UNITED STATES: SpaceX successfully launched Hotbird 13G, a telecom satellite, on Thursday morning. The Falcon 9 rocket used for the launch landed back on a ship stationed at sea.
The Falcon 9 carried Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13G satellite into orbit after lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 1:22 a.m. local time.
Nine minutes later, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth. The returning rocket touched down as per plans on SpaceX’s Just Read the Instructions droneship. The droneship was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
The particular first stage of the Falcon 9 successfully achieved its seventh launch and landing. SpaceX, in its pre-launch mission description, said that the Falcon 9’s first stage booster used for the mission had previously launched the CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, and one Starlink
The CRS-22 and CRS-25 were unmanned cargo flights to the International Space Station, whereas Crew-3 and Crew-4 were manned missions that carried astronauts to and from the ISS.
The Hotbird 13G, built by Airbus Defense and Space, will be operated by Eutelsat, a France-based telecom company. The satellite was deployed in geosynchronous transfer orbit by the Falcon 9’s upper stage about 36 minutes after liftoff.
Hotbird 13G joined its twin, Hotbird 13F, also launched by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 last month. The two satellites will replace three existing Hotbird satellites.
According to Eutelsat representatives, the Hotbird satellite family “forms one of the largest broadcasting systems in Europe, delivering 1,000 television channels to more than 160 million TV homes in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.”
The launch of Hotbird 13G is the second SpaceX launch from Florida’s coast over the last two days. SpaceX launched the USSF-44 mission for the U.S. Space Force from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday.
COLOMBIA: Earlier this year, Colombia expressed its interest in bringing Formula 1 to the country. The city of Barranquilla is touted to host the “Grand Prix of the Caribbean.” Jaime Pumarejo, mayor of the city, has voiced his desire to see Colombia on the Formula 1 calendar starting from the 2024 season.
Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali was reported visiting the Colombia
According to multiple media reports, F1 chief Stefano Domenicali flew to Colombia after the Mexican GP last weekend. The discussions regarding the proposed Grand Prix were likely to have been on the agenda of the visit. Pumarejo is hopeful of securing a ten-year deal for the racetrack in Barranquilla.
In September, the mayor told Blu Radio that the progress of bringing the marquee event was going well. He was vocal about the climate change effort of the city being one of the most important points of the proposed Caribbean GP.
He added that the event will be self-sustainable in the sense that the development of the venue will not cost Colombia. Instead, the Caribbean GP will bring a windfall in terms of tourism, recognition, and employment.
Jaime Pumarejo feels that the Caribbean GP will be an event that has the biggest turnover in Colombia. He compared the turnover of the Formula 1 Grand Prix with that of Corferias, a convention centre in Bogota.
If the discussions between Colombia and F1 are successful, the addition of Caribbean GP to the calendar will come at the expense of another circuit. Formula 1 recently released the calendar for the 2023 season, with record-breaking 24 races.
Stefano Domenicali claimed that Formula 1 had reached the maximum number of races. The F1 chief felt that 23 to 24 races were enough. He added that he wasn’t interested in adding more races.
INDIA: Gone are the days of bulky and heavy hardware. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 from the most prominent brand solves the portability issue faced by gamers who use a gaming laptop. The gaming platform is armed with some of the most powerful hardware, along with the RTX 3070 Ti GPU.
All you need to know about ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 weighs just 1.9 kilograms and is a mere 2 centimetres thick. However, the lightweight and sleek design of the laptop is an equal match to the thermal performance of its competitors. The ROG Zephyrus G15 retains the majority of its trademark foundations from its preceding models.
The laptop casing is constructed of polycarbonate, which lends the gaming laptop a little margin of flex. Despite that, the overall laptop build quality feels firm and not flimsy. The keyboard has an RGB backlight, which feels odd to the eye on white keycaps.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 has a 15.6 Widescreen Quad High-Definition display panel with a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels. The panel utilises an In-Plane Switching LED panel with a 240Hz refresh rate. The screen has an anti-glare panel which is especially useful when the gaming laptop is used in bright ambient conditions.
