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IAF airships, drone tech quantum comms: IIT-D powers slew of inventions (IANS Interview)

Be it the Indian Army, Air Force or in the field of drone technology, IIT-Delhi is working closely with DRDO and the government. In an exclusive interview with IANS, Director of IIT-Delhi, Ranjan Banerjee, talked about a few such initiatives.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Q: IIT-Delhi is helping the Indian Armed Forces and is a major partner of DRDO, what are the latest inventions and the areas where IIT-Delhi is helping the Indian Defence sector.

A: IIT-Delhi has developed a lightweight bullet-proof jacket. Recently Indian Air Force signed an MoU with IIT-Delhi for various development projects to support the requirement of the IAF. We are looking for a technical textile. Indigenous fire resistance suits. We have airships, we are working with DRDO for the material of these airships. We are also working on quantum technology and quantum communication. We were one of the few academic institutes. In the Defence Expo, one of our faculty-related startups received an award from the Prime Minister in the field of innovation.

Q: The drone technology is in talk these days, what IIT-Delhi is doing to develop advanced drones and drone technology?

A: We have a hub for cobotics, ‘cobotic’ means collaborative robotics and the ‘drone’ is one of the areas. In Sonipat (Haryana) we are creating a drone facility, including drone pilot training, drone simulation, we are planning next year to start M.Tech in robotics. We have a Centre of Excellence in bio-inspired robots, there are so many startups in drones, which are coming from our alumni and our research students. We are supporting DST, we have been identified as a national hub.

Q: What IIT-Delhi is doing for cybersecurity-related things?

A: Yes, we are doing a lot in cybersecurity. We have specialised in an M.Tech course for cybersecurity. We train people who will be in organisations, who will be tackling all cybercrime-related things. Department of Telecom Communication R&D centre C-DOT and IIT Delhi have signed MoU for cooperation in various areas of telecom spanning and 5G and beyond technologies.

Q: Is IIT-Delhi looking forward to working with foreign universities, especially in the field of academic collaboration?

A: There are a large number of institutions and foreign universities with whom IIT-Delhi has done academic collaboration. There are American universities, European universities, universities from England, Australia, Taiwan University and many others. The University of Queensland of Australia is the largest one. IIT-Delhi has joint PhD programmes with many foreign universities. With Taiwan, IIT-Delhi has done a collaboration for a joint degree. We have also collaborated with many foreign universities in the field of research.

Q: It will not be wrong if we say that IIT-Delhi is one of the main institutes for artificial intelligence. What is IIT-Delhi doing on artificial intelligence?

A: We have an alumni-funded school for artificial intelligence. We have master programmes for artificial intelligence and in machine learning. We are looking at a large number of research projects because artificial intelligence goes into many areas.

Q: Has IIT-Delhi prepared and planned to bring some new courses from the next academic session?

A: Yes, from next session there will be many new courses. As I told you, M.tech in Robotic is one of the new courses. We are planning to have a B.Tech in Design, we started a Bachelor of Design but now we are also looking at Bachelor of Technology in Design, which will start from next year.

Q: Even during the Covid-19 period, IIT-Delhi came with its new innovations and research. Can you share a few research and inventions of IIT-Delhi which will help common people in the coming days?

A: We have done a large number of things for differently-abled people. We have translated all the CBSE books, we have specialised technology so the visually challenged can actually read and convert these books.

In another invention we have made a smart cane. If there is a person who is unable to see. He or she can use that cane. That cane looks at obstacles and gives signals. There are a whole host of things which we are doing.

daijiworld.com

Climber from Bihar unfurls 328ft Tricolour in Lahaul-Spiti’s Kanamo peak

Nandan Choubey, a resident of Sarenja village of Bihar’s Buxar district created a world record by hoisting the tallest Tricolour of 328-feet on the top of Mount Kanamo.

He made a world record in August by conquering Mount Yunam located between Manali and Leh and Mount Kanamo located in Lahaul Spiti district of the Himalayas.

Choubey says that mountains seem small when one has the spirit and will to make the right efforts to reach the destination. He is the only mountaineer from Bihar to have achieved this success.

He added that conquering the peak, which has scarce oxygen, is considered to be very difficult.

