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March 2025

FireSat to detect wildfires - AIMagazine - May 2025

Company's first satellite

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pitchai celebrated the launch of the company's first ‘FireSat’ satellite into Earth's orbit and thanked Elon Musk's SpaceX for the “ride”.

Early detection of wildfires

The satellite was launched for early detection of wildfires.
The AI compares the latest images with thousands of previous shots, considers local weather and atmospheric conditions then determines if fire is prevent.
Infrared sensors designed to detect small scale fires more effectively
Firesat will be used by scientists to create a global historical record of fire spread to help understand wildfire behaviour.
It is also an incredible tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

5 x 5 meters using AI

[p] “It’s the first of a 50+ satellite constellation that will help detect + track wildfires as small as 5x5 meters, using AI.

Collaboration

FireSat is a collaboration between Google Research, satellite manufacturer Muon Space, non-profit Earth Fire Alliance, scientific support organisation Moore Foundation, United States wildfire authorities and others.
The constellation includes more than 50 satellites.
Funding for the constellation’s first satellites comes in part from Google.org, which has provided $13 million through the AI Collaborative: Wildfires.

Need

[c] At present, many wildfire authorities depend on satellite imagery that’s low-resolution or only updated a few times a day.
This makes it difficult to detect serious fires until they have grown as large as football fields.

Updated every 20 minutes

FireSat, purpose built satellite constellation, will advance the science and practice of fighting wildfires by providing high-resolution imagery updated globally every 20 minutes, helping emergency responders catch wildfires before they become destructive. Live Mint

July 2025

Delhi’s Nehru Planetarium is floundering

Background

Inaugurated in the year 1984.
The Nehru Planetarium is nestled inside the Teen Murti Bhawan in central Delhi, as a part of the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library (PMML) compound.
The initial idea of the Nehru Planetarium and its funding came from the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund set up in 1964, in honour of India’s first Prime Minister.
It has been an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture since 2005.

No director since 2021

There hasn’t been a director since 2021, after the last director, N Rathnasree, died in 2021, who was the director from 1999 to 2021.

No research projects

There haven’t been any research projects in the planetarium because there’s no scientist at the top to help mentor them.

Fluctuating budget and declining footfall

the planetarium’s budget for maintenance and outreach programmes in the last five years has fluctuated quite a bit.
The allocation for outreach programmes by the planetarium saw a dip after 2022. From Rs 29-31 lakh, it went down to Rs 16 lakh in the year 2023-24, and then just Rs 11 lakh in 2024-25.
in 2019, 2020, and 2021 it was granted around Rs 2.5 crore yearly, in 2022-2023 the budget shot up to Rs 17 crore for the upgrade to a 3-D projection system, bought from the US-based Evans & Sutherland company.
But in 2023-2024, the budget slipped down to just Rs 54 lakh, while in 2024-25 it was Rs 80 lakh.
in 2022-23, the planetarium only saw an annual footfall of 1.60 lakh because it was shut for three months due to renovations. In 2023-24, the number rose to 2.70 lakh, and in 2024-25, it was at 2.06 lakh people.

No independent website

However, the planetarium does not have an independent website, relying instead on a page on the PMML’s official website. This rudimentary page, too, is not updated with any information beyond show timings, with the ‘gallery’ and ‘student project’ pages remaining blank. no presence on Instagram or X, formerly Twitter.

January 2026

General Relativity Survives Its Hardest Test Yet

Author: Vasudevan Mukunth
Publication Context: A study published in Physical Review Letters on January 29, detailing a major scientific milestone.

1. The Event: GW250114

Discovery Date: On January 14, 2025, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGOs) detected a cosmic tremor.
Significance: Named GW250114, this signal was the "loudest" gravitational wave scientists have ever detected.
The Goal: Researchers used this exceptionally clear signal to conduct the most rigorous test to date of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the nature of black holes.

2. The Theory & Methodology

The "Ringdown" Process: According to general relativity, when two black holes merge, they form a single, distorted black hole that settles down by "ringing" like a struck bell. This process emits gravitational waves known as "ringdown."
The "No-Hair Theorem": This theorem states that a black hole in a vacuum is simple—characterized only by its mass and spin. Its ringing should follow a specific pattern called the Kerr metric.
The Test: Scientists wanted to verify if black holes are truly as simple as Einstein predicted or if they hide more complex features (which would point to new physics).
Techniques Used: * Black Hole Spectroscopy: Analyzing specific frequencies and decay times in the "sound" of the ringdown. * Numerical Relativity: Comparing real-world data against supercomputer simulations of black hole mergers. * Software Tools: Advanced packages like RINGDOWN, pyRing, and a method called pSEOBNR were used to analyze the signal notes.

