पुन्हा नव्याने सुरूवात लेखक - अभिषेक ठमके (दर्जा ***)

या कादंबरीतून महासागरांचा इतिहास, जमिनीखाली आणि समुद्रामध्ये कशा प्रकारे संशोधन होते, संशोधकांचे जीवन कसे असते, सैनिक म्हणजे नक्की काय असतो, निसर्गाची उत्पत्ती कशी झाली आणि अशा प्रकारची बरीच माहिती मिळवता येईल. हे पुस्तक म्हणजे एक अशी कथा आहे, जिथे सर्व काही संपतं आणि सर्वांना पुन्हा नव्याने सुरुवात करावी लागते. ही सुरुवात नव्या जगाची आहे, नव्या जगण्याची आहे, जगण्याची नाही तर नव्याने जगवण्याची आहे, नव्याने घर शोधण्याची आहे, गमावलेल्या सर्व गोष्टी पुन्हा नव्याने कमावण्याची आहे.

लेखकाला लहानपणापासून संशोधक होण्याची इच्छा, म्हणून भरपूर पुस्तके वाचून काढली. अनेक संशोधकांचे चरित्र वाचले. सर्वकाही सुरळीत चालू होते आणि त्यातच मिलिटरी स्कूलमध्ये शेवटच्या वर्षी लेखकाचा अपघात झाला. नंतर रेल्वेमध्ये प्रवास करत असताना अपघात झाला आणि लेखकाची बरीच स्वप्ने धुसर झाली. जास्त धावू नये, जास्त वजन उचलू नये अशी अनेक बंधने लेखकावर आली. संशोधनात काही करता आले नाही याचा खूप त्रास होत होता. संशोधनातून काहीतरी वेगळे प्रयोग करायचे आणि जगाला काहीतरी नवीन दाखवायचं ही खंत काही केल्या मनातून जात नव्हती. तेव्हा आपण पुस्तकाच्या माध्यमातून जगाला नवीन काहीतरी देऊ शकतो असे लेखकाच्या लक्षात आले आणि त्याने दोन पुस्तके लिहिली, मैत्र जीवांचे आणि अग्निपुत्र.

‘मैत्र जीवांचे’ पुस्तकामधून लेखकाने एकाच पुस्तकामध्ये ६ वेगवेगळ्या भाषांचा वापर केला, गुगल संस्थेमधील कामकाज कसे चालते हे दाखविले, ऑस्ट्रेलिया आणि जर्मनीमधील संस्कृती दाखवली. कादंबरीला चांगला प्रतिसाद मिळाला. नंतर ब्लॉगच्या माध्यमातून ‘अग्निपुत्र’ नावाची साय-फाय कादंबरी लिहिली, कादंबरीला एका वर्षातच ३,००,००० पेक्षा जास्त वाचकसंख्या लाभली आणि त्यानंतर आता ‘पुन्हा नव्याने सुरुवात’ कादंबरी आपल्यासमोर सादर करत आहे. तिन्ही पुस्तकांमध्ये मुख्य नायक हा संशोधक, डॉक्टरेट किंवा शास्त्रज्ञ आहे. नायकाला ही भूमिका का दिली हे आपल्याला समजले असेलच. पण मुद्दा हा नाहीच आहे, मुद्दा हा आहे कि लेखक तुम्हाला काय देतो आहे. का देतो आहे ते तुम्हाला बऱ्यापैकी कळले असेलच.

आज लेखकाने लिहिलेले पुस्तक वाचत असताना तुम्ही तुमच्या आयुष्याचे काही तास लेखकासाठी, लेखकाच्या पुस्तकासाठी देत आहात, तर ते तास तुमच्यासाठी अविस्मरणीय असावे, त्यातून तुम्हाला काही शिकता यावे, पुस्तक वाचत असताना नुसता विरंगुळा न होता तुम्हाला अशी काही माहिती मिळावी जी तुम्ही कधी ऐकली नसेल किंवा वाचली देखील नसेल आणि पुस्तक वाचल्यानंतर आपण काहीतरी नवीन, वेगळे वाचले आहे याचा आनंद तुमच्या चेहऱ्यावर असावा हा महत्वाचा मुद्दा आहे, आणि तो मुद्दा या पुस्तकामध्ये देखील तुम्हाला अनुभवायला मिळेल. महासागरांचा इतिहास, जमिनीखाली आणि समुद्रामध्ये कशा प्रकारे संशोधन होते, संशोधकांचे जीवन कसे असते, सैनिक म्हणजे नक्की काय असतो, निसर्गाची उत्पत्ती कशी झाली आणि अशा प्रकारची बरीच माहिती तुम्हाला या कादंबरीमध्ये वाचता येईल.