“Carrying a flag weighing 10 kilograms is a big deal,” Choubey said.

Elated on his achievement, the mountaineer added that he is passionate about climbing mountains, exploring and taking up new adventures.

His success has been included in the World Book of Records and International Book of Records.

Choubey in a conversation with IANS said that he visited Kedarnath and Kedarkantha for the first time in 2017. His passion for mountaineering gained momentum after seeing the Himalayan Range from close.

He trained from Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering (JIM) in Jammu & Kashmir and the National Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) in Uttarakhand.

Choubey’s journey from the Sarenja village to the mountain tops has been special and difficult too. His morale has increased by this success.

The mountaineer considers Reinhold Messner and Jimmy Chin as his idols.

He said that he has climbed many high peaks, including Kedarkantha, Kalanag, Yunam peak, Kanamo, Stok Kangri, Kang Yatse II, Dzo Jongo, Rudragaira, Friendship peak, Satopanth peak and Nun.

He dedicated the record to the country and other mountaineers. When asked about his upcoming plans, he said that he wants to hoist the Tricolour on Mount Denali in Alaska, North America.

He added that the biggest goal for him is to reach Mount Everest for which he is working exceptionally hard.

Choubey has received awards like ‘Iconic personality of India’, ‘Kalam Youth Leadership award’ and ‘Global Bihar Excellence award’ among others.

daijiworld.com

BHU IIT faculty wins in bamboo innovation challenge

Pradyut Dhar, an assistant professor at the School of Biochemical Engineering, IIT(BHU) Varanasi, is among the top five winners in prototype development stage category in the recently-conducted National Bamboo Innovation Challenge 2022.

The award was conferred to Dr Dhar and his team for the recent technological innovation and development in the bamboo sector which opens up new business opportunities for industries and start-ups.

The programme has been supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India and managed by Finovista on behalf of the Foundation for MSME Clusters (FMC).

Dhar said his team at the Laboratory of Chem Bio systems and Technology has been instrumental in working on the “SmartyBamboo” project which aims to develop high-performance products, using bamboo as base materials that can be easily translated at a commercial scale.

The objective is to promote bamboo as a sustainable material replacing the petroleum-based products as well as help improve the rural economy.

He said the “SmartyBamboo” project developed four kinds of bamboo based value-added products which help widen the applications of bamboo in various new sectors such as agriculture, smart textiles, healthcare, food packaging, automotive parts, glow road signals at night, smart building and high strength construction materials.

All the products are produced through green and sustainable chemical-based processes which are biodegradable in nature.

Most of the business opportunities for bamboo-based products are confined to the rural areas which reduces the potential market.

The developed bamboo-based products in this project can easily be translated to startups, companies or NGOs for production with help of low-skilled workers and, thereby, may improve the financial return for personnel involved in the sector.

Dhar further said that India is the world’s second largest producer of bamboo, however, the country’s share in the trade and commerce of bamboo-based products globally is merely about 4 per cent.

The advancement of such technological innovations both in terms of bamboo-based products and processing units, coupled with skill development is required to create an entire value chain which is supported through the National Bamboo Mission.

daijiworld.com

Meet Pawan Kumar Chandana, rocketry pioneer in India’s private space sector

On November 15, history is set to be created with Vikram-S, the first-ever rocket launcher manufactured by a private company, being launched from ISRO’s launch pad at Sriharikota. The rocket is from Skyroot Aerospace, founded by 31-year-old Pawan Kumar Chandana in 2018.

The move to privatise the Indian space sector has been vital in pushing young entrepreneurs to actively participate in its success. Chandana, who is focussed on rocket launchers could be one of those many to influence this shift. Chandana says his interest — and obsession — in rockets came in his college years.

Chandana, co-founder and CEO of Skyroot Aerospace, is a mechanical engineering graduate from IIT Kharagpur and later worked as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for about six years (2012-18).

“Towards the later days of my college years, I became fascinated with rockets. They were these fantastic machines that have the power to escape the earth’s gravity and go to space. We wouldn’t have so many things without them,” he says in a TedX talk.

