Rare earth elements

 a set of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table — the 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium.

• The 17 rare earths are cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y).
• One of the rare earths, promethium, is radioactive.

Kiruna mine in Sweden, where the deposits have been found.

Space Mission

 Juice mission

• European Space Agency (ESA)
• Jupiter Icy  Moons Explorer mission in April 2023
• Moons: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Russia’s Luna 25 mission

• Moon 
• July 2023

Ispace’s Hakuto R mission, Rashid Rover

• ispace
• Japanese Space Technology
• the Hakuto lander launched in December 2022, it is only expected to reach the Moon by April 2023

Green Hydrogen Mission

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had first announced the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) in his Independence Day speech in 2021.

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE)

• to promote the development of green hydrogen production capacity of at least 5 million metric tonnes (MMT) per annum with an associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.

A mission outlay of Rs 19,744 crore was cleared by the Union Cabinet

• Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels is called grey hydrogen
• Hydrogen generated from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage options is called blue hydrogen
•  hydrogen generated using electrolysers powered by renewable power sources is called green hydrogen

Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT)

Geminids meteor shower

The constellation for which a meteor shower is named only serves to aid viewers in determining which shower they are viewing on a given night.

SWOT: Surface Water and Ocean Topography

• Surface Water and Ocean Topography
• To conduct a comprehensive survey of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers for the first time.
• A NASA-led international satellite mission
• Developed by the U.S. space agency in collaboration with its counterparts in France and Canada

INS Mormugao

• The second of the Project 15B stealth guided missile destroyers built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDSL).
• The ship, named after a key port in Goa

Project 15B

• INS Visakhapatanam (November 2021)
• Mormugao, (Dec 2022)
• Imphal, and 
• Surat

Project 15A: built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDSL), Mumbai

• The Indian Navy has commissioned three guided missile destroyers of the Kolkata class — INS Kolkata, INS Kochi, and INS Chennai — under the project codenamed 15A.
• Their precursor Delhi class of ships — INS Delhi, INS Mysore, and INS Mumbai.

Link

• The Indian Express
  

Navigation with Indian Constellation (NaVIC)

• Navigation with Indian Constellation, is an independent stand-alone navigation satellite system developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation
• NavIC was originally approved in 2006 at a cost of $174 million. It was expected to be completed by late 2011, but only became operational in 2018.
• NavIC consists of eight satellites and covers the whole of India’s landmass and up to 1,500 km (930 miles) from its boundaries.
• NavIC’s use is limited. It is being used in public vehicle tracking in India, for providing emergency warning alerts to fishermen venturing into the deep sea.

Navigation Systems

• Galileo from the European Union,
• Russia-owned GLONASS and 
• China’s Beidou. 
• QZSS, operated by Japan

Square Kilometre Array (SKA)

The world's largest radio astronomy facility is currently under construction in Australia and South Africa. Scientists will use the exceptionally powerful Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to probe the mysteries of the universe.

Source: The Indian Express

ChatGPT: The AI Chatbot

• Developed by OpenAI 
• ChatGPT is based on GPT-3.5, a language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text

Air Quality Index (AQI)

• The color-coded AQI index was launched in India in 2014.
• Launched by the central government in 2014 as part of the Swachh Bharat campaign.
• a technical study was awarded to IIT Kanpur. 
• IIT Kanpur and the Expert Group recommended an AQI scheme.
• The pollutants measured include PM 10, PM 2.5, Nitrogen Dioxide, Ozone, Carbon, etc.

There are six categories of AQI, namely 

1. ‘Good’ (0-50), 
2. ‘Satisfactory’ (50-100),
3.  ‘Moderately polluted’ (100-200),
4.  ‘Poor’ (200-300), 
5. ‘Very Poor’ (300-400), and 
6. ‘Severe’ (400-500).

Source: Indian Express

Carbon Dating

• Carbon-14 (C-14) isotopes of carbon with an atomic mass of 14
• Ratio of C-12 to C-14
• C-12 is stable

Not Applicable 

• Non-living things

Kamikaze drones

• Iran
• Used in Ukraine  

 Countries have such drones

• US
• Russia, 
• China, 
• Israel, 
• Iran and 
• Turkey

Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM)

• Ministry of Defence
• INS Arihant: 1st indigenous Strategic Strike Nuclear Submarine
• Test: Bay of Bengal

Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM)

• K family of missiles
• Developed by DRDO
• Code named after Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam

Draft Telecommunication Bill 2022

• India: 2nd largest telecom market
• 100% FDI in the sector
• Department of Telecom

An asteroid sample

• NASA OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft, 
• Asteroid Bennu

Add on

• https://iassaheb.blogspot.com/2022/08/hayabusa-2-mission.html

DART Mission

• Asteroid Dimorphos
• NASA

Word

•  Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL)

Sonification Project

• NASA
• James Webb Space Telescope
• Carina Nebula

Sonification

• Non-speech audio to convey information or perceptualize data

Hayabusa-2 mission

• was launched in December 2014
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) 
• To study the asteroid Ryugu
• Ryugu is also classified as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs). and was discovered in 1999.
• The Hayabusa mission-1 brought samples from the asteroid Itokawa in 2010.

Asteroids

• Asteroids are rocky objects that orbit the Sun, much smaller than planets
• called minor planets

NASA

• NASA’s OSIRIS-REX mission collected samples from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020, which will be brought to Earth in 2023.

Source: The Indian Express

World's Largest Floating Solar Plant

• Madhya Pradesh
• On Narmada
• Omkareshwar Dam
• 600 MW