Space, Science and Technology

  Back in 2013, SpaceX made a huge announcement that they were going to try land their Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth. To multiply the complexity of this idea manifolds, they were going to try landing it on a floating drone ship in the middle of the ocean. Strange thing like this had never been done before and at the time, it seemed like an impossible mission but if it was accomplished successfully, it would be a massive step forward for rocket reusability. Thus, SpaceX started experimenting with various test vehicles to learn how to land a rocket. Few year later after going through many failures and blasts, SpaceX finally made the impossible, possible. Five years on from that historic first landing, the iconic sight of a Falcon 9 landing has become normal as they do it on a regular basis. Gaining experience from so many launches they had done in past five years, they had perfected their design and this had helped them save 1.4 billion dollars in last five years! Every time they reuse a

 As habitants of Earth, we have become quite aware of our planet's mortality, and for the most part, we’ve accepted it. Would that mean we need to accept humanity’s mortality? Or is it even possible to live the lives of our science fiction stories and have human colonies all over the universe? A good place to start would be our small red neighbour Mars. In this read, we will explore 5 questions and its answers on Terraforming Mars, including the challenges, the ethics, and if it's even possible to do so. Why is Mars an attractive planet compare to the others? First and foremost, Mars is the ideal candidate for expanding humanity simply because it is our closest neighbour, but the planet also has some other attractive features that make it ideal. Mars is actually on the border of the extended habitable zone, which means liquid water on the surface could be supported if the atmospheric pressure could be increased. This fact makes it the most Earth-like planet within our known sol

  People always wonder why are we still stuck with chemical rockets. Burning of hydrogen or kerosene to generate thrust is the best we can do? Well that's not the case, there are other exotic science fiction-sounding propulsion systems have already been developed which use electromagnetic fields to accelerate atoms, allowing their spacecraft to accelerate for months at a time. I’m talking about ion engines and several spacecraft have already used these ion thrusters to perform some of the most amazing missions in the exploration of the Solar System.  Why Not Chemically Propelled Rockets ? I know, chemical rockets seem really primitive. Take tonnes of liquid or solid or maybe hybrid fuels sometimes, burn it with an oxidizer, and then use the speed of the explosive gases as a in the opposite direction. Thanks Newton’s Third Law. But chemical rockets do the jon. Those gases do give  rocket the kick it needs to get into space. Because the rockets bring their own oxidizer with them, the

On 28th of August, 1859, in the night the skies around the globe lit up with spectacular displays of light. In few places the sky glowed red as if it were  reflecting a huge wildfire. For almost a week skies around the globe illuminated so brightly that it was possible to read a newspaper at even at midnight. Everywhere, people gathered and gazed the sky, terrified and  in equal measure. The major chunk of people had no clue of what they were witnessing, and could only assume that it was a portent of the end of the world. Reports exist from many different countries of the strange phenomena that could be seen during the whole week which followed the 28th of August, 1859. In Boston, the sky glowed red to such a degree that many who witnessed it believed that there was a fire burning over the horizon, at least until the red transmuted to a vivid green. The effect was almost bewildering, and was witnessed with mingled feelings of awe and delight by thousands. At the same time as the heaven

 Since the beginning of human existence, materials have been fundamental to the development of society. Few materials had been so important for the development of society that those eras are named after materials like the Stone Age, Copper Age, Bronze Age, etc as they were in extensive use in those times due to their availability. Nowadays all different types of materials, structural and building materials such as metals, ceramics, and polymers are the most widely used  Cellulose nanofibers are linear polymer, which exhibits high stiffness and strength (Young's modulus of CNF is up to 130GPa) due to the extensive inter-and intramolecular hydrogen bonds between the molecules. CNF has a diameter of about 3 nm and lengths in the micron-scale showing both crystalline and amorphous sections They are extremely thin fibres. They have a very unique type of viscosity, to be transparent, lightweight, and strong durable, and to change very little in shape due to temperature variations. Cellul

We humans are always excited to learn about planets, galaxies, stars, asteroids, and what’s there deep in space. This urge for exploration has led us to execute many successful space missions. These all have become possible due to technical advancements but the people had already imagined some stories and concepts set in space and those narratives are space operas. Let's look into our space opera universe which is made up of trillions of superclusters in which there is a tiny cluster called VIRGO supercluster, and a supercluster is made up of trillions of clusters among which there is a small cluster called  VIRGO cluster, a cluster is made up of several galaxies in which there is a galaxy called MILKY WAY, a galaxy is made up of several solar systems of which there is our solar system which has eight planets and a star called the sun, amongst these eight planets there our planet called EARTH where we are living. Millions of years ago, our universe took birth. From birth to now, it

Graphene was first demonstrated by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, two physicists from the University of Manchester, in 2004 for which they had won Noble Price in 2010. Scientists argued that strictly 2 dimensional crystalline materials were thermodynamically unstable and could not exist. Graphene is a single layer (monolayer) of carbon atoms, closely bound in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. It is an allotrope of carbon in the form of a plane of sp2-bonded atoms (though carbon has a valency of four, due to similar reasons as that of graphite as it is derived from it) with a molecular bond length of 0.142 nanometres. Strength of Graphene Layers of graphene stacked on top of each other form graphite, with an interplanar spacing of 0.335 nanometres, these layers are held by Van der Waals force. The separate layers of graphene in graphite are held together by Van der Waals forces, which can be overcome during exfoliation of graphene from graphite. There are about 30,00,000 layers of g

Solid-state battery technology uses solid electrodes and electrolytes instead of liquid or polymer gel electrolytes which are found in lithium-ion or lithium-polymer batteries. Using the solid electrolyte,these batteries produce some solid performance gains over the lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries.  Firstly, a solid can be more stable than a liquid in the batteries. Thus solid-state batteries can operate at much higher temperatures. Therefore we can pump a lot more power into it while charging, decreasing its charging time. Whereas a lithium-ion or polymer battery is highly flammable because of which many times the mobile phones have blasted causing severe injuries and even death. You might have seen the power rating of your mobile charger and wonder why can't we increase it and charge it faster, it's due to its flammable property. Solid-state batteries are going to end this issue.  In lithium ion or polymer batteries , over time solid structure called dentrites are f

  With the ever-increasing cost of gasoline prices, automakers  are having to work overtime to cost-effectively  improve the fuel economy, while still meeting  the strict emission requirements of today with  gasoline engines.  An ideal and promising way to boost the fuel economy  of gas engines is to add hydrogen to the fuel /air mixture in the engine. Since hydrogen   isn’t available at the local gas station, selling  a  hydrogen boosted gas engine wasn’t on the list  of  engines – until now. Lack of emission A major economical and environmental advantage to hydrogen   boosted gas engines are low amounts of NOx emission  gas , which will completely remove the need for  external  NOx emissions control system. Currently, NOx  emissions  control is a major cost problem for diesel  engines  that use expensive traps to meet the  emission  standards. Diesel engine particulate  emissions  must be collected by a filter that  should  be changed periodically. Hydrogen boosted engines on the oth