Armed with the 8-core AMD Ryzen 9 6800HS Mobile Processor, along with 16GB of DDR-54800 MHz RAM, the Zephyrus G15 gives peak performance even under demanding gaming conditions. The graphic capabilities of the gaming laptop are boosted by Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti with 8GB of GDDR6 memory.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 has a 3.5mm audio jack, one HDMI 2.0b port, one RJ45 LAN port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, along with one microSD slot. The two Type-C ports have support for DisplayPort and power delivery.
The gaming laptop can regularly touch 60 FPS when playing games on full-HD resolutions. The Zephyrus G15 was able to dissipate heat while being relatively quiet. The laptop can achieve high thermal dissipation rates because the conventional thermal paste has been replaced with Thermal Grizzly’s liquid metal for heat conduction.
ITLAY: Ferrari and the world of Formula 1 mourned the demise of Mauro Forghieri. He passed away at the age of 87. Forghieri was the Technical Director of Ferrari for over two decades.
Mauro Forghieri was instrumental in the design of Ferrari’s World Driver’s Championship-winning cars of John Surtees, Niki Lauda (twice), and Jody Scheckter from 1962 to 1984. Ferrari won seven constructors’ titles in that period.
Mauro Forghieri’s contribution to Formula 1
Mauro Forghieri is credited for introducing the first designed rear wings to Formula 1 at the 1968 Belgian GP. The first transversal automatic gear, also known as T-gear, was designed by him.
Mauro Forghieri joined Ferrari in 1960 as an intern, where he worked as an apprentice alongside notable Ferrari engineers from the bygone era. When a handful of prominent engineers left Ferrari, Forghieri was personally asked by Enzo Ferrari, the founder of Ferrari, to begin studying the “full technical questions of the factory.”
Forghieri became the Technical Director of racing cars at Ferrari. He occupied the position until 1984 before being assigned to work on the Ferrari 408 4RM concept car, which was completed in 1987. Shortly after that, he left Ferrari and joined Lamborghini Engineering, a department shaped by the then-CEO of Chrysler, Lee Lacocca, who had purchased the car firm.
Forghieri designed the naturally aspirated Lamborghini 3512 V12 engine at Lamborghini. The engine was first used in Formula 1 during the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix by the Larrousse F1 team. In the following year, Lotus used the Lamborghini engine in its Lotus 102 F1 car.
In 1991, Forghieri was replaced at Lamborghini by Mike Royce. In the subsequent year, he became the technical director of the re-emerging Bugatti. He is credited for the development of the Bugatti EB 110 and the Bugatti EB112. He left Bugatti in 1994.
Mauro Forghieri’s final notable contribution to the automotive world was in 2005 when he joined as chief engineer at Project 1221.
AUSTRALIA: The Zimbabwe skipper won the toss and opted to bat first. However, the Zimbabwe batting order became a cropper in the face of an attacking Netherlands bowling attack, finishing at 117 all out.
Zimbabwe Innings
Zimbabwe was off to a disastrous start. After Fred Klaassen (17/1) gave away just three runs in the opening over, Paul van Meekeren (29) castled opener Wesley Madhevere (1 off 4 balls) in the second over.
His fellow opener, Craig Ervine (3 off 12 balls), was caught by Edwards off Brandon Glover (29/2), a wicketkeeper. Regis Chakabva (5 off 16) was caught plumb in front of the stumps by Glover in his next over.
The Netherlands bowlers demolished the Zimbabwean top order, dismissing the top three within the powerplay overs while giving away just twenty runs.
Photo Credit: Twitter/ICC
Sean Williams (28 off 23 balls) and Sikandar Raza (40 off 24 balls) rebuilt the Zimbabwe innings with some aggressive batting.
Raza hit Glover for four and six off consecutive deliveries in the ninth inning. At the halfway stage, Zimbabwe was 53/3. The 48-run partnership for the fourth wicket was broken by Paul van Meekeren.
