Water on the Moon

Again, India has held the world spellbound by it new discovery, the apearance of water on the Moon.The latest space mission by India got the biggest news of water on the moon.

A large amount of water on the Moon has been anticipated by the Chandrayaan -1. Chandrayaan -1 was the first space mission by India to visit and observe the Moon, it was launched in 2008, and was detached a month back as the communication lost with the base, people thought it's all over for the Chandrayaan -1, but no one ever thought of such a big breakthrough in the history of the Moon. The data showed that water exists and is still being formed on the Moon. This excellent achievement by the Indian Space Research Organization will help India to stand a side in the space race with China.

Water molecules found from Moon pebbles

It was a theory that the Moon had many seas but all of them are dried up.But it is now proved wrong. In a study published today in Nature, researchers led by Brown University geologist Alberto Saal found evidence of water molecules in pebbles retrieved by NASA's Apollo missions.The findings point to the existence of water deep beneath the moon's surface,transforming scientific understanding of our nearest neighbor's formation and, perhaps, our own."Water is important for lunar missions. People could get the water and use the hydrogen for energy," said Saal.

The pebbles were scattered by lunar volcanoes that erupted three billion years ago, when the Moon was still a cooling hunk of magma cast into orbit by the collision of a Mars-sized asteroid with the Earth.

For more information refer:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/water-found-on/

Kalpana Chawla

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• Kalpana Chawla grew up in Karnal , Haryana. Her dream was to be among the stars.With razor- sharp intellect, determination and hardwork, she turned her dreams to reality and became the first woman astronaut from India.Kalpana never allowed any hurdles to come into her way.She had said "I never thought while pursuing my studies, or doing anything else, about being a woman, or a person from a small city, or a different country. I pretty much had my dreams, like anybody else, and I followed them. She was considered to an outstanding engineer by her peers at NASA in USA. Kalpana kept strong ties with India and remained a simple, fun loving person deeply concerned about the environment.She is said to have found true inspiration and passion while soaring through the skies, high above the Earth. "Religion is something which gives you peace of mind," she said." And to me flying brings tremendous peace and satisfaction. So flying is my religion.Kalpana passes away on the morning of February 1, 2003 after the Columbia space shuttle exploded during re-entry over Texas. She always reached out to the stars, she went there and beyond. Hers is a story of unusual courage, ambition and achievement that will inspire young people for all time to come.

The heating up of the Sun

As it gets older , the Sun becomes more hotter.It's becoming 10% more luminous every billion years. It is so said that after a billion years the heat from the Sun will so intense that not even a drop of water will exist on the Earth. So scientists think that the very Sun which keeps life going right now will erase all forms of life from the Earth.

Ancient Light of the Sun

The light hitting the Earth right now is now 30 thousand years old.

The energy in the sunlight we see today started out in the core of the Sun 30,000 years ago-it spent most of its time passing through the dense atoms that make the Sun and just 8 minutes to reach us once it had left the Sun!

Aerogel

Aerogel ,the lightest known solid material was created by the American scientist and chemical engineer, Samuel Stephens Kistler in 1931. It is also known as frozen smoke, solid smoke and blue smoke. It consists of 99.8% air.It is the best known insulator(materials which do not conduct electricity)and can support 2000 times its own weight.The brick shown on the picture is kept on an Aerogel.