PM has recently announced renaming of 3 islands of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago as a tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
The Ross Island was renamed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep, the Neil Island as Shaheed Dweep and the Havelock Island as Swaraj Dweep.
Ross Island is in the South Andaman region and 3km east from Port Blair.
Neil Island and Havelock Island is in Ritchie’s Archipelago.
Helium
Helium is the second most abundant element in the Universe, after Hydrogen.
Its abundance is due to the very high nuclear binding energy (per nucleon) of helium.
In its gaseous form, it is so light, and it escape from the Earth easily.
In one of the places, it is found is in volcanic lava plumes, such as seen in Iceland and Hawaii, originating from the Earth’s mantle.
This is ancient helium from when the Earth was formed.
It is believed to be trapped in compounds deep within the earth.
A team of researchers has come up with the possibility that the mantle helium must exist as the compound FeO2He.
The compound is stable and solid under the pressure and temperature conditions prevailing at those depths.
Researchers are using a crystal search algorithm to look at possible compounds containing helium.
It will solve the long-standing problem of where ancient helium is stored in the Earth.
Equatorial Geophysical Research Laboratory
Equatorial Geophysical Research Laboratory (EGRL), is a regional centre of the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG), Mumbai.
It is a multi-disciplinary centre with instruments to measure the Earth’s magnetic field variations and various atmospheric parameters.
It is trying to establish the teleconnection between distant regions of the atmosphere and their impact on regions up to 100 km height and beyond.
It is in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu and this facility has been continuously monitoring the Earth’s near-space environment for over 25 years.
Significance of the location - Tirunelveli is in close proximity to both the geomagnetic and geographic equator.
When winds blow, electric currents are expected to be produced in the electrically charged upper layers of the atmosphere across the geomagnetic field.
Over Tirunelveli and the adjoining regions, where the geomagnetic field is horizontal the current flowing primarily in the east–west direction would be enhanced.
Scientists call this current ‘Equatorial Electrojet’ and probing this helps scientists understand the Sun–Earth connection.
New facility – Another major experimental facility was recently set up to monitor secondary cosmic rays.
Secondary Cosmic Rays
They are produced from supernovae, colliding galaxies and spinning black holes.
When the cosmic rays from these sources enter the Earth’s atmosphere, it loses its energies through collisions with our atmospheric molecules.
As a result, it produces a cascade of subatomic particles known as secondary cosmic rays.
Himalayan Griffon Vultures
Himalayan Griffon Vultures is the largest of the genus Gyps.
It has been listed as “Near Threatened” under IUCN Red list of threatened species and under Appendix II in CITES.
Its habitat is mainly Terrestrial such as Rocky areas (eg. inland cliffs, mountain peaks) and Grassland.
It is distributed from western China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, east through the Himalayan mountain range in India, Nepal and Bhutan, to central China and Mongolia.
It has become an almost annual, but rare, winter visitor to Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Thai-Malay Peninsula.
The species population appears to be stable in Dehradun District, Uttarakhand.
The current population trend is stable, but it is suspected that it may undergo population decline over the next 3 generations.
It is mainly because of the impacts of diclofenac use in livestock.
The species was recently sighted at the famous vulture habitat Penchikalpet forest range in Telangana.
The significance of the sighting, the experts opined that Pala Rapu can become a winter migration destination for the birds from the north.
Chang’e-4
Chang'e 4 is a Chinese lunar exploration mission.
It incorporated an orbiter, a robotic lander and rover.
It is the world’s mission to land on the dark side of the moon.
The moon is tidally locked Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side (Dark side) is never visible from the Earth.
The probe has recently entered a planned orbit to prepare for the first ever soft landing on the far side of the moon.
It will explore the lunar surface in the south pole – Aitken basin, which is one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system.
