Oldest solid material on Earth discovered
Why in news?
- Scientists have discovered the oldest solid material ever found on the Earth, in the form of stardust trapped inside a meteorite that crashed into Australia 50 years ago and predates the formation of our solar system.
Key facts
- This stardust provides evidence for a ‘baby boom’ of new stars that formed 7 billion years ago, contrary to the theory that star formation happens at a steady, constant rate. The materials the researchers examined are called presolar grains.
- Presolar grains are interstellar solid matter in the form of tiny solid grains that originated at a time before the Sun was formed. Presolar stardust grains formed within outflowing and cooling gases from earlier presolar stars.
- These bits of stardust became trapped in meteorites where they remained unchanged for billions of years, making them capsules of the cosmic time before the solar system.
- However, presolar grains are very tiny and rare, found only in about five per cent of meteorites that have fallen to the Earth. Since presolar grains are formed when a star dies, they can tell us about the history of stars.
HCFC-141 b
Why in news?
- India has successfully achieved the complete phase out of Hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC)-141 b, which is a chemical used by foam manufacturing enterprises and one of the most potent ozone depleting chemical after Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
Key facts
- (HCFC)-141 b is used mainly as a blowing agent in the production of rigid polyurethane (PU) foams.
- India has consciously chosen a path for environment friendly and energy efficient technologies while phasing out Ozone Depleting Substances (ODSs).
- Importantly, India is one among the few countries globally and a pioneer in some cases in the use of technologies, which are non-Ozone Depleting and have a low Global Warming Potential (GWP).
- India had proactively and successfully taken the challenge of complete phase out of Hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC)-141 b, which is a chemical used by foam manufacturing enterprises by 1.1.2020.
Benefits:
- The phase out of HCFC-141b from the country has twin environmental benefits viz.
- assisting the healing of the stratospheric ozone layer,and
- towards the climate change mitigation due to transitioning of foam manufacturing enterprises at this scale under HPMP to low global warming potential alternative technologies.
SIS-DP PROJECT
Why in news?
- Union Minister of State for Department of Space inaugurated the ‘National Workshop on Space based Information Support for Decentralised Planning (SISDP)-update.’ He also launched the Bhuvan Panchayat V 3.0 web portal in Bengaluru.
About:
- ISRO had launched ‘SISDP’ project to assist gram panchayats at grassroots level with basic planning inputs
derived from satellite data for preparing developmental plans, its implementation and monitoring of activities. - National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), located in Hyderabad, is the lead centre to execute the project. NSRC is one of the centres of ISRO.
- SISDP phase-I project was successfully concluded in 2016-17. Based on the experience of SISDP phase-I, ‘SISDP-Update’ has been initiated.
- The geodatabase, products and services prepared under this project are expected to be disseminated through Bhuvan geoportal, an easy to use Geo portal developed for database visualization, data analytics etc. for the benefit of Gram Panchayat members and other stake holders.