SciGaze Group

 Meteorites are known to have a wide range of materials due to their extreme environment. They are under constant heat, pressure and gravitational force. Hence it is possible to have rare materials on it, which might not be on the Earth. These all make them the perfect target to search superconductors. Meteorites are chemically inhomogeneous, which means they have non-uniform chemical composition. The superconductivity in meteorites might not be permanent. It can last for few minutes also. This makes the search for superconductivity even more difficult. To overcome this difficulty the astronomers have developed ultrasensitive MFMMS (Magnetic Field Modulated Microwave Spectroscopy). The MFMMS is a technique to measure superconductivity very precisely. Sensitivity is the key feature of this technique. This makes astronomers possible to measure superconductivity which lasted for a very short time. MFMMS is also used to detect the superconductivity in many alloys and bulk materials apa...

 In 2008, a giant red star appeared on the horizon of its life. A heavy star like this is born 25 times the mass of the Sun, had to come out with a boom of firelight known as a supernova, millions or billions of times brighter than our Sun. But this star refused to play the role of the drama queen. Instead, it just emits a little light, then disappeared, perhaps leaving a black hole. No one has ever seen one of these huge red stars dying quietly in the past. It was a sign that the lives and death of these stars are even more complicated than our simple ideas. "As amazing and important and fun and exciting as this is, it's not surprising," said Stan Woosley at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In fact, the discovery may be helpful in explaining why big stars in computer models often fail to explode. A popular theory holds that almost all stars born more than eight times the size of the Sun ends up in supernovae. When the star is young, it shines brightly and blue. ...

The dust of the moon is not the same as the dust that settles on a bookshelf or on a table. It is so bad that it even broke NASA's vacuum designed to clean up the Moondust with Apollo planes. With NASA's return to the Moon and its orbit, it will have to carry the dust, which is also dangerous to humans. The first step is to know how close you are at any given time. Efforts to do that are already paying off on Earth, in the fight against air pollution. Apollo's machines fought hard to deal with the damage caused by the moon's dust. It turned off the camera and scratched the helmet making it hard for astronauts to see.  Apollo 17 astronaut, Harrison Schmitt described his reaction to lunar dust as “moon hay fever,” with a sore throat. The symptoms went away, but concern about human health is the reason behind NASA's research on lunar soil. Sensitive issues such as lungs will be damaged by the dust of the moon trapped inside the living space. While air filters can remov...

  Mars, our only hope for survival if we wanted to leave the Earth. It is the neighbour planet of Earth and the second smallest planet in the solar system. The Red Planet got everyone's attention when water was discovered on it. Today, water is present only at the North Pole in form of ice caps and beneath the carbon dioxide caps. Apart from water, the Martian atmosphere is the only suitable place to live, apart from the Earth. A very minute quantity of vapour is present in the Martian atmosphere. More than 5 million cubic km of ice is present on the surface of Mars. Hence it is possible to create an artificial lake or sea on Mars by melting those ice caps. There is no existence of liquid water on Mars. However, it is believed that a few million years ago, rivers were flowing on the Martian surface.  Timeline of Water on Mars: A few million years ago, Martian soil was thriving with liquid water. Evidence of flowing water (i.e river) and lakes were found during several studies....

                         Image Credit: NASA/Carla Thomas  The first patent of the telescope was recorded in 1608. After that many improvements have been made in the telescopes. Today we have telescopes of all sizes. Telescopes about the size of a car or a bus are successfully launched in the outer orbit. Telescopes are also sent to distant planets like Mars, Jupiter, Saturn etc. The Voyager duo has even crossed the solar system. Large telescopes are also installed on the land, bigger than a building. Today, telescopes are successfully installed in aeroplanes. The flight would take off and will complete its observation while in the air and finally gets landed after completing the observation. Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a joint mission by NASA and German Aerospace Center (DLR). SOFIA is basically a telescope of 2.5 m diameter installed in Boeing 747SP. It is not the first time ...

We all have our routines. But ever thought what routine do astronauts follow while at ISS. Living and working at zero gravity is not easy. During their mission, astronauts face a completely different environment. Also, it is not easy to make our body work in zero gravity. Body movements are changed completely in order to work in zero gravity. While on Earth we are free to eat any food we like and want, but above at the ISS astronauts are not. Special diets and foods are prepared for them. A special bathroom is also created on the ISS.  It costs NASA around $10,000 to supply a bottle of water to astronauts at ISS. Now with the use of the new Falcon 9 rocket, it costs $2,700 to supply a kilogram of food or other material to the ISS. So, astronauts must work with a limited supply of food and water. There are special arrangements made at the ISS for astronauts to brush, shave, wash their hair etc.  (1) Eating in ISS: Having your dinner in a laboratory that is 400 km above the land...

  Extrasolar planets or simply exoplanets are planets found outside the solar system. These are very interesting bodies as they have the same routine as our home planet ie orbiting the centre star. However, there are many exoplanets that do not orbit any star. They are known as Rogue planets. There are possibly more than a billion rogue planets in the Milky Way. Exoplanets were first predicted in 1917 but were not discovered till 1992. Many exoplanets were discovered to have the same composition as the Earth. Hence there might be possible of life there (here life may include small microbes and not giant aliens as seen in fiction). There are about 11 billion habitable Earth-like exoplanets in the Milky Way.  Till now 4,719 exoplanets are discovered, out of the 772 were part of a system (like the Solar System) having at least three planets. If we want to find extraterrestrial life then exoplanets are the way to find them. If there are 11 billion habitable exoplanets in our home ...

Many of us have heard or read about astronomical objects whose official names are starting with NGC, like NGC 1976, NGC 1952 etc. But what actually this NGC means? NGC is one of the most historic catalogues of deep space objects ever created in history. The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (NGC) is a list of deep space astronomical objects created by John Dreyer. This catalogue has 7,840 astronomical objects listed including galaxies, nebulae, black holes, clusters etc. It's obvious that Dreyer himself has not discovered all the 7,840 objects. The journey was started many years ago by William Herschel and his sister Caroline. They both located and observed more than 1000 objects in the deep space. They published the first catalogue which contained around 2500 objects. John Herschel, Willian's son also located and discovered many astronomical objects. He catalogued objects even more than his father's discovery. He published his catalogue which contains ...

Charles Messier and his assistant Pierre Mechain were the astronomers who created this catalogue. Charles never intended to create a specific catalogue like this. All he wanted was to find different comets inside the solar system. But there were many outer solar system objects which blocked his way and make it difficult for him to locate the comets. He created a list of 45 such astronomical objects which blocked his search for comets. Eventually, that list was found out to have some of the most amazing astronomical objects, far more interesting than the comets. He published that list in 1774, which became well known as the Messier Catalogue. The first version of the catalogue published in 1774 contained 45 objects (M1 to M45). 18 were discovered by Messier himself and the rest were already known. By 1780, he added 25 new objects, so the second version of the catalogue now has a total of 70 objects. The final version, published in 1781, the catalogue had a total of 103 objects. 7 new ob...

               In the last few decades, the expansion of the Universe has been a topic to debate for astronomers. When we talk about expanding the universe many questions arises in our mind like why it is expanding, evidence of its expansion, what makes it expand, how fast it is expanding. Many theories have been proposed to determine the actual reason behind expanding universe.               Theoretically, the expansion of the universe was proven by Hubble's Law which says that galaxies are moving away from the Earth with velocities proportional to their distance. Mathematically, the expansion was proven by the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric. The FLRW metric is an exact solution of the field equation of general relativity proposed by Albert Einstein. It says that the universe, which is isotropic, homogenous and expanding is path-connected. Another way to prove the expansion of the universe ...