Infatuated with the prospect of working with rockets, Chandana attended an interview at ISRO, attributing his selection to luck as he felt he had actually performed lower than his batchmates. He was stationed at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Kerala for six years, learning about rockets and launchers that he eventually became obsessed with.

“I was so happy to work with rockets and understand how they work. At ISRO, I was fascinated while watching the development, assembly and launch of the rockets. I was even at the launchpad several times as a part of my team. I was able to work on some of the largest and prestigious rockets,” he says.

He eventually quit ISRO, forming Skyroot Aerospace along with another IIT graduate, Naga Bharath Dhaka. From there, the rest is history, maybe literally, as Chandana became among the first space entrepreneurs, building India’s first private launch vehicles. He was listed in the ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ in 2020 when he was just a year short of 30.

His company Skyroot Aerospace is the first among private players to test multiple rocket propulsion systems. Also the company is the first private start-up ever to sign an agreement with ISRO which allowed access to India’s premier space agency’s expertise and facilities, besides to test its systems and subsystems.

The agreement saw a slew of tests by Chandana’s Skyroot, which included Raman-1, a hypergolic fuel upper stage engine; Kalam-5, a solid fuel rocket engine; Kalam-100, the rocket stage; and Dhawan-1, the upper cryogenic engine — all these for the Vikram series of rocket launchers planned by Skyroot Aerospace under Chandana’s supervision.

Skyroot Aerospace in May 2021 raised $ 11 million in a series A funding round which attracted contributions from a series of companies and another $4.5 million in a series B funding.

“I wanted to go more in-depth when it came to rockets and, as I did, I realised how much there was that I could do with them, how much there was to understand,” he says. This led him to realise space was where the next big step for humanity lies, in terms of resources as well as for humanity’s survival.

“I believe rockets are the most fascinating machinery ever built by humans, and are now in need of a new techno-economic makeover, to open up a new frontier in space access and exploration,” he says in his LinkedIn profile.

While many are inclined to call Chandana ‘India’s Elon Musk’, with a comparison to SpaceX, he holds a much larger position in the Indian space sector — a young pioneer going down in history as the father of rocketry in the Indian private space sector.

newindianexpress.com

    Marwari horses exported for first time; to serve in Bangladesh President entourage

    Six Marwari horses have been exported from Jodhpur to Bangladesh where they will be used for carrying the cart of Bangladesh’s President, an official of the All India Marwari Horse Society said.

    This is for the first time that this indigenous breed of horse from the desert has been exported.

    Jangjeet Singh Nathawat, Secretary of the All India Marwari Horse Society and Marwari Horse Stud Book Registration Society (MHSRS) of India said that all these six horses reached Bangladesh on September 29.

    “These horses have been ordered by Bangladesh police for the horse carriage of the President of Bangladesh,” Nathawat said.

    All six horses belong to Marwar Stud of Bal Samand Lake Palace, governed by the Umaid Bhawan Palace of Jodhpur, and have been registered as a ‘Marwari horse’ with the MHSRS.

    “We kept striving to export Marwari Horses and succeeded in getting permission.

    The export would be on a case-to-case basis,” said Nathawat, terming the development an outcome of constant efforts of the erstwhile ruler of Jodhpur and the patron of the society, Gaj Singh.

    As a result of these endeavours, the animal husbandry department of the central government gave a no-objection certificate for the export of these horses, with an export licence provided by the Director General of Foreign Trade.

    Marwari horses are one of the finest breeds of horses and are considered the most elegant and enduring breed of all.

    “It is a matter of great pride for us that the Bangladesh government has imported our horse for the state carriage of the President,” Nathawat said, adding that similar demands of Marwari horses have been pouring in from the US, European, and Arabian countries.

    Over the past decade, the society in Jodhpur has been trying not only the promotion and conservation this breed of horse but has also been striving for their exports considering their love among foreign horse lovers and equestrians.

    Gajendra Pal Singh Posana, the joint secretary of the society said that there have been five meetings in the past 12-13 years to convince the ministry to allow the export of this breed.

    “There had been a demand of 40-50 such horses from Bangladesh but due to delay in sanction we could send only six horses after the last meeting with the minister Purushottam Rupala,” Posana said.

