russian company Energia had said that it would set up a permanent base on the moon to harvest Helium-3 by 2020. Not to be left behind, China has unveiled an ambitious programme for exploitation of lunar resources, including Helium-3, by setting up a lunar base. “Helium-3 is considered a long-term, stable, safe, clean and cheap material for human beings and it is possible to get energy through controlled nuclear fusion experiments. China might need around 10 tonnes of Helium-3 a year to meet its energy needs,” says a Chinese space scientist. All said and done, the technology of fusion reactor designed to handle Helium-3 is still in the realm of future. But the biggest problem facing the space faring nations keen on extracting Helium-3 from lunar surface is the UN Treaty on Outer Space that considers the moon and its resources as the common heritage of the mankind. |
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Skull shows early man’s epic journey to Asia SCIENTISTS have unearthed the ancient skull of an anatomically-modern human from a jungle cave site in Laos, which they believe is the oldest known skeletal evidence of Homo sapiens in Asia. The skull has been dated to between 46,000 and 63,000 years old — at least 20,000 years older than the previous oldest fossil remnants of modern man in South-East Asia, suggesting that early humans successfully colonised distant parts of the world relatively soon after leaving Africa. The partially preserved skull includes the upper part of the brain case as well as jaw bone and teeth, which have the distinct anatomical characteristics of modern Homo sapiens such as high forehead, small brow-ridge and small front teeth, the scientists said. Anthropologists found the skull while excavating the Tam Pa Ling cave on the side of the Pa Hang Mountain, which forms part of the Annamite mountain range of northern Laos, between Vietnam and Thailand. Discovering such ancient remains of modern humans so far inland suggests that the first people to migrate from our African homeland explored far away from the suggested migratory routes that followed the coastline. Previous genetic studies have suggested that modern humans must have migrated across South-East Asia at least 60,000 years ago but this is the first fossil evidence to support this DNA data, said Laura Shackelford of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It’s a particularly old modern human fossil and it’s also a particularly old modern human for that region,” Dr Shackelford said. Other fossil bones of modern Homo sapiens have been found in China or other parts of South-East Asia, but they have either not been accurately dated or they do not contain unequivocal features of modern humans, she added. The earliest evidence of modern H. sapiens outside Africa are fossils from the Levant region of the Middle East dated to between 80,000 and 100,000 years ago. Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said the skull was important because it shows that modern humans had colonised Asia at least 50,000 years ago. —
The Independent
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Trends WASHINGTON: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is likely to shrink to a record small size sometime next week, and then keep on melting, a scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said. “A new daily record ... would be likely by the end of August,” said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the data center, which monitors ice in the Arctic and elsewhere. “Chances are it will cross the previous record while we're still in sea ice retreat.” Mars rover Curiosity aces first test drive CAPE CANAVERAL,
Florida: NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took a 16-minute drive on Wednesday, its first since reaching the Red Planet to search for habitats that could have supported microbial life. The $2.5-billion, two-year mission, NASA’s first astrobiology initiative since the 1970s-era Viking probes, kicked off on August 6, with a risky but successful landing on at a site NASA has named “Bradbury Landing,” a nod to the late science fiction author and space aficionado Ray Bradbury. — Reuters
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THIS UNIVERSE Can the recently discovered 'God particle' help solve the mystery of the origin of the earth? The so-called ‘God particle’ could have been invoked by physicists independent of whether the earth existed or not. The concerns and hopes were much deeper. One was hopeful that one of the basic requirements of a model to explain the character and properties of the universe might lie in a discovery like this. I do not know whether that objective has been achieved. We have to wait quite a while before certainty appears, if ever! Why do we move our arms while walking? Our arms and legs contain substantial parts of our body mass. When we walk, the left and the right legs are moved alternately; this is an essential requirement for walking. In order to compensate for the downward force on one of the sides, our body automatically moves other suitable parts of the body in a synchronous manner. These suitable parts are the arms at the other sides of the legs being moved. This appears to me the simplest explanation for your observation. I am sure more detailed understanding is possible, including the physical and unconscious feedback systems that operate to keep the strain of walking minimum. I am sure some of the readers can be of
help.
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