WATCH: SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch of Starlink mission from LC-39A

Exploration Of Mercury

The exploration of Mercury has a minor role in the space interests of the world. It is the least explored inner planet. As of 2015, the Mariner 10 and MESSENGER missions have been the only missions that have made close observations of Mercury. MESSENGER made three flybys before entering orbit around Mercury. A third mission to Mercury, BepiColombo, a joint mission between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency, is to include two probes. MESSENGER and BepiColombo are intended to gather complementary data to help scientists understand many of the mysteries discovered by Mariner 10‘s flybys.

Compared to other planets, Mercury is difficult to explore. The speed required to reach it is relatively high, and its proximity to the Sun makes it difficult to maneuver a spacecraft into a stable orbit around it. MESSENGER was the first probe to orbit Mercury.

FAU-G: Indian rival to PUBG Mobile announced, release in October-end

Within two days of the PUBG Mobile app ban in the country, we have witnessed several Indian game developers introduce India’s alternative to PUBG or new battle royale games similar to the banned game. One of the many developers is nCore Games that on Friday announced a new Indian version of PUBG Mobile called FAU-G or Fearless And United: Guards. The game is said to release soon. nCore Games should reveal the release date and other details about the game in the days to come.

FAU-G was always in the pipeline; PUBG ban was coincidental: nCore Games’ Vishal Gondal

Vishal Gondal, CEO of GOQii said via an official tweet that FAU-G is developed in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Atmanirbhar App campaigner. The announcement comes just two days after the government of India banned 118 Chinese apps including PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite. Gondal later told indianexpress.com that the team has been actively working on FAU-G since

nCore Games is yet to reveal more details about the action game. Talking about the game, Gondal said that FAU-G, as the name suggests, will lesson players about the sacrifices of Indian soldiers. He also said that 20 per cent of net revenue will be donated to BharatKeVeer trust.

Also Read | 5 PUBG Mobile alternative battle royale games you can try | PUBG Mobile ban in India: You can still play PUBG on PCs, game consoles |  10 PUBG Mobile facts we bet you didn’t know | Why PUBG Mobile ban could hit hard gaming phones segment

Several Indian game developers are using the PUBG Mobile ban as an opportunity to bring desi alternatives to the game. Similar happened to TikTok when the short video platform was banned in the country. There are apps like Chingari, Mitron, Roposo, Moj, and many more that have replaced TikTok in the country.

As Akshay Kumar announces FAU-G, Babu-G to Fauji memes flood social media timelines

The government of India banned 118 apps on Wednesday including the popular battle royale game PUBG Mobile and also its Lite version. The game has been removed from Google Play store and Apple App store. Users who have the game downloaded on their phones are still able to play the game.

WEEKS LATER, NASA STILL CAN’T FIND HOLE IN SPACE STATION

Plugging The Hole

There’s a hole on the International Space Station, allowing air to leak out — and NASA is still having trouble tracking it down.

The situation isn’t nearly as dire as it sounds. In fact, the leak was first spotted almost exactly a year ago, as Business Insider reports. But finding it has dragged on, and on, and on.

No Reason To Worry

A bit of air leaking out the space station is to be expected, NASA says, and requires occasional top ups from nitrogen tanks delivered on cargo resupply missions to the station.

On August 20, NASA released a statement about an ongoing investigation into the small air leak, taking pains to note that the three current crew members weren’t in immediate danger. Yet the three were asked to spend a weekend inside the Russian segment of the station as scientists back on Earth tried to track down the source of the leak.

By August 24, the situation hadn’t changed. The crew had to spend another night in the Russian segment, according to NASA.

Still Investigating

Now, September has rolled around and NASA still hasn’t located the source of the leak.

Data is still being collected about the leak, as NASA spokesman Daniel Huot told Business Insider on Tuesday, adding that teams on the ground should complete their review “in the coming days.”

“The leak rate is still stable and well below the design specifications for the station and presents no concern for crew or vehicle safety,” Huot added.

NASA TESTS ROCKET SO HUGE IT LIGHTS ENTIRE HILLSIDE ON FIRE

Massive Fireball

Northrop Grumman just ignited a booster for NASA’s long-awaited Space Launch System (SLS) — blasting so forcefully that it ignited brush on the surrounding hills at the company’s test facility in Promontory, Utah.

Space Launch System

The Flight Support Booster, or FSB-1, is meant to lay the groundwork for improving future rocket boosters that are meant to power NASA’s SLS, as Spaceflight Now reports.

The SLS is a heavy-lift launch system meant to one day carry astronauts to the Moon as part of the agency’s upcoming Artemis missions. A July test of the core stage rocket built by Boeing was a success.

According to Northrop Grumman, the 154-foot booster is the “largest solid rocket motor ever built for flight.” The booster is made out of five segments and weighs a whopping 1.6 million pounds, producing a maximum of 3.6 million pounds of thrust, according to official documentation.

The SLS core stage is even bigger, towering at 212 feet and designed to push out two million pounds of thrust from four RS-25 engines.

Big Rockets Are Hard

“From our view, it looks like everything went great,” NASA’s TV commentator said during the live stream of the event.

“Rockets, especially big ones, are rather hard,” Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger wrote in a tweet, congratulating Northrop Grumman. “Good work by NASA and Northrop Grumman to pull off this test.”

SETI TEAM INCREASES NUMBER OF STARS THAT MIGHT HOST LIFE BY 200X

Branching Out

The search for extraterrestrial life just got a whole lot more expansive — a team of scientists keeping an ear out for alien transmissions just ballooned their operation to examine 200 times the number of star systems it had previously.

The Breakthrough Listen Initiative, an effort to intercept radio transmissions sent out by extraterrestrial civilizations, is now listening to 288,315 star systems instead of its previous 1,327, according to preprint research shared online last week. In all, the change represents a major upgrade to one of the more prominent attempts to find intelligent life in the Milky Way.

Outside Voices

The University of Manchester scientists behind the project made the improvements after combing through existing European Space Agency data about the locations and distance from Earth of celestial bodies within 33,000 lightyears, which is the range of their radio telescope.

“Knowing the locations and distances to these additional sources,” Manchester researcher and team leader Michael Garrett said in a press release, “greatly improves our ability to constrain the prevalence of extraterrestrial intelligence in our own galaxy and beyond. We expect future SETI surveys to also make good use of this approach.”

Honing In

The idea is to identify extraterrestrial civilizations by picking up radio broadcasts, so figuring out how feasible it is for each star system to get a message to Earth helped them narrow down their search while adding the new candidates.

“Our results help to put meaningful limits on the prevalence of transmitters comparable to what we ourselves can build using twenty-first-century technology,” study coauthor Bart Wlodarczyk-Sroka said in the release.

ELON MUSK COMPARES NEURALINK TO “A ‘BLACK MIRROR’ EPISODE”

Entire History

The question did bring to mind the “Black Mirror” episode “The Entire History of You,” which features characters who are able to record and review all their memories — with disastrous consequences.

After his meditation about “Black Mirror,” Musk went on to speculate that the technology could eventually be used for mind transfer.

“You could upload, you could basically store your memories as a backup, and restore the memories, and ultimately you could potentially download them into a new body or a robot body,” Musk said. “The future’s going to be weird.”