QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 22 September 2018

Solution: c.

Instruments aboard the Parker Solar Probe (NASA):

• Surveyor of the invisible forces, the FIELDS instrument suite captures the scale and shape of electric and magnetic fields in the Sun’s atmosphere. FIELDS measures the electric field around the spacecraft with five antennas, four of which stick out beyond the spacecraft’s heat shield and into the sunlight, where they experience temperatures of 2,500 F. The 2-meter-long antennas are made of a niobium alloy, which can withstand extreme temperatures.
• The Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe is the only imaging instrument aboard the spacecraft. WISPR looks at the large-scale structure of the corona and solar wind (not the surface of the sun) before the spacecraft flies through it. A corona is an aura of plasma that surrounds the Sun and other stars. The Sun’s corona extends millions of kilometres into outer space and is most easily seen during a total solar eclipse.
• The Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons investigation, or SWEAP, has two instruments that count the most abundant particles in the solar wind — electrons, protons and helium ions — and measure such properties as velocity, density, and temperature to improve our understanding of the solar wind and coronal plasma.
• The Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun — ISʘIS, pronounced “ee-sis” and including the symbol for the Sun in its acronym — uses two instruments in one combined scientific investigation to measure particles across a wide range of energies. By measuring electrons, protons and ions, ISʘIS will understand the particles’ lifecycles — where they came from, how they became accelerated and how they move out from the Sun through interplanetary space.

In the news: Parker Solar Probe; this mission is important because the spacecraft will fly through the Sun’s atmosphere as close as 3.8 million miles to our star’s surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before. (Earth’s average distance to the Sun is 93 million miles.)

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Solution: a.

BBC: Japan’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft despatched a pair of “rovers” to the 1km-wide space rock known as Ryugu. If all goes well, Hayabusa-2 will be the first spacecraft to successfully place robot rovers on the surface of an asteroid. Rover 1A and Rover 1B will move around by hopping in Ryugu’s low gravity; they will capture images of the surface and measure temperatures. The 1km-wide space rock known formally as 162173 Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of asteroid, and is therefore a relic left over from the early days of our Solar System. Studying it could shed light on the origin and evolution of our own planet.

To read more about the mission, refer BBC:

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Solution: d.

Source: The Hindu;

Solution: c.

Article 32 confers the right to remedies for the enforcement of the fundamental rights of an aggrieved citizen.  In  other  words,  the  right  to  get  the  Fundamental  Rights  protected  is  in  itself  a  fundamental right. This makes the fundamental rights real. That is why Dr Ambedkar called Article 32 as the most important article of the Constitution—‘an Article without which this constitution would be a nullity. It is the very soul of the Constitution and the very heart of it’. The Supreme Court has ruled that Article 32 is a basic feature of the Constitution. Hence, it cannot be abridged or taken away even by way of an amendment to the Constitution.

Indian Polity by M Laxmikanth;

Improvisation: TH;

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Solution: b.

According to the IAU, a “dwarf planet” in our solar system is a celestial body that

• is in orbit around the Sun,
• has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (that is, it has a nearly round shape),
• has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and
• is not a satellite.

IAU: Definition of Planet and Dwarf Planet;

Source/improvisation: TH;

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