Science and Technology MCQ Set 39
Showing question 191 to 195 of total 301 MCQs
MCQ Set: 39
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Question No: 191
ISRO satellite chips are set to alert people at ___________ rail crossings.
- Manned
- Unmanned
- Rural
- Urban
Answer and Explanation
Answer: B
Explanation
ISRO’s satellite-based chips are set to alert people at unmanned rail crossings.
Satellite-based chip systems developed by ISRO will be used to alert road users at unmanned level crossings about approaching trains.
These chips will also help the railways in tracking train movement on a real-time basis. Initially, on a pilot basis the ISRO-developed integrated circuit (IC) chips will be installed in the Mumbai and Guwahati Rajdhani trains.
Hooters will be installed at 20 unmanned level crossings on Rajdhani routes for Guwahati and Mumbai.
The system will warn the road users by hooters once a train approaches an unmanned level. The hooters will get activated when the train is present at a distance of about 500 metres from the level crossing, warning both road users as well as the train driver near the crossing.
The sound of the hooters will become louder as the level crossing nears, and finally it will become silent after the passage of the train.
In a phased manner, more trains would be equipped with the ISRO-developed integrated circuit (IC) chips.
The satellite based system will also be used for tracking trains about their movement on real time basis. It will be useful to passengers as at present the movement of trains are tracked manually.
Safety at Unmanned Crossings: Know More
Safety at unmanned level crossings is a matter of concern for the Indian Railways as around 40% of accidents involving the railways happen in unmanned crossings.
India has a total 10,000 unmanned railway crossings in the country.
The railways has set a target for eliminating all the railway crossings in the next 2-3 years. It has eliminated 1,148 unmanned crossings in 2014-15 and 1,253 in 2015-16.
The new technology will also help Indian railways at the time of train accidents as it can be used to get details about the exact location of trains and topography.
Question No: 192
What is the Mars like object lurking in the outer reaches of earth's solar system called?
- Planet 9
- Planet 11
- lanet 13
- Planet 10
Answer and Explanation
Answer: D
Explanation
A mysterious, unseen ‘Planet 10’ may be lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system, say scientists, including one of Indian origin, who have found evidence of a Mars-like object that could be orbiting our Sun.
This object would be different from, and much closer than, the Planet Nine - whose existence yet awaits confirmation.
Researchers, including Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona in the U.S., found compelling evidence of a yet-to-be-discovered planetary body with a mass somewhere between that of Mars and Earth.
The mysterious mass has given away its presence only by controlling the orbital planes of a population of space rocks known as Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) in the icy outskirts of the solar system.
While most KBOs - debris left over from the formation of the solar system - orbit the Sun with orbital tilts that average out to the invariable plane of the solar system, the most distant of the Kuiper Belt’s objects do not.
Their average plane is tilted away from the invariable plane by about eight degrees, researchers said.
This means something unknown is warping the average orbital plane of the outer solar system
Question No: 193
What is the world's lightest satellite called?
- Kalamsat
- CARTOSAT
- ASTROSAT
- TD SAT
Answer and Explanation
Answer: A
Explanation
On 21st June 2017, India once again broke a global space record by launching the world's lightest satellite weighing a mere 64 grams, called Kalamsat.
It was designed and developed not by professional space scientists and engineers, but by 18-year-old Tamil Nadu student Rifath Sharook and his team.
The tiny satellite, named after Abdul Kalam, was flown by a Nasa sounding rocket and the lift-off was from the space agency's Wallop Island facility around 3pm (IST).
Kalam had his training in the sounding rocket programme at Wallops Island in the '60s. Kalamsat was the only Indian payload in the mission.
Mission director Srimathy Kesan announced total flight time of the rocket was 240 minutes and the satellite, assembled at her T.Nagar residence in Chennai, separated from the rocket 125 minutes after lift-off.
Kalamsat fell into the sea for safe landing.
It will be recovered and Nasa will be sending it back to India for decoding the data.
The previous Nasa mission from Wallops got postponed because of weather and India was able to launch successfully today.
This one-of-its kind satellite, which can be held in one's palm is a 3.8cm cube and its structure is fully 3-D printed with reinforced carbon fibre polymer.
It is equipped with a nano Geiger Muller counter which will measure radiation in space.
It is the only cube to be converted into a satellite in this mission.
Question No: 194
Which space telescope has spotted 219 potential planets in June 2017?
- James Webb
- Suberano
- Kepler
- None of the above
Answer and Explanation
Answer: C
Explanation
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has spotted 219 new potential planets, among which at least 10 are almost the same size as that of the Earth with conditions suitable to host life.
The new data brings the total number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to 4034, of which 2335 have been verified as exoplanets.
So far, around 50 planets have been detected by Kepler that fall in the habitable zone and are close to the size of the Earth, among which more than 30 have been verified.
The new data is the most comprehensive and detailed catalogue release of potential exoplanets from Kepler’s first four years of data.
Exoplanets are planets that are located outside our solar system.
The data is also the final catalogue from the spacecraft’s view of the patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation.
This data will enable scientists to determine what planetary populations – from rocky bodies the size of Earth, to gas giants the size of Jupiter – make up the galaxy’s planetary demographics.
One research group used the Kepler data to make precise measurements of thousands of planets, the results of which suggest two distinct size groupings of small planets.
The team found a clean division in the sizes of rocky, Earth-size planets and gaseous planets smaller than Neptune.
Few planets falling between the groupings were also found.
The results have significant implications for the search for life.
The Kepler space telescope hunts for planets by detecting the change in a star’s brightness, as it drops when a planet is transiting from its front.
The final Kepler catalogue will serve as the foundation for further study to determine the prevalence and demographics of planets in the galaxy.
Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near Earth-analogues – planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth. Detecting planets in the galaxy will in turn help form the design of future NASA missions to directly image another Earth.
Question No: 195
China is planning to send mini ecosystems to the moon containing which of these?
- potato seeds
- Silkworm eggs
- All of the above
- None of the above
Answer and Explanation
Answer: C
Explanation
In a first, China is planning to send mini-ecosystems - containing potato seeds and silkworm eggs - to the Moon next year, in an attempt to study how the organisms develop on the lunar surface.
The 3-kilogramme mini-ecosystem, developed by research teams led by Chongqing University in China, will be sent to the Moon by the Chang’e 4 scheduled to launch in 2018, authorities announced at the Global Space Exploration Conference.
An 18-centimetre-tall cylinder will carry potato seeds and silkworm eggs to be incubated.
The silkworms will hatch and create carbon dioxide, while the potato plants will generate oxygen, with the aim of the mission to prepare for future moon landings and possible human inhabitants.
China is planning a manned mission to the Moon, and officials have announced that the preliminary preparations for the lunar landing have begun.