My Science School

If the year 2020 taught us anything, it is to serve as a reminder that humanity isn’t all powerful and that we are just a tiny speck in the vast timeline of our universe. For not even in our wildest dreams would we have imagined that a virus would lockdown the majority of humankind at the same time.

The reason for this, as you obviously know, is the coronavirus. The disease might have been named COVID-19 for COronaVIrus Disease 2019, but the pandemic raged through 2020 and shows little signs of abating even now in 2021. This, despite the fact that a mountain load of human resources, on top of huge financial impetus, has been funnelled towards the cause of checking the spread of the disease.

Nature of the problem

In case you, or anyone around you, are wondering why it is taking us so long to find a fix, it is important to remember that that is indeed the nature of this problem. It isn’t the first one confronting us and a look at the poliovirus would illustrate it further.

Poliovirus is the causative agent of polio, a highly infectious disease that can totally paralyse a person in a few hours and is especially lethal against children under the age of five. If you ask the elders at your house, they would tell you that you too were administered a vaccine against the poliovirus as a child.

Our fight against the poliovirus, which is still ongoing, has spanned over decades. From affecting nearly 3,50,000 in over 125 countries even as recently as 1988, the numbers have dropped down to hundreds in the recent years. We have many people to thank along the way... Stanford scientists Hubert Scott Loring and Carlton Everett Schwerdt among them.

Loring’s laboratory

In the fall of 1939, with the world about to be embroiled in World War II, Professor Loring joined the faculty of the Stanford University Chemistry Department. His important research activities here took place in the early and mid-1940s.

Loring’s laboratory was characterised by a friendly atmosphere and subdued excitement. With his students, he was involved in two major areas during this time – the purification of the poliomyelitis virus and the structure and metabolism of ribonucleic acids.

Along with his student Schwerdt, Loring spent three years searching for the poliovirus. Their efforts led to the successful isolation of the Lansing strain of the poliovirus in 1946. Schwerdt completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry by the time their results were announced on January 10, 1947.

Tempers excitement

Loring and Schwerdt were able to obtain the virus with at least 80% purity. They were able to extract it from cotton rats, the only species then known to contract polio other than primates. Even though they had opened the door to further experimentation and the development of a vaccine against polio, Loring tempered the excitement, cautioning that the path ahead might still be long.

They were able to come up with a crude vaccine against polio in cotton rats later in 1947 before Schwerdt switched to the Virus Laboratory of the University of California at Berkeley. Here, he was able to further improve both his techniques and the product.

Working alongside his colleagues at Berkeley, Schwerdt developed a method to purify the poliovirus and also photographed it for the first time in pure form in 1953. He was involved in crystallising the pure virus in 1955 and also purified all three known major strains of poliovirus in 1957.

Our journey towards a polio-free world continues, even as the COVID-19 pandemic tries to undo some of the great work already achieved. Polio survives among the world’s poorest and marginalised, and the lockdowns and restrictions imposed to curtail the spread of coronavirus has also hindered administering vaccines against polio and other diseases to those who need it.

The work done by Loring, Schwerdt and many others ensured that the polio vaccine was safe when it came about in the 1950s. We will have countless more to thank when effective vaccines against COVID-19 also become a part of our lives.

 

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When returning from their famed moon mission in 1969, the astronauts of Apollo 11 returned with samples, including rocks, from our natural satellite. For decades after that, the only new material from space that geologists looked at came from meteorites reaching us. It was only in 2006 that a spacecraft sent material, including cometary and interstellar dust, back to Earth.

The Stardust mission was the first one to send back cometary samples and extraterrestrial material that came from outside the orbit of our moon. Launched in 1999, the Stardust spacecraft consisted of two solar arrays along with a sample return capsule that weighed 46 kg. It carried dedicated scientific and engineering instruments, which included the Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA), Dust Flux Monitor Instrument (DFMI), aerogel collector grid and navigation camera.

Substance called aerogel

Of these, the aerogel dust collector was of particular interest. The substance called aerogel was responsible for collecting the comet and interstellar dust. A silicon-based solid with a porous, sponge-like structure, it largely comprised empty space. Such a configuration enabled it to capture particles with minimum changes due to heat or chemical alteration, something impossible with conventional collection materials.