3. The Findings

Victory for Einstein: The study was a resounding success for general relativity. The data matched the predictions for a Kerr black hole within just a few percent.
Distinct "Notes" Identified: The team successfully isolated at least three distinct notes in the ringing:
- The dominant tone.
- The first overtone.
- A mode at a higher pitch.
Hawking’s Area Theorem: The data also confirmed Stephen Hawking’s theorem (which states a black hole’s surface area cannot decrease) with a high statistical significance of 4.8 sigma.

4. Future Developments & Indian Context

Scientific Value: This single "loud" event yielded as much scientific insight as dozens of previous, weaker detections combined.
New Observatory: A **new LIGO observatory is being built in Maharashtra, India, announced in the Budget 2026-27
- It will be the third observatory in the network (after the two in the U.S.).
- Once online, it is expected to improve the precision of locating gravitational wave sources by an order of magnitude.

April 2026

Entanglement, a spooky action

In classical physics, objects usually only affect things directly next to them. Momentum entanglement proves that whole atoms can remain connected through a non-local bond.

So far observed in lighter particles

Helium atoms can be entangled through their movement, which creates pairs that share a single quantum state.
Heavy particles could follow strange quantum physics rules that are mostly observed in much lighter particles like electrons so far.
This is a link between quantum physics and gravity, a famous unsolved problem in physics.
Quantum entanglement occurs when two particles become so deeply linked that they share a single existence. The study achieved a momentum entanglement, where the link involves the particles' momentum.
Scientists collided the atoms, resulting in pairs being few apart. Because of quantum mechanics, major atoms have a definite direction until a detector measured it. Once they measured the momentum of one atom, they instantly determined the momentum of each partner, no matter how far they had travelled.
In entanglement, teleportation involves quantum information. When a measurement defines the first atom's state, information effectively dictates the state of the second atom across the world.
[!] Einstein calls this "spooky action at a distance" because it defies everyday logic.

Earth orbit is feeling fast because governance hasn't kept pace

Earth's orbital environment becomes crowded, fragile, and vulnerable because of the failure of governance rather than just of engineering.

Space sustainability

Launches become more frequent, and the number of private actors increases.

Commercially exploited and strategically warranted but ethically under governed

Debris is capable of causing damage, and it is impossible to track consistently.

Reducing risk depends on having accurate information about when objects in orbit might come close to one another and exactly where they are. Access to this information is uneven across satellite operators and countries and sometimes withheld for commercial reasons or for security reasons.

Even debris smaller than a coin, travelling at orbital velocities, carries enough energy to disable or destroy active satellites. Each collision generates thousands of new fragments, multiplying the risk.

International law obligates States to take reasonable measures to prevent foreseeable harm arising from activities under their jurisdiction. In the context of orbital debris, this means states need to plan for collisions, fragmentation, and long-term congestion, but the real question is how many of the states are actively doing it?

The existing treaties were written when space activity was limited and controlled only by states.

Article 6 of the Outer Space Treaty states that a state is internationally responsible for national activities in outer space, including those carried out by private actors.

Article 7 establishes liability for damage caused by space objects.

Not designed to prevent cumulative harm, it is poorly suited to prevent harm before it becomes irreversible.

National licensing regimes can enforce orbital responsibility before damage occurs.

Before approving a rocket launch or a mission, regulators need to be told about:

the orbital timeline
ways in which the payload can be disposed of
provisions to avoid collision and
passivated, that is, deprived of the ability to move around

Distance jurisdiction asks for different levels of details, hence operate as registered in permissive regulatory environments.

Licensing conditions need to be standardized.

Mandating launch operators to use measurable debris mitigation thresholds.
Compulsorily share data to improve space situational awareness.
Use verifiable end-of-life disposal strategies.

India is developing its own national space legislation.

Who bears the responsibility for cumulative risk? What obligations do present-day operators owe to the future space farers?

Voluntary guidelines and rhetorical commitments no longer work. Existing guidelines, technically sound, rely on voluntary compliance, like uniform monitoring or sanctions for non-compliance, which has resulted in an uneven regulatory landscape.

Science and Tech - Miscellaneous