13th National Voters’ Day (NVD) to be celebrated on 25th January 2023

• National Voters’ Day has been celebrated on January 25 every year since 2011, all across the country to mark the foundation day of the Election Commission of India, i.e. 25th January 1950.
• The main purpose of the celebration is to create electoral awareness amongst citizens and encourage them to participate in the electoral process.
• Dedicated to the voters of the country, National Voters'' Day is also used to facilitate the enrolment of voters, especially the newly eligible young voters.
• The theme for 2023: Nothing Like Voting, I Vote for Sure.

Look up! You can see a bright green comet making a rare trip across the Earth''s sky

• Comets are frozen rocky or gas-filled objects that are remnants of the formation of the solar system.
• The solid portions of a comet which is mostly water ice with embedded dust particles.
• When near the sun, the icy cometary surfaces vaporise and emit large amounts of gas and dust, resulting in a massive atmosphere and tails.
• The fluorescence of these gases, and especially the reflection of sunlight from the minute dust particles in the comet''s atmosphere and tail, is what gives these objects their visual impact.
• Just like other bodies in space, comets also have orbits. They are sometimes pulled in close to the sun because of the sun’s gravity acting on them.
• The orbit indicates this comet comes from the edge of our solar system, a distant reservoir of comets we call the Oort cloud.
• The Oort cloud is thought to be a big, spherical region of outer space enveloping our sun, consisting of innumerable small objects, such as comets and asteroids.
• What is the reason for the Green colour? Laboratory research has linked this green-like aura to a reactive molecule called dicarbon, which emits green light as sunlight decays it.

''BharOS'': IIT Madras Incubated Firm Develops India''s Indigenous Mobile Operating System

• BharOS is a mobile operating system similar to Android or iOS; it is based on an AOSP (Android Open Source Project) operating system and does not use any Google apps or services.
• It would support Native Over The Air (NOTA) updates as well as No Default Apps (NDA).
• It has a minimalistic home screen with the Indian flag, a list of app categories, and a selection of apps that have passed the OS''s trust and security standards.
• It will employ the Private App Store Services (PASS) system to examine and curate apps that are safe for users.
• These systems enable smartphone users to interact with their devices and access their features while also ensuring their safety.
• Current status: The current version of BharOS includes third-party apps such as DuckDuckGo and Signal by default.

Native Over The Air (NOTA)

• Security updates and bug fixes will be automatically installed rather than users having to check for updates and implement them on their own
• Users do not have to keep or use pre-installed apps in this mobile operating system.

Kerala confirms two norovirus cases in Class 1 students in Ernakulam

• The Norovirus, also known as the "winter vomiting bug," causes vomiting and diarrhoea.
• Infection agents: The most common infective agent is contaminated water or food.
• The virus spreads via faeces to the mouth. Consuming contaminated food or liquids, touching contaminated surfaces or objects, or coming into direct contact with an infected person.
• Symptoms: Acute gastroenteritis is caused by inflammation of the stomach or intestine. Diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea, and stomach ache are also symptoms. Fever, headaches, and muscle pain may also persist.
• The symptoms usually appear 12 to 48 hours after the virus has been exposed.
• It affects particularly children, the elderly, and people suffering from other illnesses.
• Severity: Although these virus outbreaks are rarely severe, they can spread quickly if proper precautions are not taken.

Mass mortality of Olive Ridley turtles in Godavari region of Andhra Pradesh raises concerns

• The Olive Ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world.
• They are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.
• They are carnivores and get their name from their olive-colored carapace, which is heart-shaped and rounded.
• Habitat:
  • They are mainly found in the warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.
  • Odisha’s Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary is known as the world’s largest rookery (a colony of breeding animals) of sea turtles.
• Conservation status
  • IUCN Red List: Vulnerable
  • Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule 1
  • CITES Appendix I

Initiatives

• Operation Olivia: Every year, the Indian Coast Guard’s “Operation Olivia”, initiated in the early 1980s, helps protect Olive Ridley turtles as they congregate along the Odisha coast for breeding and nesting from November to December.

Doomsday Clock 2023 moved closer to midnight, global catastrophe now nearer than ever before

• What is it? It is a symbolic timepiece showing how close the world is to ending.
• The hands of the clock are moved closer to or further away from midnight based on the scientists'' reading of existential threats at a particular time.
• Purpose:
  • It warns how many metaphorical “minutes to midnight” humanity has left.
  • It is intended to warn the public and inspire action.
• How is the clock set? A Chicago-based non-profit organization called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists updates the time annually based on information regarding catastrophic risks to the planet and humanity
• Origin and History:
  • The clock was created in 1947 by a group of atomic scientists, including Albert Einstein, who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the world''s first nuclear weapons during World War Two.
  • When it was created in 1947, the placement of the Doomsday Clock was based on the threat posed by nuclear weapons.
  • In 2007, the Bulletin began including catastrophic disruptions from climate change in its hand-setting deliberations.
  • The furthest the clock has been set was 17 minutes to midnight, in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• What time is it now?
  • At 90 seconds to midnight, the "Doomsday Clock" is now the closest it has ever been to midnight.
  • It is the first time it has moved since it was set at 100 seconds to midnight in 2020.
  • Its setting reflects the revived fears of a nuclear war due to Russia''s invasion of Ukraine.