Before heading to the comet whose samples the spacecraft was scheduled to collect, it first visited an asteroid, 5535 Annefrank (named after Anne Frank, the Dutch-German diarist whose writings were published as The Diary of a Young Girl), in 2003. Flying within 3,300 km of the asteroid and clicking images of it, the flyby was seen as a preliminary run of what lay ahead for Stardust.

Wild encounter

By December 2003, Stardust was near its destination, comet 81P/ Wild, commonly known as Wild 2 (named after Swiss astronomer Paul Wild and pronounced "vilt 2”). It extended its tennis-racquet shaped collector, and after collecting all the material that was possible, sealed it in a vault in the re-entry capsule. It clicked a number of photographs as well and made its closest approach to the comet on January 2, 2004, flying within 250 km.

Two years later, in January 2006, Stardust released its conical capsule into the Earth's atmosphere. The descent was stabilised by releasing a drogue parachute when 32 km out and the main parachute of the capsule opened up at a height of three km. After it touched down in the Utah desert helicopters arrived at the scene, picked up the capsule and transferred it to NASA'S Johnson Space Center in Houston within a couple of days. The search for signs of tiny little particles comic and interstellar dust - in the aerogel soon began.

What's next?

Stardust, which was placed in hibernation after this phase of the mission was marked completed on January 16, 2006, got a new lease of life with an extended mission. Funding allowed for New Exploration of Tempel 1 (NEXT). after NASA'S Deep Impact had successfully observed the comet Tempel 1 in 2005 and also crash landed a probe on it.

The Stardust-NEXT mission was to continue mapping the comet and study how the impact crater changed. It reached its second comet target, Tempel 1, on February 14, 2011. While it became the first spacecraft to visit two comets in the process, Tempel 1 became the first come to be visited by two spacecraft.

The images and samples returned by Stardust helped us better understand comets, allowed researchers to discover a new class of organics more primitive than those found in meteorites and also helped identify irregular particles known as calcium-aluminium rich inclusions (CAIs) that are among the oldest solar system particles. A handful of interstellar particles too have been discovered and the search for more is still ongoing. Stardust's extended mission ended on March 25, 2011 after which the spacecraft continues to orbit the sun. According to NASA's predictions, it will never get closer than 2.7 million km to Earth's orbit.

Ready to search for interstellar dust?

The sample returned by the Stardust spacecraft not only contained particles of various sizes collected from the comet Wild 2 but also rare and tiny interstellar dust particles.

While there are thousands of particles from the comet, the number of particles of interstellar dust are expected to be only in the 10s.

While this makes them incredibly rare and precious, it also makes the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack look easy.

As the search for interstellar dust would probably take researchers and scientists several years if they alone are involved in it they have started a Citizen Science Project Standust@home to crowdsource the search.

Through this project, they are seeking the support of talented volunteers from across the globe. If you are interested, you can also participate. You would. however, have to go through a web-based training session and pass a test before qualifying to register and participate.

If a volunteer discovers an interstellar dust particle, they appear as a co-author on scientific papers announcing the discovery, and also get the privilege of giving the particle its common name. Even if not that lucky, there is a ranking system based on the amount and quality of searching done with the top-ranked volunteers invited to visit the lab in Berkeley, the U.S.

 

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Anaesthesiology, anaesthesia or anaesthetics is the branch of medical science that focusses on and specialises in pain relief for patients, both during and after surgery. It was in the 1840s that the pain-numbing capacities of certain substances were observed and documented, laying down the foundations of this medical specialty that now not only encompasses anaesthesia and pain medicine, but also intensive care and critical emergency medicine.

Who gets the credit?

There is no clarity, however, as to who exactly needs to be credited with the discovery of anaesthesia. There is American physician and geologist Charles T. Jackson, who is believed to have made the suggestion to compatriot William Thomas Green Morton to use sulphuric ether as an anaesthetic. Morton’s successful demonstration of the utility of ether as an anaesthetic took place in 1846 and was pivotal in winning over the public’s confidence.

