NASA’s Juno spacecraft completes fourth flyby of Jupiter

• NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft completed closest flyby of Jupiter mysterious cloud tops for the fourth time. All eight of Juno’s science instruments were switched on during the flyby.
•  During its closest approach it was roughly 4,300 km above Jupiter’s cloud tops and traveled at a speed of about 208,000 kmph.
•  Currently, Juno is locked in a 53-day orbit around Jupiter. It is expected to perform three dozen flybys over the next one and a half years.
•  During its flybys, Juno probes beneath the cloud cover of Jupiter and studies Jupiter’s auroras to learn more about its origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere
• Juno was launched in August 2011 to study Jupiter’s composition and evolution. It’s the first solar power spacecraft to orbit Jupiter and second after Galileo. 
• The unmanned spacecraft had successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit in July 2016 after a five year journey and traversing distance of nearly 2 billion miles. 
• The primary goals of the mission are to find out whether Jupiter has a solid core, how its atmosphere and magnetosphere formed, and whether there is water in the gas cloud shrouding the planet.
•  The information gathered from it will provide vital clues to how the planet formed and evolved, but also to how the solar system we live in came into existence. 
• The spacecraft has been named after the Roman goddess Juno, the wife of Jupiter who is considered as the god of the sky in ancient Greco-Roman mythology.

India-US joint expedition discovers natural gas in Indian Ocean

Joint expeditions by India and the United States have discovered large, highly enriched accumulations of natural gas hydrate (an icy form of the fuel) in Indian Ocean. 

The discovery was made by the Union Oil Ministry and the US Geological Survey in the Bay of Bengal. It was the result of the most comprehensive gas hydrate field venture in the world to date that comprised of scientists from India, Japan and the US.

Significance 

This is the first of its kind discovery in the Indian Ocean that has the potential to be producible and opens up a new resource to meet needs of energy hungry India. The discovery will help unlock the global energy resource potential of gas hydrates as well as help define the technology needed to safely exploit (extract) them. 

What are Natural gas hydrates? 

• Natural gas hydrates are a naturally occurring, ice-like combination of natural gas and water. 
• They are mainly found in oceans and Polar Regions. Gas hydrates are considered as vast resources of natural gas. They are known to occur in marine sediments on continental shelf margins. 
• Composition: By nature Gas hydrates is mostly methane (CH4). Methane gas hydrate is most stable at the seafloor at water depths beneath about 500 meters. 

Distribution of Gas hydrates 

• The amount of gas within the world’s gas hydrate accumulations is estimated to greatly exceed the volume of all known conventional gas resources.
• In India, gas hydrate resources are estimated at 1,894 trillion cubic meters (tcm) and these deposits occur in Eastern, Western and Andaman offshore areas. 
• It is postulated that gas hydrate deposits along ocean margins are estimated to exceed known petroleum reserves by a factor of three.

India, South Africa sign MoUs in four areas of co-operation

India and South Africa have signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) and agreements in four areas of bilateral co-operation. 

These MoUs were signed in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Jacob Juma in Pretoria, South Africa. 

PM Narendra Modi Modi had arrived in South Africa from Mozambique on the second leg of his four-nation tour of Africa. 

Signed agreements 

• MoU on Tourism. 
• MoU on Grass root innovation (Science and Technology) 
• MoU on Information and Communication technology (ICT). 
• Both countries also signed Programme of Cooperation in Arts and Culture. 

Besides, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had one to one talk with the South African President Jacob Juma on various issues. Both countries have agreed to cooperate in combating terrorism, regionally and globally. They also focused on enhancing business and investment ties further in areas of minerals, mining, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. India also thanked the South African President for support to India’s NSG membership.

SpaceX successfully launches two commercial satellites

US based private space transport service company SpaceX successfully launched two commercial satellites viz. EUTELSAT 117 West B and ABS-2A. 

They were launched using SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket which had lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, US. This mission was SpaceX’s second dual-satellite launch.

Key facts 

• These two commercial satellites are operated by Eutelsat and ABS companies respectively. 
• They are geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) satellites that seek to provide global communications services to their users. 
• However in this mission, the reusable rocket was lost before it could land on a drone ship platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket: It is a two-stage rocket powered by liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants. It is basically used for the reliable and safe transport of satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit.

Scientists unveil synthetic Human Genome Project-Write

A group of scientists from United States recently proposed an ambitious project named as Human Genome Project-Write (HGP-Write) to create a genetic blueprint or synthetic human genome. 

The project aims to develop technologies to more efficiently and more cheaply write DNA (synthetic genome) and test it in cells in the laboratory within 10 years.

Key Facts 

The objective HGP-Write is to write the genetic code (DNA of life) rather than reading the genetic code. 

The project envisions on the same scale as the Human Genome Project-Read (HGP-Read) which had sequenced human genome in 2003. 

HGP-Write seeks to reduce the cost of engineering DNA segments synthetically in the laboratory. 

It also aims at improving the ability to chemically manufacture DNA, with one of the goals being to synthetically create an entire human genome. 

Potential applications: Growing transplantable human organs, engineering cancer resistance, engineering immunity to viruses and accelerating vaccine & drug development using human cells and organs. 

Concerns 

This project raises concern over the extent to which human life can or should be engineered. It also raises troubling ethical concerns as this project has potential of creating children with no biological parents.