Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – January 3, 2019

The Thor experiment aims to investigate electrical activity from thunderstorms. Between

10 and 100 kilometres in the atmosphere, the interaction between charged particles produces a variety of dazzling electric phenomena from blue jets to red sprites. The Thor experiment will look at them with a thundercloud imaging system from the vantage point of the International Space Station. The key aims of the study include understanding how these discharges influence water vapour levels, cloud formation, and eventually changes in climate.

A radar speed gun is a device used to measure the speed of moving objects. It is used in law-enforcement to measure the speed of moving vehicles.

Nirbhay is a long range, surface to surface subsonic cruise missile designed and developed in India by the Defence Research and Development Organisation. It is an all-weather, low-cost, long-range cruise missile capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads. The missile has a range of more than 1000 km.

Connect to decode is a quest towards conquest of Tuberculosis, a massive initiative to further the understanding of the biology of the causative organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The objective is to accelerate the discovery of novel drugs for TB, a disease neglected by Pharmaceutical enterprises.

A scram or SCRAM is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor, though the term has been extended to cover shutdowns of other complex operations, such as server farms. In commercial reactor operations, this type of shutdown is often referred to as a “SCRAM” at boiling water reactors (BWR), and as a “reactor trip” at pressurized water reactors. In many cases, a SCRAM is part of the routine shutdown procedure as well.

Project Loon is a research and development project being developed by “X” (formerly Google X) with the mission of providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The project uses high-altitude balloons placed in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 18 km (11 mi) to create an aerial wireless network with up to 4G-LTE speeds.  It was named Project Loon, since Google itself found the very idea of providing internet access to the remaining 5 billion population unprecedented and crazy.

Statement 1, 2 and 3 is correct:

Statement 4 is Incorrect:

Mercury is the planet that is closest to the sun and therefore gets more direct heat, but even it isn’t the hottest.  Venus is the second planet from the sun and it is the hottest planet in the solar system.

So what makes Venus hotter than Mercury?

Mercury doesn’t have any atmosphere, and atmosphere can hold and trap heat. Any heat that Mercury receives from the sun is quickly lost back into space. Venus is very close to the actual size of earth and viewing it has been difficult due to a very thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide. This thick atmosphere makes the surface of Venus hotter because the heat doesn’t escape back into space.  The atmosphere on Venus is so powerful that the pressure would be ninety-two times more than what you would experience standing on a beach at sea level.