Byculla to Bangkok by S. Hussain Zaidi (Rating *****)

Most great cities have criminal underbellies. London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mos­cow, Istanbul—all these have nurtured notorious criminal networks. Mumbai’s underworld took shape in the 1950s and 1960s. The pioneering dons came from poor Muslim families—reflecting their socio-economic marginalisation. After the bomb blasts in 1993, the ascendancy of the Shiv Sena-led government and the rise of an elite, trigger-happy police unit, the balance of power shifted in favour of you­nger Maharashtrian Hindu mobsters.

In Byculla to Bangkok, S. Hussain Zaidi focuses on this part of the underworld. The nerve-centre of organised crime runs down Mumbai’s own centre. The  ear­lier generation of dons came from the southern end, close to the docks, while their successors lived further mid-town. This lower-middle-class milieu of mill wor­kers, petty government servants and street vendors was host to the dreaded BRA gang (of Babu Reshim, Rama Naik and Arun Gawli) and Amar (Raavan) Naik and his engineer brother Ashwin.

Starting out as small-time trouble-makers, these mobsters found themselves in high demand as the city began to reinvent itself from textile manufacturing centre to financial powerhouse. Real estate, particularly the lucrative stretch of defunct mill land, was the sought after prize. The involvement of politicians in the turf wars was no secret. Bal Thacke­ray called the Maharashtrian gangsters ‘amchi muley’ (our boys) and Chhota Rajan, grievously wounded in an attempt on his life in Bangkok, was whisked to safety by the Thai military police, suggesting protection at high levels.

The story has the customary amount of bloodspill and treachery, but also runs in other directions. The phenomenon of enc­ounters and glorification of policemen specialising in extra-judicial killings of alleged criminals has been written about before and even made into movies but Zaidi’s account also sheds light on the envy and ripple effect it caused in the force. Then there is the effect of globalisation, the ties to Afghan drug cartels and guerilla networks such as the LTTE. Also, top gangsters seeking refuge outside the country: Muslims heading west to Dubai and Karachi, Hindus to Bangkok, where all they need is “a one-bedroom flat, a TV airing Indian channels and a telephone to call India to issue threats”.

Zaidi’s book is littered with similar anecdotes and insights. We learn for ins­tance that Gawli’s terrace house is as large as a badminton court; that jails are the equivalent of cafes offering net­working opportunities for criminals; that a criminal modus operandi depic­ted in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York ins­pired Amar Naik to expand his operations.

As a reporter, Zaidi is limited by a lack of distance and narrative flair that could have injected a sense of the timeless into his material. Parts of the book read like a recitation of well-known facts from new­s­papers. The absence of financial estima­tes for what is, after all, a kind of business, is glaring. Anecdotes and stories are often thrown together pell mell, including a tantalising one about a Pat­han woman whose beauty was both a sou­­rce of power and a curse. Notwithst­anding the flaws, Zaidi is to be complimented for venturing into risky territory and emerging with a breezy, informative read.

What is Surgical Strike?

Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh:  In its longest and most complex mission, India's space agency ISRO today launched eight satellites from one rocket into two different orbits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, "Our space scientists keep scripting history."

The PSLV or 37th Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, carrying three satellites from India, three from Algeria, and one each from Canada and the US, lifted off from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh at 9:12 am. Around noon, ISRO said its launch was "100 per cent successful".

Most countries launch satellites in a single orbit and even if multiple satellites are injected, it is in a sequence in the same orbit.

What makes this mission a challenge is that the PSLV will launch its payloads in two different orbits. The twin-orbit manoeuvre was recently accomplished by European Space Agency's Vega rocket.

"This is a challenging two-in-one mission which puts India in a unique league of nations having the capability to achieve two different orbits in a single mission," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman AS Kiran Kumar earlier told.

India's SCATSAT, meant for ocean and weather forecasts, cyclone detection and tracking, has been placed in orbit. India shares such data with the US, which helped them track Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Pratham, a 10-kg satellite developed by students of the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, will study the total electron count in space. The 5.25-kg PISAT made by students of Bengaluru's PES University will take pictures of earth.

The mission will also test PSLV's multiple burn capability which will be utilized in the last leg and will set a new milestone for ISRO. The whole procedure was completed within 2 hours and 15 minutes - the longest mission for ISRO.

The stop-start of the rocket - while travelling at a speed of more than 2660 kmph - gives PSLV an edge in the multi-billion dollar commercial launch market. "It will open up new vistas to commercialise ISRO's launch capabilities for two-orbit configurations," said Dr K Sivan, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center.

In another first later this year, India hopes to launch its heaviest rocket, the Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III, capable of taking up to 4 tonnes of communications satellite.

The three Algerian satellites are for earth observation, remote sensing and technology demonstration. The US' Pathfinder-1 is a commercial high resolution imaging micro satellite while Canada's NLS-19 is a technology demonstration nano satellite for experimentation in helping to reduce space debris and for tracking commercial aircraft.

