Two Indian Institute of Science scientists crack mystery of black holes

Black holes, as stars are known postdeath, are not visible to the plain eye.

BANGALORE: A scientist from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and his student have successfully applied Albert Einstein's gravity theory to unlock the mysteries of black holes.

Banibrata Mukhopadhyay, associate professor, department of physics, IISc, and his student Indrani Banerjee worked for over two years for their landmark discovery. Their study on black holes has been acknowledged by the scientific community across the globe, including professors from Harvard University. The duo has published its findings in the international journal Physical Review Letters.

Black holes, as stars are known postdeath, are not visible to the plain eye. Though not visible, black holes devour everything in their neighbourhood given the gravitational pulls they exercise. It was hitherto believed that mass and spin are the determining properties of black holes and they would go a long way in determining the influence of black holes on their neighbourhood as well as their pre-death star existence.

Their new study, says Banibrata, who worked in Harvard for three years before joining IISc in 2007, throws more light on black holes and their properties, particularly the correlation between mass and spin or rotation. They have proved that mass and spin are not independent of each other but actually interdependent. They have established that mass of the star could be used to calculate the spin.

"The spin of the observed black holes is still a debatable issue — the exact value of the spin is not known. On the other hand mass can be determined more easily. Rotation of the black hole is determined by the mass and rotation of the initial star. The larger the mass of the initial star the greater it tends to have a high rotational speed and turn into swiftly spinning black holes. The smaller the mass of the initial star the slower its rotation and spin. This property shows that spin and mass are correlated. Hence if mass is known, the spin can be predicted. Eventually, only one fundamental parameter characterizes the black hole," Banibrata explained.

Indrani, a PhD student of physics, said, "First we were working on how stars collapse and end up into black holes. During the research, the thought of discovering the properties emerged," she said.

WHAT ARE BLACK HOLES?

Black holes are formed when stars exhaust their 'nuclear fuel' or are 'dead'. They are abyssinian spaces that exert strong gravitational force on everything in their vicinity. The hole is called 'black' because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing. The largest black holes are called 'supermassive'. These black holes have masses that are more than 1 million suns together.

Malaysian Scientific Diaspora Network To Connect Malaysian Scientists Worldwide

From Leslean Arshad

GOLD COAST (Australia), Nov 15 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian Scientific Diaspora Network (MSDN) was launched here Thursday, serving as key platform to connect Malaysian scientists worldwide and promote collaborative research in their areas of expertise for the country's benefit.

Launched by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is currently on nine-day working visit to Australia, the MSDN initiative is part of the national agenda to tap local talent abroad to contribute to the country.

Speaking at the launch attended by about 100 of Malaysia's best minds in Australia, Muhyiddin said the global Malaysian scientific community could use the network to discuss general scientific and research issues and represent the voice of the Malaysian scientific community across the world.

They could also use the network to provide valuable collective ideas to improve scientific research and development in Malaysia, promote research collaborations and knowledge sharing, and provide guidance for young researchers, he said.

"We believe that this scientific diaspora network is a valuable source of talents that can be tapped to enhance knowledge and skills transfer, and in turn, strengthen scientific research in Malaysia.

"Indirectly, Malaysian scientists working abroad can contribute to our national progress and development through their collaborative work with Malaysian researchers," he said.

Muhyiddin said, it was indeed, a new approach to get the best minds among Malaysians to reinvigorate scientific research in Malaysia and help transform the country into a high-income developed nation by 2020.

"This innovative way of 'brain gain' will of course, be mutually beneficial for both Malaysian scientists working abroad and those working in Malaysia.

"With the strength of one million diasporas abroad based on the World Bank Report, where about 120,000 of them are in Australia, Malaysia was looking at a new way to tap those talents for the interest of the nation.

"The Malaysians overseas work as professionals in various sectors of the economy including banking, engineering, medicine and some of them work as lecturers or researchers in universities, and many others run their own businesses," he said.

