Here are today’s most important updates from the realm of Science and Space.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced plans for the Bharatiya Antariksha Station (BAS), designed to weigh approximately 52 tonnes, will support a crew of six. Meanwhile, it was planned to carry only three astronauts earlier. This ambitious project was unveiled during the Kannada Technical Seminar at the U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bangalore. BAS will serve as a platform for space tourism and the harnessing of space resources, marking an important shift towards more commercial applications of space exploration. The initiative aligns with global space exploration trends, as nations and private companies increasingly invest in technologies to sustain human presence beyond Earth.
Food options for crewmembers during a mission is pretty diverse. This training focused on meal preparation. The assigned #Ax4 crew learned how to rehydrate their food and experienced a sneak peek of what lunchtime on the ISS might look like during their mission. And of course,… pic.twitter.com/YGz6cVEXtq
— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) November 28, 2024
Credit - X/@Axiom_Space
Axiom Space recently conducted a training session for the crew of its Ax-4 mission, focusing on meal preparation in the International Space Station (ISS). The astronauts received a glimpse of diverse food options to be utilised during upcoming mission. The crewmembers also learned how to rehydrate their meals, which is essential for consuming food in microgravity. Meanwhile, Axiom Space plans to ensure that its crew can operate autonomously while adhering to safety standards set by NASA. The comprehensive curriculum encompasses everything from daily routines to handling potential emergencies during spaceflight.
NASA has captured an astonishing satellite image of red-hot lava oozing from Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula. The incredible shot, snapped by OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9, also showed a large billow of smoke and gas arising from the eruption. This is the seventh instance of a volcanic eruption in the area in less than a year. As per scientists, Iceland's current eruption is a fissure eruption, where sheet of magma flows through a fracture and when this fracture intersects with the surface, lava erupts onto the surface. Iceland is home to at least 33 active volcanic systems, more than any other European country.
A new study has revealed fossilised footprints of two ancient human species, Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei. They coexisted in northern Kenya at least 1.5 million years ago. Spotted at the Koobi Fora site near Lake Turkana, these stunning footprints provide the first-ever physical evidence that these distinct species shared the same landscape, raising intriguing questions about their interactions and potential competition for resources. The footprints were unearthed during an excavation in 2021. Paleoanthropologist Louise Leakey, also the co-author of the study said: “The fossil footprints provide us a clear picture of that instant in time... The different human ancestors may well have passed by each other.”