American dentist Horace Wells is said to have independently conceived the idea of using an anaesthetic agent for surgery, but failed in his demonstration. And then, there is American physician Crawford Williamson Long, who likely employed anaesthetics before either Morton or Wells, but didn’t do enough early on to push his own case.

Born in 1815, Long entered Franklin College in Athens (in the U.S. State of Georgia, later became the University of Georgia) at the age of 14 and graduated in 1835. A year studying medicine with a doctor and a couple more at the Medical Department of Transylvania College, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and received his medical degree in 1839. After spending another 18 months studying surgery in New York, Long set up his own practice in the city of Jefferson and married Caroline Swain in 1842.

The effects of ether

It was on March 30 in the same year that Long first employed ether on a towel as an anaesthetic during a surgical procedure to remove a small tumour from the neck of James M. Venable. Venable had a subsequent operation on June 6 and Long performed a third surgical operation on the patient on July 3. Long employed ether again during the third operation, which was the amputation of a toe.

Long had taken to using ether as an anaesthetic following his observations of the intoxicating effects of nitrous oxide and sulphuric ether. He noticed these during ether frolics that were common during that time and realised that the participants who were inhaling ether in limited quantities were feeling exhilaration, but didn’t become unconscious. It also occurred to Long that those in the party didn’t experience pain while under the influence of the gas, even when experiencing falls and bruises.

After his success with Venable, Long continued to experiment with ether as an anaesthetic, using it whenever possible. This probably includes administering ether to his wife on December 27, 1845 when she was going through labour. If the accounts from Long’s family and those close to him are anything to go by, the childbirth of one of his daughters was also the first use of an anaesthetic in obstetrics (the branch relating to pregnancy and childbirth).

Delays announcement

For reasons that aren’t well established, Long delayed announcing his attempts and experiments with ether. It was only after news of Morton’s successful demonstration with ether nearly four years later started spreading that Long too made his claim, by which time Jackson and Wells too were vying for the honours.

To criticism that Long didn’t do enough to promote such a discovery early, he stated:

“Had I been engaged in the practice of my profession in a city, where surgical operations are performed daily, the discovery would, no doubt, have been confided to others, who would have assisted in the experiments; but occupying a different position, I acted differently, whether justifiable or not.”

Along with fewer opportunities to employ ether, Long also added that his belief (following the second Venable operation) that the anaesthetic’s effect only lasted for a short while, rendering it useless for long, complex procedures, as another reason for not announcing his experiences sooner.

Long shifted to Athens in 1851 and set up a successful practice there, spending the rest of his life in the city. The priority to the claim as to who discovered anaesthesia wasn’t settled by the time he died in 1878, and remains to be the case even now.

 

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How do you feel when you are in on a secret that your friends do not know yet? How do you feel when your parents ask you to keep a secret before the planned big reveal to the extended family? Keeping answers to those questions in mind, imagine how it would be if you are keeping a secret for your country. And add to it the fact that you are among the select few who know the complete truth…

Clarke’s idea

The idea of space satellites for communication was first proposed in 1945 by popular English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. Even though technology wasn’t as advanced, he believed that a group of Earth-orbiting satellites could securely send information to even remote locations. With transatlantic cables and radio signals incapable of achieving that, the need was definitely there. But it wasn’t until the end of the 1950s that his ideas became reality.

The Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment (SCORE) project was a top-secret mission that went on to become the world’s first successful demonstration of a long-range satellite radio-relay system. It started off as a routine suborbital mission test for the outsiders, before going on to reveal its secrets.

Strict orders for secrecy

Shrouded in secrecy, only 88 people were informed of its existence, with strict orders not to reveal anything to the media, colleagues, or even their own families. The idea was to inform the world if the mission was successful or to keep it a secret forever if it failed.

Apart from the burden of secrecy, there were other challenges too that had to be surmounted. The communication system had to be developed, the payload had to be within a certain weight and ground stations had to be established. On top of these, the SCORE communication package was to be built into the Atlas launch vehicle’s side pods, and not as a discrete spacecraft as was the norm back then. And all of this had to be done within a few months.