The deputy prime minister said, the MSDN offered strategic benefits which included global exposure to education, technology and business, providing inputs for the formulation of national strategic plans and policies, opportunities for collaboration and partnership, participation in academic and business forum, consultation, seminars and dialogues.

The network would also allow researchers to utilise resources beyond individual organisations and provide strategic direction in the development of human resource capability towards enhancing national competency, he said.

Muhyiddin said, it was envisioned that the newly-launched MSDN would comprise Malaysian researchers working in Australia, non-Malaysian researchers working in Australia who are interested to collaborate with researchers in Malaysia, and Malaysian and non-Malaysian researchers working in Malaysia.

For the Australian chapter, the network aimed to connect with prestigious scientific community in Australia such as the Australian Academy of Sciences, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, he said.

Expressing delight that Malaysia's higher education ministry had taken the initiative to establish the MSDN, Muhyiddin hoped the network would be strategically managed and utilised to allow Malaysian scientists to contribute effectively to knowledge transfer and growth in Malaysia.

"Malaysian diasporas are great assets to our country, an asset that we would like to continuously nurture and develop for the benefit of our nation," he said.

Mars may have flowing saltwater, study says

An image taken by NASA’s HiRISE camera shows the Newton Crater, where it appears there may be liquid salty water.

Scientists have found new evidence for possible saltwater flows on Mars. The discovery was announced at a NASA news conference Thursday.

Alfred McEwen, lead author of the Science journal study showing these observations, and his team have been observing Mars using the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. His team has identified features on some slopes of the planet that appear to fade in the winter and come back in the spring.

These flows occur near the Mars equator in its southern hemisphere, where temperatures would be suitable for liquid water. Since Mars is about 50 million miles farther from the sun than Earth, temperatures rarely break the freezing mark. At the equator, summer highs can reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit (about 20 Celsius). But in the middle latitudes, where the observations disclosed Thursday were taken, temperatures range from about 32 degrees F at summer noon to overnight lows of -75 F (-60 C).

The water is expected to be briny because previous study of the planet has shown that its surface is salty, so any water that flows in the subsurface is going to be salty.

Seven such sites on the planet have been confirmed, with 20 more possible, McEwen said.

“What makes these new observations so interesting is they occur at much lower latitudes where temperatures are much warmer and where it’s actually possible for liquid water to exist,” said Arizona State University geophysicist Phil Christensen, one of the scientists who studied the images beamed back from the orbiter.

The study does not prove water exists, but identifies it as the best explanation. It's worthwhile to think about alternative reasons for these observations, but none seems to fit as well as briny water, McEwen said.

"I think it’s going to be laboratory experiments on Earth that give us the best confirmation or refutation," he said.

The water may be higher in density and viscosity than what we're used to on Earth, to the point that it may appear syrup-like.

So what does this mean for life on Mars? If Mars has water that flows as a liquid in warmer times and freezes at others, if organisms live there, they might go into a resting state during winter, said Lisa Pratt, professor of geological sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. This is pure speculation, however.

"It is our first chance to see an environment on Mars that might allow for the expression of an active biological process, if there is presently life on Mars,"  Pratt said.
CNN's Matt Smith contributed to this report.

Astronomers Discover Ten Floating Planets

WELLINGTON, May 19 (Bernama) -- Ten new "floating" planets, which drift through the galaxy rather than orbiting stars, have been discovered by an international team of astronomers led by New Zealand scientists, Xinhua news agency said citing a local newspaper's report.

The finding of the Jupiter-sized planets was announced Thursday by the international journal Nature as having "profound" implications and opening a new chapter in the history of the Milky Way.

The orphan gas planets, formerly the stuff of science fiction, were discovered using software developed by Massey University computer scientist and astrophysicist Ian Bond, the Dominion Post newspaper reported.

"They're giant planets in our galaxy, around the size of Jupiter and somewhere between us and those distant background stars," he told the newspaper.