    He said that the Bangladesh Army was also in discussion with the society for the purchase of 20 Marwari horses, but due to a delay in permission, obtained 17 Arabian horses from the Qatar government.

    Marwari horses are known for their elegance, beauty, gait and other features, which many have said to be incomparable with any other horse breed on the earth.

    In 2009, Spanish businessman Mario Calcagno fell in love with the breed and tried hard to take them to Spain but failed.

    Undeterred by his failure to export, he bought two colts and four mares of this breed to be kept in the custody of the society at Balsamand Lake Palace in Jodhpur.

    Nathawat said that earlier there was no pedigree mapping for the Marwari horse breed, a lack which was filled by the opening of a stud book in 2006, under the helm of MSRS for mapping the breed’s pedigree.

    The move not only helped people have a list of purebred Marwari horses but also spread the word among foreign horse lovers who contributed to their conservation, Nathawat said.

    Mapping the breed history will pave way for more export for the Marwari breed as the inquiries have been pouring in from Germany, the US, UAE and other countries, he claimed.

    “European countries have some protocols regarding some equine diseases.

    But we are studying those protocols and are trying to resolve them so that those who want to import the horses of this breed could have them”, Nathawat said.

    The society, which has the authority to provide passports for export, has till now registered over 3,000 pure-breed Marwari horses since the process of registration began.

    Posana said that these collective efforts have paid off both in terms of a spurt in the number of the horse and their price in the market.

    The efforts are now being made by the society to urge the government to speed up the process of their export, he added.

    newindianexpress.com

    UK: Indian-origin Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan awarded Royal Order Of Merit

    Indian-origin Nobel laureate Professor Venki Ramakrishnan has been awarded the Order of Merit — an exclusive mark of honour conferred by the British sovereign — in recognition of his distinguished service to science.

    Molecular biologist Ramakrishnan, 70, is among six appointments made to the order by Queen Elizabeth II before her death in September.

    “His Majesty The King has been pleased to make six new appointments to the Order of Merit. Appointments to the Order are made in recognition of distinguished service to the Armed Forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. The individuals were chosen by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in early September,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

    “The new appointments are Sir David Adjaye OBE, RA; Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, DBE, FCRN; Baroness Floella Benjamin, DBE; Professor Margaret MacMillan, CHC CC (Canada); Sir Paul Nurse, CH; and Dr Venki Ramakrishnan,” the statement added.

    Venkatraman ‘Venki’ Ramakrishnan is a Nobel Prize-winning biologist whose many scientific contributions include his work on the atomic structure of the ribosome, according to British The Royal Society.

    Tamil Nadu-born Venki received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on ribosomal structure and was knighted in 2012.

    He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina and EMBO, and a Foreign Member of the Indian National Science Academy. He was President of the Royal Society from November 2015 until November 2020.

    The Order of Merit, founded in 1902 by King Edward VII, is a special mark of honour conferred by the Sovereign on individuals of exceptional distinction in the armed forces, science, arts, literature, or for the promotion of culture.

    Appointments to the Order are in the Sovereign’s personal gift. The Order is restricted to 24 members. (ANI)

    newindianexpress.com

      Inspiring journey: Tribal boy from Gadchiroli becomes scientist in US

       From struggling to get one square meal as a child in a remote village in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli, to becoming a senior scientist in the United States, Bhaskar Halami’s life is an example of what one can achieve with sheer hard work and determination.

      Brought up in a tribal community at Chirchadi village in Kurkheda tehsil, Halami is now a senior scientist in the research and development section of Sirnaomics Inc, a biopharmaceutical company in Maryland, USA.

      The company conducts research in genetic medicines and Halami looks after RNA manufacturing and synthesis.

      Halami’s journey to becoming a successful scientist has been fraught with obstacles and he has had many firsts to his name. He was the first science graduate from Chirchadi and the first from the village to earn a Master’s degree and PhD.

      Halami recalled that in the initial years of his childhood, his family survived on very little.

      “We had to struggle so much to even get one square meal. My parents till recently wondered how the family survived that phase when there was no food or work,” the 44-year-old scientist said.