London Has Fallen 2016 (Rating ****)

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Alon Aboutboul.
Director: Babak Najafi

When a film titled London Has Fallen begins with the dusty fields of Pakistan, you know where it’s heading. It’s going to be yet another American geopolitical fantasy where Uncle Sam saves the world, as it bulldozes all nuances of the topic of terrorism along its way. But to be fair, keeping its problematic politics aside, the film begins to tell its story well

We see a wealthy Muslim arms dealer Aamir Barkawi (Alon Aboutboul) in his mansion somewhere in Punjab Province. He talks business with his sons even as they make plans for his daughter’s (their sister) wedding. In the next scene, we are inside the wedding, observing all its colourful festivities. We also catch someone making a suspicious phone call. Cut to the next shot, a G8 sanctioned drone sets its eyes on the venue: it becomes a small square plot on its display screen, a button pressed and a big boom heard. Barkwai may be a dangerous man, but you are made to feel for him, for his family and the innocents who have been wiped off the face of the earth. But as it turns out, the portion was merely a guilt-trip in advance for the makers of a movie where America, yet again, emerges as the hero.

London Has Fallen is a sequel to Olympus has Fallen (2013), in which North Korean terrorists had held US President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) hostage in the White House. But the series’ protagonist is not Asher, but Mike Banning, chief of his personal security. Now, I haven’t seen Olympus, but that film showed Banning falling from grace – he was demoted from the President’s detail after he failed to save the lives of Asher’s family – only to be reinstated at the end of the film after he pulls off an impossible rescue. That backstory explains the single-minded focus with which Banning works for Asher. But in isolation of the first film, London Has Fallen carries few traces of his troubled past. 

Yet, it isn’t a total disaster because director Babak Najafi manages to pull us into his film in the first 30 odd minutes. It’s when the US president, along with other world leaders (strong allies of the United Kingdom), descend in London to attend the British Prime Minister’s funeral. Given the short notice that the event has been planned, it becomes one with extreme high-security. This stretch is taut as we are introduced to one leader after the other, knowing that something terrible is about to happen. And then terror strikes as though it is some evil alien ship taking over earth. Sure, it makes for some spectacular visuals such as the Westminster Abbey collapsing as the Italian President romances with his girlfriend on its terrace or London Bridge falling down while the French President relaxes on his boat on the river Thames. While the impact is superficially pleasurable, London Has Fallen treats terrorism the way big, dumb blockbusters treat apocalyptic tsunamis or other natural disasters. 

So much more could have been extracted from Banning’s relationship with Asher. Banning is not just Asher’s personal security but also a confidante. Asher treats him as an equal, going for jogs together or putting up a sparring boxing match. But the film portrays Butler as an American superhero masquerading as an US agent, mouthing offensive lines such as “Go back to F**khead-istan or wherever it is you are from”, single-handedly saving his President from a terror attack planned for years. Butler isn’t bad, but he plays the character straight, as you expect him to. And an actor of Ackhart’s calibre seems severely underutilised and you just wish he had a better written character rather than a one-note helpless President. When both come out unscathed from a helicopter crash (leaving their third partner, um, a black character dead), Banning tells Asher that after everything else has failed, London by foot might well be there best option. I thought London by foot would be a great opportunity to take the film to an unexpected direction, giving us a tense, cinematic tour of a broken London. But no, turns out it was a short cut to get into a house. And from there to another one. London Has Fallen becomes too clichéd to make us care for its characters, an overdose of American self-righteous heroism, that the world already has had too much of.

The Mechanic 2011 (Rating ****)

Starring: Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland.
Director: Simon West

The basic plot of The Mechanic—a loose remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson movie of the same name—holds boundless promise for action fans, and mostly fulfills it: A preternaturally skilled hitman (Jason Statham) teaches a young loose cannon (Six Feet Under’s Ben Foster) the tricks of his slick, deadly trade. But things aren’t that simple, naturally. The duo connect at the funeral of Foster’s father (Donald Sutherland), who was also Statham’s mentor in the killin’ business—and whom Statham murdered early in the movie, under orders from his clearly no-good handler. Feeling some pang of regret even though Sutherland double-crossed the company, Statham takes the hotheaded, boozed-out scamp under his wing and sets about making him into an ice-veined killer. It’s the least he can do, right?

For a good chunk of its running time, The Mechanic is a buddy movie about two guys really enjoying murder together. They almost seem ready to high-five after a job well done, even as Statham’s character glumly explains “I wanted you to see one up close.” In order to ease the audience’s conscience, the protagonists’ victims are conveniently more awful than they are: an arms dealer “who’ll sell to anybody,” a ridiculous cult leader, a hulking gay assassin who wants to fuck Foster. Statham’s hit-plans are frequently complex, and he’s always eight or nine steps ahead of everyone else—so much that it would’ve been nice to see these guys actually planning more assignments instead of just watching those assignments unfold. But that would leave less screen time for strangulations, splattery headshots, and murder-by-fireplace-tools, so maybe it’s just as well.