The planets are believed to be about two-thirds of the way to the centre of the galaxy, which is about 25,000 light years away.

If they were visible to the naked eye, the planets would be pitch black, as they emitted no light, Bond said.

The find raised the possibility that smaller, Earth-sized free- floating planets, which could support life, were yet to be detected.

Bond told the newspaper the orphan planets could have been ejected from a solar system because of close gravitational encounters with other planets or stars, or they could have grown from collapsing balls of gas and dust, but lacked the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel and produce their own starlight.

The discovery team included researchers from Massey, Auckland, Canterbury and Victoria universities, all based in New Zealand, as well as from Osaka University in Japan and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, in the United States.

The group is part of the microlensing observations in astrophysics study, which uses a microlensing telescope at Mt John Observatory at Lake Tekapo, in the South Island of New Zealand.

Gravitational microlensing is an astronomical phenomenon that refers to the bending of light that occurs when a star is aligned with a massive object in front of it, allowing the study of planetary bodies that emit little or no light.

India's Unconventional Energy Path

(Photo: Water Contamination Center)

(Asia Sentinel) With India importing nearly 25 percent of its gas needs – which could rise to 50 percent by 2020 – the government is spurring a push into a plethora of new, unconventional energy sources including shale gas and oil, oil sands, coal bed methane, underground coal gas, coal-to-liquid, tight gas and others to replace traditional natural gas and crude oil.

Even as India pushes for the new options, however, there are unsolved concerns about the environmental fallout of such energy sources that, given India's fractious NGOs, could spell serious trouble for the companies out to produce energy from them – especially multinationals. This is a country that could call out hundreds of protesters against Coca-Cola bottling plants for allegedly polluting groundwater or absorbing groundwater that villagers claimed as theirs.

The search for energy and mineral resources has already spurred a bloody Maoist rebellion in India's mineral-rich states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. According to a 26 April, 2010 Asia Sentinel report, some analysts call the threat the biggest India faces.

Shale gas, for instance, is produced by a process called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" – fracturing rock formations deep underground that potentially involves massive pollution of underground water and seismic activity, apart from huge amounts of wasted water in bringing shale gas to the surface. Given the state of new technology, the impact on large-scale production is not definitive, however. Although some oil and gas industry analysts have labeled the concerns as "overblown," major incidents such as the 65-day BP oil rupture that spilled an estimated 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, which make the need for proper safeguards crucial. The lenience shown to officials of the Union Carbide-created poison gas disaster in Bhopal have also raised environmental outrage.

In India the Madras high court recently urged firms to implement social and environment responsibility norms. However, profit-driven hydrocarbon and mining companies are known to usually ignore such aspects unless there is a strict crackdown on polluting activity.

Shale Gas Option

India is preparing a road map for its first-ever shale gas auctions within the next 12 months, marking the tapping of the second unconventional natural gas resource after coal bed methane. Indian shale gas reserves have not been measured, but they are estimated to be higher than conventional gas reserves. Reliance Industries, which has already invested in US shale gas projects, is expected to play a leading role in Indian exploitation of the resource. RIL has acquired 40 percent of Atlas Energy's Marcellus Shale acreage in the US for US$1.7 billion followed by 45 percent of US-based Pioneer Natural Resources shale gas assets for US$1.15 billion. Y K Modi's Great Eastern Energy Corporation is also keen on shale to expand its existing coal bed methane portfolio. Multinationals such as Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell are also expected to seek to go after Indian reserves

The decision to tap shale gas followed a recent meeting presided over by Jitin Prasada, the minister of state for petroleum and natural gas, with officials of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, to outline a policy plan for shale gas output in India, following in the footsteps of America, China and Canada. Shale gas producing areas are to be marked out by early next year, followed by open bids for the blocks in which both Indian and foreign companies will be able to participate.

