Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – April 18, 2019

Aquila is the code name of the unmanned solar-powered drone developed by Facebook. The company plans to use a linked network of the drones to provide internet access to large rural areas. Recently Facebook completed the first successful flight of Aquila. However, as with its Internet.org project, Facebook will not be dealing with customers directly, instead partnering with local ISPs to offer the services.

ELISA Pathfinder is paving the way for future missions by testing in flight the very concept of gravitational wave detection: it will put two test masses in a near-perfect gravitational free-fall and control and measure their motion with unprecedented accuracy. It’s objective is to detect thegravitational waves and not the dark matter and Dark Energy. LISA Pathfinder is an ESA mission, which also carries a NASA payload. Only feasible in space LISA pathfinder is a pioneer mission. Not only are these technologies new, they cannot be properly verified on the ground. This is because Earth’s gravity and environment would hamper the test results.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is headquartered in Bengaluru. The Inter–University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) is located in Pune, India.

Inter–University Accelaerator Centre (IUAC)  is an autonomous research facility of University Grants Commission which is based in New Delhi. Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) is a major space research centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation, focusing on rocket and space vehicles, is located in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Akash is a medium–range mobile surface–to– air missile. Nag is an antitank missile by DRDO. Pinaka is a multiple rocket launcher produced for Indian Army by DRDO while Trishul is a missile system of a short range surface to–air missile as a part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program.

Both the statements regarding Indian Polar Research stations are incorrect.

India’s first expedition to Antarctica was in 1981, she expanded it by undertaking its first Arctic expedition in August 2007 by setting up ‘Himadri’ at Nye–Alesund in Norway in 2008 to mark the International Polar Year (IPY).

The first Antarctic research station was Gangotri (1983) and second was Maitri (1989). ‘Bharti’ or ‘Bharthi’ is the third Antarctic station at Larsemann in East Antarctica.

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.

Neutrinos were the most frequent particle in the universe. Neutrinos posses trace amount of masses and they are not affected by electromagnetic forces but are affected by gravitational forces. It is an elementary particle and not the sub atomic particle. It exists in three different flavours such as Muon Neutrino, Tau Neutrino and Electron Neutrino