Statham and Foster play off each other nicely, and director Simon West (Con Air) strikes a playful balance between carnage and conviviality, gore and gregariousness. A confrontation between the two leads is inevitable, and since The Mechanic is so morally muddled to begin with, it’s difficult to tell where things are headed, or how to take sides. That isn’t because these characters are well-drawn or terribly complex—they assuredly aren’t—but it’s still an unusual, intriguing path for a movie like this to travel. The only thing certain going into the climax is that guns will be fired and things will explode in style. Couple that with actual acting—Statham is the most winning action hero around, and Foster brings some nuance that the script probably doesn’t deserve—and it’s bloody fun.
 

Central Intelligence 2016 (Rating ***)

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Aaron Paul, Jason Bateman, Amy Ryan
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Call it the superhero scourge or the blight of franchise but the big-dollar cinema, which invariably has few brave men saving the world – sometimes in spandex, sometimes not-- seems to be throttling everything else. If a courageous film like the quirky buddy comedy Nice Guys finds its way to the theatres, we the audience decide to look the other way.

You, O Hollywood, have conditioned us. Even when we are talking bromance, we want it with a generous serving of formula, and – please, oh please – someone save the world. Enter Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and buddy comedy 101, Central Intelligence. The film keeps so much to the bromance formula that it is funny in itself: We get jokes on anatomy (Dwayne Johnson’s character is called Robbie Weirdicht), fart jokes, the mandatory marital counselling session and other vulgar gags.

But leave it to the pocket-sized Hart and his buddy, who is not called The Rock for nothing, to squeeze out the comic juice from this unevenly-paced thriller comedy. There may be crater-sized script holes but you still guffaw as this unlikely pair goes about sending CIA in a tizzy.

Now, for the plot: 20 years ago, Hart was the star of his high school, destined to great things while an overweight, awkward Johnson was the butt of all jokes. When Robbie is pushed into the school assembly naked by bullies, Hart is the only one who comes to his rescue.

Fast forward two decades and Hart is a burnt out accountant and Johnson is, well, back to being the buffed, muscled Johnson we know. He is also a CIA agent who may or may not have gone rogue. He definitely idolises Hart still and gets in touch with him. CIA boss woman (Amy Ryan) follows suit and a kerfuffle ensues. At stake are secret nuke codes which can destroy the world.

Hart and Johnson share an easy chemistry and there are enough lines in there to keep the jokes coming. Johnson calls a befuddled Hart “snacksized Denzel” and “like a black Will Smith” at various points in the film.

The muscled Johnson plays Robbie like a goofball who is still struck on Hart’s high school charisma. His love for unicorns, fanny packs and schmaltzy films keep the laughs coming. And hell, who has a name like Sting, or The Rock for crying out loud?

The trouble lies in director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s patchy handling of the story. There are moments when the film is slow and sluggish, and then it is on steroids with hyper action. Those are the moments when you thanks god that you are in this ride with a big Johnson and a little Hart. Also, watch out for the cameos both credited and not.

GSLV Successfully Launches India's Weather Satellite INSAT-3DR

In its tenth flight (GSLV-F05) conducted September 08, 2016, India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, equipped with the indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage (CUS), successfully launched the country's weather satellite INSAT-3DR, into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

The achieved orbit is very close to the intended one. The launch took place from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR (SDSC SHAR), Sriharikota, the spaceport of India. This was the first operational flight of GSLV equipped with CUS and the fourth to carry the indigenous CUS. This latest GSLV flight was the third consecutive success achieved by GSLV carrying indigenous CUS and the 2211 kg INSAT-3DR is the heaviest satellite to be launched from the Indian soil.

In its oval shaped GTO, the INSAT-3DR satellite is now orbiting the Earth with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 169.76 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 36,080.5 km with an orbital inclination of 20.62 deg with respect to the equator.

After a 29 hour 40 minutes countdown, the 415 tonne, 49 m tall GSLV-F05 carrying INSAT-3DR, lifted off at the rescheduled time of 16:50 Hrs IST. The 40 minute delay in the launch was due to an anomaly observed in the functioning of a pressure release valve in the liquid Oxygen filling ground segment which was resolved later.

At 4.8 seconds before the countdown reached zero, the four liquid propellant strap-on stages of GSLV-F05, each carrying 42 tonne of liquid propellants, were ignited. At count zero and after confirming the normal performance of all the four strap-on motors, the 139 tonne solid propellant first stage core motor was ignited and GSLV lifted off.

