Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – July 5, 2018

The Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defence system to protect from ballistic missile attacks. It is a double-tiered system consisting of two interceptor missiles, namely the Prithvi Air Defence (PAD)/ Pradyumna missile for high altitude interception, and the Advanced Air Defence (AAD)/ Ashwin Missile for lower altitude interception. This two-tiered shield should be able to intercept any incoming missile launched 5,000 kilometres away.

A geostationary orbit is a geosynchronous orbit which is circular in nature and it lies exactly above the line of the equator. With those additional constraints, it remains stationary above a fixed point on the equator for an observer from the ground because it synchronises the time period and movement of the earth.

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) is revamping a popular outreach programme, conceived to hook children early on to science and research, and tweaking it to reflect a thrust on technology and exposing children to the ―innovation cycle.‖ The INSPIRE Awards (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research), as they are now called, will be rechristened MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge) from this year. According to officials, it‘s a ―reformulation‖ of the existing programme and reflects a thrust on original ideas, which aim to use technology to solve problems, rather than merely display a clever idea for an exhibition.

Heavy water (D 2O), also called deuterium oxide, water composed of deuterium, the hydrogen isotope with a mass double that of ordinary hydrogen, and oxygen. The heavy water produced is used as a moderator of neutrons in nuclear power plants. A moderator is a material used in a nuclear reactor to slow down the speed of neutrons produced from fission. By slowing the neutrons down the probability of a neutron interacting with Uranium-235 nuclei is greatly increased thereby maintaining the chain reaction.

Dark matter is a type of matter hypothesized  in astronomy and cosmilogy to account for a large part of the mass that appears missing from the universe, it does not interact with light. It is also hypothesized that it interacts with ordinary matter through gravity and binds galaxies, and it pushes the universe apart.

‘Greenware’ is completely free of both hazardous PVC and BFR and its manufacturing can be a special action like replacing all standard light bulbs with CFLs or a more general application to live more ecologically.

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme (HAARP) is an ionspheric research programme and the main purpose is to investigate the potential for developing ionaspheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance.