Science and Technology Current Affairs February 2016

Beijing had Declared its First Ever Red Alert for Pollution

1) China’s capital Beijing has issued a red alert for air pollution for the first time ever on December 7, 2015, with a heavy cloud of dangerous smog blanketing the city.

2) It was remain enforced at a point where the air is expected to clear with the arrival of a forecasted cold front.

3) Beijing’s real-time air quality index is close to 300 micrograms on the PM2.5 scale, which measures fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less.

4) They are particularly dangerous to inhale since they can lodge in a person’s lungs.

5) Globally, carbon dioxide emissions are projected to hit a standstill this year and may even see a slight drop, and China says it will play its part in reducing its own emissions.

New $ 500 Million Initiative to Boost Large Scale Climate Action

1) Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland announced a new $ 500 million initiative on November 30, 2015 that will find new ways to create incentives aimed at large scale cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries to combat climate change.

2) The Transformative Carbon Asset Facility will help developing countries implement their plans to cut emissions by working with them to create new classes of carbon assets associated with reduced greenhouse gas emission reductions, including those achieved through policy actions.

3)The facility will measure and pay for emission cuts in large scale programs in areas like renewable energy, transport, energy efficiency, solid waste management, and low carbon cities. The World Bank Group worked with the countries to develop the initiative.

Space

China Launched Highly Sophisticated Satellite to Orbit Earth

1) China sent a highly sophisticated Earth-observation satellite, Gaofen-4, to space on December 28, 2015 which is China’s first HD optical imaging satellite in a geosychronous orbit.

2)Gaofen-4 is part of a much larger Gaofen project that aims to launch seven high-definition observation satellites before 2020.

3)The high-definition optical equipment on Gaofen-4 is powerful enough that it can capture an oil tanker traveling on the sea. It has a large CMOS camera that is considered one of the best in imaging for a global high-orbit remote sensing satellite.

4)The main purpose of the satellite will be for disaster prevention, as well as relief. The satellite is expected to complete surveillance of geological disasters as well as forest anomalies and, also, the usual meteorological forecast.

SpaceX Delayed Launch and Landing Test of Falcon 9 Rocket

1)The commercial two stage Falcon 9 booster carrying a SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft heading to the ISS on a critical resupply mission for NASA was unexpectedly destroyed by an overpressure event 139 seconds after a picture flawless blastoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on June 28, 2015.

2) After the rocket’s payload is delivered, Elon Musk and company will try yet again to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9. The latest-and-modified Falcon 9 launched on December 27, 2015 is now 229.6 ft in height and can generate up to 1.7 million pounds of thrust, which is a measurement unit for rocket power.

3) SpaceX successfully launched the constellation’s first six OG2 satellites in 2014. This will be the first SpaceX launch following the explosion of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

China Launched Satellite to Shed Light on Mysterious Dark Matter

1) China sent into space its first space telescope on December 24, 2015 in a fresh search for smoking-gun signals of dark matter, invisible material that scientists say makes up most of the universe’s mass.

2)The Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) Satellite, nicknamed Wukong after the Monkey King with penetrating eyes in the Chinese classical fiction Journey to the West, was blasted off on a Long March 2-D rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

3)It will enter a sun-synchronous orbit at a height of 500 km to observe the direction, energy and electric charge of high-energy particles in space.

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