The major phases of the flight included the core motor burn-out, strap on burn-out, ignition of the second stage, separation of the core motor together with strap-ons, payload fairing separation, second stage separation, CUS ignition and its timely shut down after satisfactory performance. About seventeen minutes after lift-off, INSAT-3DR was successfully placed in GTO.

Soon after its injection into GTO, the solar array of INSAT-3DR was automatically deployed and the Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka took control of the satellite.

Like its predecessor INSAT-3D which is providing service from orbit since 2013, INSAT-3DR is an advanced meteorological (weather observation) satellite built by India to provide a variety inputs essential for accurate weather forecasting. For this, it is equipped with three payloads (instruments), namely, a Multispectral Imager, Sounder and weather Data Relay Transponder.

INSAT-3DR also carries a satellite aided Search and Rescue Transponder that picks up and relays alert signals originating from distress beacons of maritime, aviation and land based users.
In the coming days, INSAT-3DR's orbit will be raised from its present GTO to the final circular Geostationary Orbit (GSO) by firing the satellite's Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) in stages.

The satellite will be commissioned into service after the completion of orbit raising operations and the satellite's positioning in its designated orbital slot of 74 degree East longitude in the GSO and in-orbit testing of its payloads.

This latest flight of GSLV further highlights the success of ISRO in mastering the highly complex cryogenic rocket propulsion technology.

Ignited Minds by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Rating ****)

Genius, it is said, is the ability to reduce the complex into the simple. The strength of Ignited Minds, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's latest essay at book-writing, lies in the scientist's ability to present some of the most tangled issues that confront the nation in easily digestible packages of information.

Kalam throws modesty to the winds and makes bold to present his "I have a dream" kind of vision statement to pull the nation out of the morass of doubt that it has fallen into. But those looking for an erudite discourse on the nation's woes by someone who has achieved so much may feel let down. Kalam's world-view is at times far too simplistic, even bordering on the naive.

Yet it is precisely the lack of cynicism that makes it a refreshing read especially for the young reader. Kalam's "Can Do" approach even at his age is a lesson for all those who curl their lips at any talk of India achieving greatness in the near future.


The scientist is right to rely on the young to ask him some of the most stimulating questions. A student in Assam, for instance, asks him pertinently why the flood waters of the Brahmaputra cannot be diverted to water-scarce Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu? Dulled, even deadened, by India's slow march to development, an adult reaction would be to dismiss such a notion outright.
But it is the childlike curiosity and quest for knowledge coupled with steely determination to do the job- which Kalam exhibits in abundance and which makes him so special-that can probably ignite minds and produce greatness.

Kalam believes the mission approach that he championed during his tenure in the country's leading scientific establishments is a good enough model to replicate. In his way, after careful analysis major problems have to be broken up into achievable goals, time frames fixed, resources provided and, presto, the team should deliver.

Unfortunately in India, Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong) still prevails. Kalam's notions may take a while gaining supremacy.

India tests new scramjet rocket engine

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully tested its new scramjet engine and expects a commercial launch. This is being touted as the most cost-effective rocket engine the world has seen.

With this, the ISRO, which is already the most inexpensive commercial satellite launch service provider in the world, expects to attract more customers worldwide.
The test carried out from Satish Dhawan Space Center, located at Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, demonstrated the key technological aspects of the engine.

These included the ignition of its engines at supersonic speeds, maintaining thrust at supersonic speeds, and tests of its air intake mechanism and fuel injection systems.
"The first experimental mission of ISRO's Scramjet Engine towards the realization of an Air Breathing Propulsion System was conducted August 28, 2016 from Satish Dhawan Space Center SHAR, Sriharikota.

After a flight of about 300 seconds, the vehicle touched down in the Bay of Bengal, approximately 320 km from Sriharikota. The vehicle was successfully tracked during its flight from the ground stations at Sriharikota," reads a statement released by ISRO.

The Scramjet engine designed by ISRO uses Hydrogen as a fuel and the Oxygen from the atmospheric air as its oxidizer. The use of atmospheric oxygen will reduce the weight of the rocket engine substantially, which can then be used to launch heavy payloads.

Rocky planet found orbiting habitable zone of nearest star

An international team of astronomers including Carnegie's Paul Butler has found clear evidence of a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Solar System. The new world, designated Proxima b, orbits its cool red parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface, if it were present.

This rocky world is a little more massive than the Earth and is the closest exoplanet to us; it may even be the closest possible abode for life beyond our own Sun. A paper describing this milestone finding is published by Nature.

Just over four light-years from our Solar System sits a red dwarf star named Proxima Centauri. This cool star in the constellation of Centaurus is too faint to be seen with the naked eye and is close to the much brighter pair of stars known as Alpha Centauri A and B.

During the first half of 2016, the HARPS spectrograph on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla regularly observed Proxima Centauri, as did other professional and amateur telescopes around the world.

The team of astronomers, called the Pale Red Dot campaign, led by Carnegie alum Guillem Anglada-Escude of Queen Mary, University of London was looking for a tiny back-and-forth wobble in the star caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet.

In addition to data gathered by the Pale Red Dot campaign, the paper incorporates contributions from scientists who have been observing Proxima Centauri for years, including Butler.

As this was a topic with very wide public interest, the progress of the campaign between mid-January and April 2016 was shared publicly as it occurred on the Pale Red Dot website and via social media. Numerous outreach articles from specialists all around the world accompanied the reports on data collection.

Anglada-Escude explains the background to this unique search: "The first hints of a possible planet were spotted back in 2013, but the detection was not convincing. Since then we have worked hard to get further observations off the ground with help from ESO and others. The recent Pale Red Dot campaign has been about two years in the planning."

The Pale Red Dot data, when combined with earlier observations, revealed a truly exciting result. At regular intervals, Proxima Centauri is approaching Earth at about 5 kilometers per hour - normal human walking pace - and at opposite times in those cycles it is receding at the same speed.

This regular pattern repeats with a period of 11.2 days. Careful analysis of how tiny the resulting Doppler shifts were showed that they indicated the presence of a planet with a mass at least 1.3 times that of the Earth, orbiting about 7 million kilometers from Proxima Centauri - only 5 percent of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

One complication to the analysis is that red dwarfs like Proxima Centauri are active stars, and their natural brightness variations could mimic the presence of a planet. In order to exclude this possibility, the team also monitored the changing brightness of the star very carefully during the campaign using the ASH2 telescope at the San Pedro de Atacama Celestial Explorations Observatory in Chile and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network.

Although the planet companion, Proxima b, orbits much closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun in our Solar System, the star itself is far fainter and cooler than the Sun. As a result, Proxima b has an estimated temperature that - if water were present - would allow it in a liquid state on its surface, thus placing it within the so-called "habitable zone" around the star.

Despite the temperate orbit of Proxima b, the conditions on the surface may be strongly affected by the ultraviolet and x-ray flares from the star - far more intense than the Earth experiences from the Sun.

"The discovery of the potentially habitable planet around Proxima Cen is the culmination of 30 years of work that has improved stellar velocity measurement precision from 300 m/s to 1 m/s," Butler said.

"This work has resulted in the discovery of hundreds of planets around the nearest stars, and now a potentially habitable planet around the nearest star in the sky. This work confirms the Kepler satellite and precision velocity studies that have shown that potentially habitable planets are common, and points the way to the future when such planets will be directly observed with giant ground- and space-based telescopes."

World's Largest Telescope Unlikely to Find Home in India

The telescope is part of an ambitious international project to discover more about our universe.
One of the potential alternate sites for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), proposed for the Indian town of Hanle, has less advantageous characteristics than other places Indian Minister of State for Science and Technology Y. S. Chowdary said before parliament.
"Hanle site has lower seeing values of 0.9-1.2 arc sec as compared to the alternate sites in Chile and Canary Islands of Spain (La Palma) which have seeing values of 0.55 arc sec.
Thus, scientifically, Hanle has less advantageous characteristics for hosting a mega telescope like the TMT in comparison to the other alternate sites."
Indian participation in the TMT project is being jointly funded and overseen by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). TMT was originally set to be installed at Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the US.
The construction work for TMT at Mauna Kea was started but had to be stalled due to revocation of a permit by orders of the Supreme Court of Hawaii.

Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space by Isaac Asimov (Rating *****)

How do we know that stars are millions of miles away? How was the moon formed? Is there life on planets that circle other stars? What is a nova? What are black holes?

You will find the answers in this book, and not in long, mind-numbing technicalities. Isaac Asimov’s unique skill and authority have never been better deployed than in this fantastic grand tour of the cosmos. Over the course of this brilliant expedition, the reader will experience close encounters with giant planets, unusual views of pulsating stars, and rendezvous with distant galaxies, as well as the unfolding history of astronomical discovery, beginning with Eratosthenes (who calculated the size of the Earth in 240 B.C.) and ending with the stunning scientific achievements of the present day. In no other book can the intelligent layman get so keen and thorough a summary of the riddles of Earth and space. Asimov deftly reveals the secrets of the universe with explanations that anyone from novice to scholar can understand and enjoy.

Puzzles by pulsars? Terrified by black holes? Bewildered by the big bang? Here are succinct, crystal-clear answers to more than one hundred of the most significant questions about planets, stars, galaxies, and the essential nature of the universe that have occupied astronomers since the beginning of history. For anyone who has ever looked up at the stars and wondered what it all means, Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Earth and Space is indispensible.

This is a series of 111 short, one- or two-page essays answering simple questions starting with the shape of the Earth and ending with the fate of the Universe. In this it rather resembles the earlier Please Explain. Here, however, since the book was written as a piece and not as a collection, the questions interact and each is related to the questions on either side, so there is a sense of gradually being drawn along. It’s a nice enough book—not world-shaking, but nice.