Sean Williams top-edged a pull shot, and the resulting catch was made by Max O’Dowd at deep midwicket. Sikandar Raza, however, was unfazed and smashed Logan van Beek (17/2) for a six over a deep backward square leg.
The new man in, Milton Shumba (2 off 3), pushed awkwardly at a van Beek delivery, and the ball popped up in the air after hitting the face of the bat before Myburgh completed an easy catch.
Raza took on Glover in the fourteenth over, hitting the pacer for a six and a four as 14 runs came off it. His whirlwind knock came to an end in the fifteenth over, caught by Fred Klaassen off the bowling of Bas de Leede (14/2).
Paul van Meekeren ended his bowling spell with the wicket of Ryan Burl (2 off 7 balls), who inside-edged the ball onto his stumps. In the very next over, Bas de Leede ended Luke Jongwe’s (6 off 8 balls) stay at the crease. His attempted pull-shot sent the ball up in the air before Logan van Beek took an easy catch at deep mid-wicket.
Richard Ngarava (9 off 7 balls) was caught by Myburgh off Fred Klaassen, whom he had hit for six, three deliveries earlier. Blessing Muzarabani (1 off 4 balls) was the last Zimbabwean wicket to fall, and the inning folded up at 117 all out with four deliveries left from their quota of twenty overs.
Netherlands Innings:
Netherland’s openers Max O’Dowd (52 off 47 balls) and Stephan Myburgh (8 off 7 balls) gave their team a decent start. The hard-hitting duo put together 17 runs for the first wicket before Myburgh sliced a Blessing Muzarabani (23/2) delivery straight to Ryan Burl.
The new man in, Tom Cooper, hit Muzarabani for a four and a six, taking ten runs in the sixth over as the Netherlands reached 35/1 at the end of the powerplay.
Max O’Dowd and Tom Cooper (32 off 29 balls) scored runs at a steady rate, hitting boundaries at regular intervals. The partnership between the two put the Netherlands in charge of the chase.
The duo scored fourteen runs in the tenth over, taking the Netherlands to 67/1. Tendai Chatara (22/0) bowled his heart out but was unlucky to get any wickets.
Tom Cooper’s knock finally came to an end in the thirteenth over. He pulled a short delivery from Luke Jongwe, but Madhevere at deep midwicket took a tumbling catch and hurt his left ankle in the process.
The new man in, Colin Ackermann (1 off 5 balls), lasted five deliveries before becoming Richard Ngarava’s (18/2) first wicket, caught by Jongwe at mid-off.
Max O’Dowd soon brought up his fifty in the fifteenth over by Jongwe. Jongwe bowled erratically as he leaked seventeen runs from the over, including a no-ball that went over O’Dowd’s head. He was cleaned up by Muzarabani in the next over.
Max O’Dowd hit a short and wide delivery from the pitcher, but Milton Shumba at the deepest point timed his jump to perfection to end his inning.
Richard Ngarava had Scott Edwards (5 off 6 balls) caught by Chakabva in the seventeenth over, but it was a case of too little, too late. Bas de Leede ( 12 off 12 balls) hit a boundary to finish off the match.
The Zimbabwean bowlers dragged the match deep into the eighteenth over but didn’t have enough runs to defend
Max O’Dowd was awarded the Player of the Match for his match-winning knock of 52 off 47 deliveries, which consisted of eight deliveries and a six.
UNITED KINGDOM: Alpha Tauri driver Pierre Gasly was penalised at the Mexican Formula 1 GP for a dangerous overtake on Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll. Pierre Gasly has collected ten penalty points on his super license.
All of the ten points were accumulated since May, which means that Pierre Gasly will have to avoid getting penalty points till May next year. There are two Formula 1 races left this year and a further seven races next year until the first of his penalty points gets revoked.