      Some months in the year, especially monsoons, were incredibly tough, as there were no crops in the small farm that the family had and no work, he said.

      “We cooked mahua flowers, which were not easy to eat and digest. We would collect parsod (wild rice) and cook rice flour in water (ambil) and drink it to fill our stomachs. This was not just us, but 90 per cent of the village had to survive this way,” Halami said. Chirchadi is home to 400 to 500 families.

      Halami’s parents worked as house helps in the village, as the produce from their small farm wasn’t enough to feed the family.

      Things got better when Halami’s father, who had studied till Class 7, found out about a job opening at a school in Kasansur tehsil more than 100 km away and reached the place by taking every available means of transport.

      “My mother had no way of knowing if my father had reached the place. We only found out about him when he returned to our village three to four months later. He had landed a job as a cook at the school in Kasansur, where we later shifted,” Halami said.

      Halami did his early schooling from Classes 1 to 4 at an ashram school in Kasansur, and after clearing a scholarship exam, he studied at the Government Vidyaniketan Kelapur in Yavatmal till Class 10.

      “My father understood the value of education and ensured that my siblings and I completed our studies,” he said.

      After earning a Bachelor of Science degree from a college in Gadchiroli, Halami got his Masters in chemistry degree from the Institute of Science in Nagpur. In 2003, Halami was appointed as an assistant professor in the prestigious Laxminarayan Institute of Technology (LIT) in Nagpur.

      While he cleared the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) examination, Halami’s focus remained on research and he went on to pursue a PhD in the United States and chose DNA and RNA for his research, foreseeing a huge potential in it.

      Halami earned his PhD from Michigan Technological University. The top researcher now receives at least a couple of emails each week from recruiters scouting for talent in the field of DNA/RNA.

      Halami gives the credit for his success to his parents, who worked hard and contributed their meagre earnings towards his education. Halami has built a house for his family in Chirchadi, where his parents wanted to live.

      He lost his father a few years ago. The researcher was recently felicitated by additional commissioner of state tribal development Ravindra Thakre in Gadchiroli.

      The tribal development department rolled out its ‘A Tea with Tribal Celebrity’ programme, with Halami as its first celebrity.

      Thakre also invited the scientist as a guest at a tribal hostel in Nagpur, where the latter provided guidance to students. During his trips to India, Halami visits schools, ashram schools, and colleges and even meets students at his house to counsel them about careers and ways to achieve their goals.

      newindianexpress.com

      Why National Education Day is celebrated on November 11

      National Education Day is celebrated every year on November 11 as it marks the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was India’s first education minister after independence.

      The National Education Day is observed annually on November 11 in India. From its history, significance to theme, here is all you need to know about this day.

      Why is National Education Day celebrated?

      In India, National Education Day is celebrated every year on November 11 as it marks the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was India’s first education minister after independence.

      Born on November 18, 1888, Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin Ahmed bin Khairuddin Al-Hussaini Azad was an Indian independence activist,  writer and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress. After the nation gained independence, he became the first Minister of Education in the Indian government. He served as the education minister from August 15, 1947 till February 2, 1958, and passed away in Delhi on February 22, 1958.

      The day is observed to celebrate the work done by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the education sector during his tenure as the education minister. In 1920, he was elected as a member of the foundation committee to establish Jamia Millia Islamia at Aligarh in UP. He also assisted in shifting the university campus from Aligarh to New Delhi in 1934. Now, the main gate of the campus is named after him.

      As the first Indian education minister, Azad’s main focus in post-independence India was educating the rural poor and girls. Other key areas where he focused were adult literacy, free and compulsory for all children up to the age of 14, universal primary education, and diversification of secondary education and vocational training.

      “We must not for a moment forget, it is a birthright of every individual to receive at least the basic education without which he cannot fully discharge his duties as a citizen,” he said addressing a conference on All India Education on 16 January 1948.

      He also oversaw the establishment of the Department of Education of the University of Delhi, the first Indian Institute of Technology in 1951 and the University Grants Commission in 1953.

      How to celebrate National Education Day?

      School students across the country can conduct discussions, debates and themed-programmes on Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s teachings and achievements. They can also have cultural programmes related to the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, or his life achievements.