One of science's most prolific writers produced this question-and-answer book about this planet and astronomy. Although the book is heavy on historical treatment, the science facts are generally up to date. For the novice, the book is best approached in a linear fashion, going through the questions in order, since some answers depend upon previous ones. Other readers may prefer to locate items of interest through the table of contents or the index. The illustrations are disappointing, serving only to accent the page layout. Recommended for general readers at an introductory level; of less value to an academic library.

India launches 20 satellites in single mission

India successfully launched a rocket carrying 20 satellites on Wednesday, setting a new national record as its famously frugal space agency looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market.

The rocket blasted off from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota carrying satellites from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia, the most in a single Indian mission.

Most of the satellites are intended to observe and measure the Earth's atmosphere, while another aims to provide services for amateur radio operators.

"Each of these small objects that you are putting into space will carry out their own activity, which is independent of the other, and each of them will live a wonderful life for a finite period," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman A.S Kiran Kumar told the NDTV news network.

The business of putting commercial satellites into space for a fee is growing as phone, Internet and other companies as well as countries seek greater and more high-tech communications.
India is competing with other international players for a greater share of that launch market, and is known for its low-cost space programme.

Among the 20 satellites launched on Wednesday were 13 from the US including one from a Google-owned company and two from Indian universities.

- 'Market potential' -

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the launch was a "monumental accomplishment", although it trails Russia's 33 record launched in 2014 and NASA's haul of 29 the year before.

"Our space programme has time and again shown the transformative potential of science & technology in people's lives," Modi tweeted.

Expert Ajay Lele said the latest test was a "quantum jump" for India which has "made its presence felt even more now by displaying its promising market potential".

"India is attracting key foreign players, most importantly the US, in the space market thanks to its cost-effectiveness and credibility," said Lele, a senior fellow at the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

Lele said he expected ISRO to form a public-private partnership to outsource its growing commercial activity in another three to four years.

Last month India successfully launched its first mini space shuttle as it joined the global race to make reusable rockets.

In 2013 India sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars at a cost of just $73 million compared with NASA's Maven Mars mission which had a $671 million price tag.

The successful mission was a source of immense pride in India, which beat rival China in becoming the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet.

Modi has often hailed India's budget space technology, quipping in 2014 that a rocket that launched four foreign satellites into orbit had cost less to make than Hollywood film "Gravity".

India's mini space shuttle blasts off

India successfully launched its first model space shuttle on Monday, a top official said, as New Delhi joined the race to develop a reusable rocket to make space travel easier and cheaper.

The winged shuttle blasted off on a rocket from the southeastern spaceport of Sriharikota at about 7:00am (0130 GMT), with television footage showing it streaming through a clear sky.

The shuttle, about one sixth the size of a normal one, was meant to reach an altitude of 70 kilometres (43 miles) before gliding back down and splashing into the Bay of Bengal 10 minutes later.
"The lift-off was at 7am from the first launch pad here," India's space chief Devi Prasad Karnik told AFP.

"We have successfully accomplished the RLV mission as a technology demonstrator," he said.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), known for its low costs, has developed the winged shuttle called the Reusable Launch Vehicle or RLV-TD reportedly on a miniscule budget of one billion rupees ($14 million).

Monday's test mission was a crucial step towards eventually developing a full-scale, reusable shuttle to send up satellites in the future.

India faces stiff competition including from global companies which are developing their own reusable rockets after NASA retired its space shuttle programme in 2011.

Reusable rockets would cut costs and waste in the space industry, which currently loses millions of dollars in jettisoned machinery after each launch.

Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin have already successfully undertaken their own test launches.

But ISRO hopes to develop its own frugal shuttle, as it seeks to cash in on a huge and lucrative demand from other countries to send up their satellites.

ISRO made global headlines in 2013 after it successfully launched an unmanned mission to orbit Mars, spending just $73 million. NASA had spent $671 million on its Maven Mars mission.

The Demon Haunted World By Carl Sagan (Rating ***)

The Demon-Haunted World is a collection of twenty-five essays, several written with Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan. The essays range in scope from eloquent paeans to science to impassioned denunciations of bigotry, from humorous accounts of a variety of pseudoscientific endeavors to serious attempts to understand the nature of alien abduction delusions. With intelligence and wit, and the rational calmness that is his trademark, Sagan takes on a wide variety of topics, among them: alien abductions, astrology, Atlantis, the Bell Curve, channeling, crop circles, demons, electromagnetism, ESP, the face on Mars, fairies, faith healing, magic, miracles, prayer, religion, Roswell, satanic rituals, therapy, and, of course, one of his favorite topics, UFOs and extraterrestrials. Only Velikovsky gets ignored this time around. Through each of his essays he extols the virtues of skepticism, empirical evidence and control studies, while uncovering a multitude of errors and weaknesses in the positions of occultists, paranormalists, supernaturalists and pseudoscientists. And he does so with extreme grace, gentility and civility.