Pierre Gasly gets a penalty for overtaking Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll
Pierre Gasly’s latest penalty came with a five-second penalty for forcing Lance Stroll off the track while attempting to overtake the Canadian racer at turn 4 of the Autodromo Hermano Rodriguez track. He didn’t hand the position back, which triggered the penalty. If he had given up the position, he might have escaped without consequences.
The penalty points in Formula 1 are handed out due to driving infringements and expire after twelve months. If a driver accrues a total of twelve points within twelve months, the driver will be banned from competing in one Formula 1 weekend.
Lewis Hamilton is one of the two Formula 1 driver who currently don’t have any penalty points on their super license. His Mercedes teammate has four points that he collected at the Austrian GP and the US GP, both of which were given for causing a collision.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has five points while his teammate Sergio Perez has two, which he got after he failed to maintain proper distance behind the safety car. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has one point. Meanwhile, his teammate doesn’t have any penalty so far.
Lando Norris has a solitary point which will expire in July 2023. Daniel Ricciardo managed to rack up six points this season, the first of which will expire in March. Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon have four and five points, respectively.
Pierre Gasly has ten penalty points. If he is involved in one more on-track incident, he risks a race ban. His teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, is similarly placed in a precarious position with eight penalty points. Fortunately for him, the first of his penalty points will expire in November this year.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel has just two points, whereas his teammate Lance Stroll carries five. Alex Albon currently has seven points, while William’s teammate, Nicholas Latifi, has five. Haas drivers Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen had one and two points on their super licenses, respectively.
Alfa Romeo duo of Valtteri Bottas and rookie Guanyu Zhou had one and four points to their names, respectively.
UNITED STATES: Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox and CEO of Microsoft Gaming, said that the highly successful military action-inspired franchise, Call of Duty, will remain on PlayStation “as long as there is a PlayStation out there to ship to.”
The Xbox chief made it clear that Microsoft had no plans to take Call of Duty
The Xbox chief made the comments in a recent podcast on Same Brain, a YouTube channel. Spencer made it clear that Microsoft had no plans to take Call of Duty away from PlayStation. He brought up the case of Minecraft, a game that Microsoft had bought in 2014. He went on to say that Microsoft’s plans for the game will be similar to what they did with Minecraft.
Minecraft is a creative building game, for which Microsoft has expanded the platforms on which the game is available. Gamers can now play Minecraft on their PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and mobile phones.
Microsoft began the acquisition of Activision Blizzard back in January. Sony was initially concerned that Microsoft would make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive. Last month, Microsoft assured the gaming community that Call of Duty would still be available on PlayStation. Jim Ryan, the CEO of Sony, responded to Spencer’s statement by saying that it was “inadequate on so many levels.”
A deadline of March 1st, 2023 has been set for the final decision on the acquisition. As of now, the review of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is still ongoing. Saudi Arabia and Brazil are reported to have approved the acquisition.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) took note of Sony’s concerns and is yet to decide on the acquisition. They feel that Microsoft’s purchase of the “powerful catalog” would unfairly benefit them. Microsoft responded to the reservations by saying that the CMA adopted complaints from Sony without a proper review.
INDIA: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up to launch the UK-based communication company, OneWeb’s next batch of 36 satellites. The satellites are set for a January 2023 launch. The recent testing of the crucial cryogenic engine of its rocket LVM3 was conducted in the lead-up to the landmark launch.
According to ISRO, the successful flight acceptance hot test of the CE-20 engine was carried out for 25 seconds at the High-Altitude Test Facility of ISRO Propulsion Complex at Mahendragiri.
ISRO gears up for another launch of 36 OneWeb satellites
ISRO revealed that the CE-20 engine had been chosen for the upcoming LVM3-M3 mission, which will launch the second set of 36 satellites of OneWeb India-1 satellites. The LVM3 vehicle’s cryogenic upper stage also called as C25 stage, will be powered by the CE-20 engine.
The engine will work with the propellant’s combination of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The engine is believed to develop a nominal thrust of 186.36 kilo Newton (kN) in a vacuum.