      Additionally, schools can also organise discussions or seminars to discuss the current problems and issues in the Indian education system. Through these discussions, experts and shareholders can identify the issues in the system and also come up with possible solutions to these problems.

      indianexpress.com

      Justice DY Chandrachud takes oath as 50th Chief Justice of India

      Supreme Court judge, Justice DY Chandrachud on Wednesday was sworn in as the 50th Chief Justice of India. The oath was administered by President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. 

      Justice DY Chandrachud as CJI will have a tenure of more than two years and will demit office on November 10, 2024. 

      Appointed as SC judge in 2016, Justice DY Chandrachud overturned the verdicts of his father in 2017 and 2018. In the famous Aadhaar verdict, the judge had starked a discordant node by dissenting with the majority and ruling that Aadhaar was unconstitutionally passed as a money bill and violative of fundamental rights. He had also dissented in a case related to the arrest of five human rights activists who had allegedly incited violence at Bhima Koregaon when the other two judges of the bench had allowed Pune police to continue their investigation as per law.

      Justice Chandrachud has been a part of many constitution benches that have delivered path-breaking verdicts such as the decriminalisation of same-sex consensual sex by striking down section 377 of IPC which criminalises consensual unnatural sex between consenting adults and recognising “living will’ made by terminally-ill patients for passive euthanasia which have played a major role in strengthening the human rights jurisprudence in the country. He was was also part of the five-judge bench that delivered the famous Ayodhya verdict and that allowed the entry of women into Sabarimala temple.

      The judge has also authored judgements that have batted for empowering women and breaking the shackles of patriarchy. In a ruling penned by him, the judge gave a massive boost to the reproductive rights of women by ruling that prohibiting unmarried or single pregnant women with pregnancies upto 24 weeks from accessing abortion while allowing married women to access them during the same period fell foul of the spirit of right to equality. In his most recent judgment, Justice Chandrachud remarked that two finger test re-victimizes & re-traumatizes women who may have been sexually assaulted and asked the centre to ensure that the practice is stopped. 

      newindianexpress.com

        Meet Dr. Arshia, winner of the prestigious German Astronomical Society Award | Tech Bric

        Dr Arshiya M Jacob is currently living the life of her dreams. Interested in science since childhood, she is now a research scholar at the iconic Max Planck Society in Germany. Moreover, she won the German Astronomical Society Award for the best research thesis.

        Hailing from Maradu in Ernakulam district, Arshiya completed her B.Sc (Hons) in Physics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. In the second year, she was associated with the PSLV project at ISRO as part of her internship. This attracted her to astronomy.

        After completing her degree in 2015, Arshia did her post-graduation at Bonn University in Germany. The thesis she submitted as part of the course impressed the director of the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy. After that she got an opportunity to do research at the Max Planck Institute. Her research can be described, in simple terms, as the study of how clouds transform into stars.

        Arshia studies matter and radiation in the galaxy. She also discovered some information about the chemical origin of the Milky Way. As part of the studies, Arshia Sofia also flew in the research plane.

        Arsia’s research won the Otto Hahn Award, established by the Max Planck Society. The prestigious Otto Hahn Award is given to thirteen scientists who have made impressive research in the fields of physics and chemistry.

        She gained the fame of this award when she won the award by the German Astronomical Society. Dr. Arshia, who is currently pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship at John Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States, may return to Germany after completing his course. At Max Planck she could continue her research work with her own team of scientists.

        Founded in 1948, the Max Planck Society has produced 23 Nobel Laureates till date. Swedish geneticist Svante Pabo, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine this year, is part of the institute.

        Research in science requires patience and dedication. Researchers should not be discouraged when results are negative or inconclusive. However, they have to work persistently to get the desired results that can significantly impact humanity.

        Sofia
        The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. The Boeing 747 SP aircraft has a reflecting telescope that can be observed under infrared lighting. The plane flies in the stratosphere – the layer of atmosphere that surrounds the Earth at an altitude of 11-13 km. Ground-based telescopes cannot make observations in the infrared field because the Earth’s atmosphere and water particles block infrared rays.

        The Sophia project, which started in 2010, ended in September this year.

        techbric.com