India is also likely to bring in the services of the US Geological Survey to share knowledge in the area. Some 20 percent of America's gas production today is derived from shale gas. India's Oil Minister Murli Deora recently met with the US deputy secretary of energy, Daniel Poneman to discuss shale gas exploration.

Several known hydrocarbon basins – Cambay in Gujarat, Assam-Arakan in the northeast and Gondwana in central India have been identified as potential shale rich locations. State owned ONGC has earmarked Rs 1.3 billion for a pilot project for shale gas exploration at the Damodar Basin and has been looking to work with America to develop the new energy source. Preliminary talks have taken place with Canada as well.

Pushing coal bed methane

New Delhi recently awarded seven CBM blocks for exploration, with Essar Oil bagging four of them, Australian firm Arrow Energy two via separate joint ventures with Oil India Ltd and Tata Power, while one block went to Great Eastern Energy Corporation. Essar's four CBM blocks offers the company an additional acreage of 2,233 sq km and potential of 7.6 trillion cubic feet (tcf) CBM gas.

"The decision will accelerate energy security of the country," the government said in a prepared statement after round four of bidding for CBM blocks.

The Arrow-Tata consortium has been awarded the Assam and Satpura (in central Indian province Madhya Pradesh) blocks. The latter is likely to hold 900 billion cubic feet of gas and is to be used to back Tata power units that supply electricity to Mumbai. Arrow Energy, with 80 percent, will be the operator of Satpura with initial production expected in 2014.

Arrow also has CBM interests in Australia, China, Indonesia and Vietnam. The company was recently acquired by a joint venture of Shell and Petrochina. Reports indicate Arrow is in talks with ONGC to develop CBM blocks in West Bengal and Jharkhand. ONGC owns six blocks and has been looking for a technology partner to develop them.

Petroleum minister Deora has said CBM production in India is expected to touch nearly 7.5 million standard cubic meters per day in 2012-13. Production began in 2007 with Great Eastern commercial supplies. Great Eastern has two dozen wells in West Bengal.

Essar Oil is looking to become the country's second commercial producer. The company's Raniganj coal block holds about 30 percent of proven coal-gas reserves in India.

Of a total of 250 tcf of natural gas estimated in India, 45 tcf is expected from coal deposits. Three companies -- Reliance Industries (3.6 tcf), GEEC (1.9 tcf) and Essar Oil (2.2 tcf) -- have declared 8 tcf commercially recoverable CBM.

RIL's coal-gas finds are in Madhya Pradesh, Essar and GEEC's are in West Bengal

UCG Projects

ONGC is preparing to begin underground coal gasification production, with three major projects in the offing.

"We are waiting for the mining lease approval from the coal ministry, said company chairman R S Sharma recently. "These three major projects will bring future growth.''

ONGC estimates the Mangalore project in Karnataka to be completed by 2012; in Tripura (in north east India) around 2-3 billion cu.m of production is expected to commence from March 2012, while at Vatsan in Gujarat, ONGC expects to produce 2 billion cubic meters by 2013-14, all of which the state-owned energy company hopes can offset declining revenue as crude oil production begins to fall.

ONGC has been experimenting with underground coal gasification technology for the last five years, setting up pilot projects in 2005 in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, to be followed by others in Rajasthan. The pilot plans are now being enlarged as the government seeks to build a base for UGC output. UCG technology uses a chemical reaction to convert coal into gas underground before pumping it to the surface. Given India's nearly 260 billion metric tons of coal reserves, it is hoped that UCG will become an important energy source. Coal, which now accounts for more than 60 percent of India's primary energy needs, is one of the world's biggest sources of greenhouse gases.

In a related development Naveen Jindal-led Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) has finalized plans to set up a coal-to-liquid (CTL) plant in Orissa (eastern India) that will require investment of Rs 420 billion. A joint venture between India's Tata Group and South Africa's Sasol plans to invest US$10-billion in a CTL project, also in Orissa, by 2018.