The flight acceptance test, carried out on October 28, 2022, successfully fulfilled the major objectives set for the hot test. The integrity of the hardware was confirmed, and the subsystems’ performance was assessed while the engine was tuned to meet the mission requirement parameters during flight operation.
The analysis of test data confirmed that the engine system’s performance was satisfactory. The CE-20 engine will be assembled to the C25 flight stage, which will be integrated into the LVM3 M3 rocket.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, the Chairman of OneWeb, said that NSIL, the commercial wing of ISRO, had signed a contract with OneWeb to launch 72 satellites across two phases for a fee of over ₹1,000 Crores.
The first batch of 36 OneWeb satellites was successfully launched and put into orbit by ISO on October 23, 2022.
AUSTRALIA: After Afghanistan won the toss and opted to bat first, Sri Lankan bowlers didn’t allow Afghan batsmen to settle, picking up wickets at regular intervals. Afghanistan bowlers bowled their hearts out, but Dhanajaya’s fifty took the game away from them.
Afghanistan Innings
After a quiet first opening over, Afghanistan openers Rahmanullah Gurbaz (28 off 24 balls) and Usman Ghani (27 off 27 balls) took on the Sri Lankan bowlers. The duo put together a quickfire 42-run partnership for the first wicket in six overs.
Lahiru Kumara (30/2) struck immediately after the powerplay and dismissed the dangerous-looking Gurbaz, who missed the swing of the fuller-length delivery while attempting a big hit.
Photo Credit: Twitter/ICC
Usman Ghani and Ibrahim Zadran (22 off 18 balls) kept the scoreboard ticking with aggressive running between the wickets. With the extra fielders outside the 30-yard circle, the Afghanistan batsmen found it difficult to hit boundaries.
The only bit of hit after the powerplay came in the ninth over when Ghani smashed Lahiru Kumara for a six over long-off. After the first ten overs, Afghanistan was 68/1.
Wanindu Hasaranga (13/3) dismissed Usman Ghani in the eleventh over with a googly. Ghani fancied a pull shot but misjudged the bounce of the delivery and the resulting top edge was caught by Shanaka at deep midwicket.
Ibrahim Zadran hit a boundary and a six in the twelfth over by Maheesh Theekshana (33/0), which yielded seventeen runs. Lahiru Kumara struck again in the next over, having Ibrahim Zadran caught at mid-off.
Najibullah Zadran (18 off 16 balls) was caught at long-off by Hasaranga off the bowling of Dhananjaya de Silva (9/1) in the sixteenth over.
Gulbadin Naib (12 off 14 balls) injured his elbow while trying to avoid getting run out. Gulbadin wanted a second run, but Nabi wasn’t keen as it was risky.
Gulbadin slipped on his way back to the crease and tried to roll back into the crease, but the keeper had enough time to whip off the bails. Kasun Rajitha (31/1) dismissed Mohammad Nabi (13 off 8 balls) in the penultimate over.
Wanindu Hasaranga struck twice in the last over, castingling Rashid Khan (9 off 8 balls) and getting Mujeeb Ur Rahman (1 off 2 balls) stumped out while giving away a meagre three runs to end the Afghanistan innings at 144/8.
Sri Lankan Innings
Sri Lanka was jolted early in the innings when Mujeeb Ur Rahman (24/2) disturbed the stumps of Pathum Nissanka (10 off 10 balls) in the second over. Fazalhaq Farooqi (22/0) followed up with a maiden over, putting Sri Lanka on the backfoot.
Kusal Mendis (25 off 27 balls), the leading run-scorer for the island nation in this edition of the T20 World Cup, hit Fareed Ahmad (25/0) for successive boundaries in the fifth over to ease some pressure. Sri Lanka reached 28/1 in the powerplay overs.
Kusal Mendis took on Fareed again in his next over, hitting two boundaries and a six, as sixteen runs came from the seventh over. Rashid Khan (31/2) dismissed Mendis in the next over to peg back Sri Lanka.