In fact, if there is anything I disagree with in Sagan's book it is probably his encouragement of skeptics to be as civil as he is in dealing with what skeptics see as the dark that extinguishes the candle. He writes

    "...the chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarization: US vs. Them--the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, you're beyond redemption. This is unconstructive....whereas a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted."

    "If we understand this, then of course we feel the uncertainty and pain of the abductees, or those who dare not leave home without consulting their horoscopes....such compassion for kindred spirits in a common quest also works to make science and the scientific method less off-putting, especially to the young."

    "Many pseudoscientific and New Age belief systems emerge out of dissatisfaction with conventional values and perspectives--and are therefore themselves a kind of skepticism."

I can't deny that there is a strong appeal in this call for compassion, for seeing the occultists of the world as after the same thing skeptics are after, and for recognizing the skepticism in those who adhere to pseudoscientific or New Age spiritual notions. If the goal were to try to get the true believer to give up his or her beliefs, then I would agree that an aggressive campaign which arrogantly maintains that it is better to live according to evidence than according to wishes might not be the best tactic. But, the aggressive, blunt, seemingly arrogant approach might be best if the goal is not to convert true believers to skepticism but to provide ideas which will counterbalance the plethora of occult, pseudoscientific, supernatural and paranormal notions which pervade just about any atmosphere in America, or the world, for that matter.

These aggressive methods may be the best ones if the goal is not to help persons who have been encouraged by therapists to think they've been experimented on by aliens, but rather to deter present and future therapists from encouraging patients to accept such beliefs as true and from using hypnosis to recover repressed memories. Such methods can evoke false memories of terrible things which probably never occurred. There is little to be gained, I think, in being compassionate with therapists who have no regard for truth and who encourage their patients to remember childhood abuses regardless of whether the abuses happened or not. Therapists who care for the truth are more likely to get aroused and make some effort to halt the abuses of their colleagues if we make a loud enough noise. And perhaps a future patient of one of these abusive therapists will have heard our angry voices and remember what we've said and question the therapist's methods.

Blunt and direct methods may be called for if the goal is not to persuade someone to give up astrology, crystals or tarot cards, but rather is to try to prevent someone in the future from seriously considering such things as reasonable guides to life.

I agree that it is unconstructive to be dogmatic, to call other people 'morons' or their ideas 'stupid.' I also agree that compassion is the appropriate response for people who have been duped by deluded therapists into believing incredible and harmful things. But I don't think it is the appropriate response to the therapists. We should go after them, and go after them aggressively with the bluntest instruments our language can muster. Likewise for the purveyors of pseudoscientific and New Age rubbish. To the L. Ron Hubbards, Helen Schucmans, Aleister Crowleys, John Macks, Budd Hopkins and Wade Quattlebaums of the world I say show no mercy!

Although some skeptics may take issue with Sagan's genteel style and grandpaternal tone, none of us will find fault with his skilful and recurring emphasis on critical thinking. The more blunt and vulgar among us refer to the need for a crap detector; Sagan provides instruction for building one's "baloney detection kit." He covers several common fallacies and ways to avoid them. He emphasizes the need for skepticism in critical thinking and the necessity for verification and corroboration of claims before accepting them. And he returns again and again to the role of the mass media in forming our characters and opinions. He is especially concerned with the fact that more and more mass media operations are coming into the possession of fewer and fewer individuals or groups. The potential for abuse of power is obvious but, as Orwell said, we have to keep pointing out the obvious. Sagan is hopeful that the internet will be an antidote for this concentration of control over information. So am I.

Another favorite theme of Sagan's is the need for scientists to be communicators, to use the media and the classroom to explain to the masses the truths and beauties of science, instilling in them the sense of wonder which drives people like himself. His criticisms of typical science instruction in America and the paucity of science writers for popular markets are right on target and worth studied perusal by science educators.

It is easy to recommend a book so reflective of one's own views, especially views which are skeptical of belief in God and an afterlife. It is even easier to recommend a book which, even though it covers topics and ideas the reader has gone over a thousand times, does so in a style which makes them seem fresh, is rarely dull, and quite frequently stimulates the reader to want to think about these issues more deeply and wonder if there isn't more he could be doing to make this world a better, saner, more rational place for our children and grandchildren.

Carl Sagan died on December 20, 1996, and it now seems apparent that A Candle in the Dark was meant to be his epitaph. Nothing could be more fitting, for if anyone has been light in these Dark Ages, it was Carl Sagan. But he was more like one of Velikovsky's comets, showering the earth with gifts as he passed through.