Earth''s inner core may have started spinning in the other direction, study says

• It is the innermost layer of the Earth.
• Structure:
  • It is a solid metallic ball made mainly of iron.
  • The inner core is solid due to the pressure caused by the weight put on it by the Earth’s other top layers.
  • It is distinct from the outer core, which is a liquid.
• Radius:
  • The inner core has an average radius of 1220 km.
  • The boundary between the inner and outer cores is located at approximately 5150 km below the surface of the Earth.
  • This boundary is called the Lehman Seismic Discontinuity.
• Temperature: Inner core temperatures reach extraordinary levels, estimated to be between 7,200–8,500ºF (4,000–4,700ºC).
• Properties:
  • It is predicted to have very high thermal and electrical conductivity.
  • The inner core generates its own magnetic field and spins a bit faster than the rest of the planet.

Layers of Earth

• The earth is made up of three different layers: the crust, the mantle and the core.
  • The crust: This is the outside layer of the earth and is made of solid rock, mostly basalt and granite.
  • The mantle: It lies below the crust and is up to 2900 km thick. It consists of hot, dense, iron and magnesium-rich solid rock.
  • The core: It is the center of the earth and is made up of two parts: the liquid outer core and solid inner core. The outer core is made of nickel, iron and molten rock.

Indian Army to get robotic mules, jetpack suits, tethered drones

• A tethered drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle tethered to the ground.
• It consists of a base station on the ground and the drone, which is connected to the station through the tether (cable).
• The drone can be operated remotely to perform specific tasks.
• Advantages:
  • Tethered UAVs are perfect for data capture and telemetry due to the reliability of tethered connections.
  • Tethered drones dramatically reduce technical and human error crashes in flight.
  • Tethered drones provide a secure line of communication between the ground station and the aircraft.
  • It also does not require GPS navigation.
  • Many tethered drones have longer flight times compared to free-flying, battery-operated drones.
  • Due to the restricted movement of a tethered drone, the operator does not need piloting skills and can mainly focus on their tasks.

Zorawar Light Tank Rollout in April

• The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) of the Defence Ministry recently accorded the approval for Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for purchasing 354 of these tanks through Make in India

Light Tank Zorawar:

• It is an indigenously designed and developed Light Tank.
• Developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in collaboration with Larsen & Toubro Limited.
• Features:
• It is designed to operate in varying terrain from high altitude areas and marginal terrains to island territories.
• It will be highly transportable for rapid deployment to meet any operational situation.
• It will be equipped with all the modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Drone Integration, a high degree of situational awareness, and amphibious operation capability.
• It will weigh less than 25 tonnes with a high power-to-weight ratio as well as superior firepower and protection.

Zorawar

• He was a military general — Zorawar Singh Kahluria, and had served under Jammu’s Raja Gulab Singh in the 19th Century.
• He is honoured for his conquests in the Himalayas including Ladakh, Tibet, Baltistan and Skardu.

Webb Unveils Dark Side of Pre-stellar Ice Chemistry

• The Researchers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to prove that even complex prebiotic molecules, which are precursors to the building blocks of life, can be formed in the depths of cold, dark molecular clouds.

Molecular clouds

• What is it? It is an interstellar cloud of gas and dust in which molecules can form, the most common of which is hydrogen (H2). These clouds have very low temperatures of just 10 to 30 kelvin.
• The size of these clouds can be from a few light years up to 600 light years. Their total mass can reach several million solar masses.
• Molecular clouds with dimensions of more than about 15 light years are also called giant molecular clouds.
• The central regions of these clouds are completely hidden from view by dust. We are able to look into the core of these clouds using radio or infrared wavelengths.
• They are the raw material of stars and planets. These clouds do not last for a very long time.
• After the new stars are born, their solar winds blow away the remaining gas and dust. Only a fraction, about 10%, of the original material of the molecular cloud gets locked up in stars and planets.

Dark nebula (or dark cloud)

• It is a very dense part of a bigger molecular cloud.
• The light extinction is caused by the high density and the presence of interstellar dust in these clouds.
• These are the regions where new stars are forming. They mainly consist of hydrogen and dust particles which are needed to form new star systems with stars and planets.

Solar Mass

• A solar mass is the mass of the sun.
• It is 989 x 10^30 kilograms — about 333,000 Earths.