The Afghanistan bowlers bowled tight lines, stifling the run rate as Sri Lanka was 63/2 at the halfway stage of the innings.
Dhananjaya de Silva switched gears and went after the bowlers, hitting sixes in successive overs of Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi (16/0), as fourteen and twelve runs came off their overs, respectively.
Photo Credit: Twitter/ICC
The 54-run partnership for the third wicket was broken by Rashid Khan in the fourteenth over. Asalanka (19 off 18 balls) went for a lofted hit over long-on but got the elevation wrong as Azmatullah latched on to the overhead catch.
The new man in, Bhanuka Rajapaksa (18 off 14 balls), was on the offensive straightaway, hitting successive boundaries off Gulbaddin Naib (12/0).
Rajapaksa survived an LBW scare in the sixteenth over when he was struck on the thigh pad while attempting a slog sweep off Rashid Khan. Since the ball was clipping the leg stump, the third umpire stayed with the umpire’s call of not out.
Dhananjaya smashed two successive boundaries off Mujeeb’s last over to bring the equation down to three runs from thirteen deliveries before Rajapaksa was dismissed off the last delivery of the over.
Rajapaksa tried to steer it backwards of square on off-side but the ball bounced off his glove and went on to lob up off the keeper’s arms before being pouched by Gurbaz.
Dhananjaya finished the game with a boundary over extra cover off Fazalhaq, bringing up a dominating 6-wicket win for the Sri Lankans. Afghanistan’s bowling couldn’t defend a below-par score and was knocked out of the T20 World Cup.
Wanindu Hasaranga was adjudged the Player of the Match for his excellent bowling and brilliant fielding, which were crucial in helping Sri Lanka clinch the must-win game.
UNITED STATES: Pulsar PSR B1257+12 is situated around 2,300 light years from the Earth. The pulsar is orbited by three rocky, terrestrial planets called Phobetor, Draugr, and Poltergeist. The pulsar emits radio waves 161 times every second and was nicknamed “Lich,” an undead creature from the 1976 book, Greyhawk. Draugr was named after another undead creature in Norse mythology.
Neutron stars forms Pulsars
The bright shine of the stars is produced by the nuclear fusion of light elements like hydrogen, which fuse to create heavier elements like helium. Nuclear fusion releases enormous amounts of energy which acts against the constant inwards pull of the massive star’s gravity. This balance of the fusion energy and the gravitational force is called “hydrostatic equilibrium.”
Hydrostatic equilibrium is crucial in the sense that this equilibrium ensures that the star doesn’t collapse under its own gravitational force.
When a star’s hydrogen fuel runs out, the nuclear fusion process comes to a halt. As a result, the hydrostatic balance is disrupted, resulting in the star’s collapse. The star’s rapid decline triggers a tremendous final nuclear fusion, which causes the star to explode as a supernova.
Neutron stars are the remnants of a supernova explosion when the progenitor star was not massive enough to create a black hole. These dead and collapsed stellar cores are extremely dense. Some of these neutron stars emit beams of radio waves into space in the form of pulses. Such neutron stars are called “Pulsars.”
Another exoplanet, Planet PSR J1719-1438b, orbits a pulsar that is around 4,000 light years away from Earth. The planet completes one revolution around the pulsar in just a little over two hours. This planet is the densest planet yet discovered and is assumed to be composed of diamonds, giving it the nickname “Diamond World.”
A globular star cluster Messier M4 lies around 5,600 lightyears from the Earth. This cluster contains around 100,000 stars, and at the center of the star cluster, a pulsar and a white dwarf orbit around a shared gravitational centre. A planet also orbits this centre. This planet was christened Methuselah, after the son of Enoch, in the Book of Genesis. This planet is a giant gas planet and around 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter.
Pulsar planets are one of the bizarre celestial objects of the universe. These planets withstood the massive supernovae explosion. These planets have to endure the heat emanating from the dead star cores. The discovery of pulsar planets challenged ideas about planetary formation, which normally occurs when a new star is formed.
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