By the time SCORE project’s Atlas B was launched on December 18, 1958, the Soviets had already launched three successful Sputnik satellites into orbit. With the pressure on them, the Americans were not only trying to look further from their past failures, but also boost their national image once again.

Safety hazard? Not really!

The observing engineers noticed that the Atlas veered off its course considerably, prompting a safety hazard. This led to a signal to the Range Safety Officer to destroy it, who, however, ignored the message and let the rocket surge forward.

This was because the Range Safety Officer was among the 35 people in the entire world with knowledge of what Project SCORE’s motives were. Among the original 88, 53 were misled to believe the mission was cancelled and that this was simply another missile test. Far from being a routine test, however, it was to send an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into low Earth orbit and also launch the world’s first communication satellite.

Only as the rocket veered off its presumed course towards low Earth orbit was its primary objective revealed. While an Atlas ICBM achieved orbit for the first time in history, the second objective proved a little more elusive.

The communications system was designed such that it would not only transmit pre-recorded messages that could be heard by anyone in Earth, but also send and receive messages from the SCORE ground stations. The pre-recorded messages included one from the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower.

During the first few orbits, the ground station signalled the communication package to broadcast President Eisenhower’s message. But it wasn’t until the 13th orbit, on December 19, that it finally responded as the ground station commanded the back-up system.

Eisenhower’s message

“This is the President of the United States speaking,” the recording said. “Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one. Through this unique means, I convey to you and to all mankind America’s wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere.”

Despite being developed and launched at almost break-neck speed, Project SCORE ticked off a lot of boxes for the Americans. It was the world’s first communication satellite, even though its batteries died 12 days after launch and it burned up as it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere on January 21, 1959. It was the first successful trial of an Atlas launch vehicle, which would go on to be used for Project Mercury (taking the first Americans to space). It was the heaviest object until then to be launched into orbit and also the first time a missile-guidance system was used to put a satellite into orbit.

As for Eisenhower’s message, it was added to the National Recording Registry (a list of sound recordings that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States”) by the Library of Congress over 50 years after it was delivered. With that, SCORE’s message has been saved for generations to come.

 

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Discarded cucumber peels may soon find their way back to your kitchen in the form of eco-friendly food packaging developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur.

Cucumber peels have greater cellulose content (18.22%) than other peel waste. The research showed that cellulose nano crystals derived from cucumber peels possess modifiable properties due to the presence of abundant hydroxyl groups, which resulted in better biodegradability and biocompatibility.

In India, cucumber finds wide use in salads, pickles, and also in the beverage industry, leading to a large volume of peel bio-waste. This non toxic, biodegradable and biocompatible product has no adverse effects on health and environment and hence could have a huge market potential by rendering management of organic waste with high cellulose content profitable.

 

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Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, which is fast becoming the next big destination in planetary research, may actually glow in the dark.

The findings are a result of Earth bound experiments at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, which recreated Europa and Jupiter's interactions. The researchers found that Europa possibly glows blue-white and blue-green through its ice and water interior, even at night.

Indian-origin NASA scientist Murthy Gudipati, and his team, were working on experiments to understand how Jupiter's incessant radiation affects Europa. Jupiter emits the strongest radiation after the sun and is surrounded by the biggest planetary magnetic field in the solar system, which accelerates charged particles to high energies. This enormous magnetosphere spans over 1 million km in radius, engulfing Europa and many other moons.

Moons are normally visible at night because of sunlight that reflects off their surfaces or atmospheres. Europa, however, seems to be illuminated through the night, even with no sun, because of charged particles from Jupiter and its interior. "If Europa weren't under this radiation, it would look the way our moon looks to us dark on the shadowed side," Gudipati said. "But because it's bombarded by the radiation from Jupiter, it glows in the dark."

Europa's night-side glow could provide information on its surface composition and whether it has conditions suitable for life. It is covered with a solid crust made of water ice and is thought to hold an ocean of liquid water underneath. Water is one of the strongest indicators of potential habitability.

 

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The total amount of Covid-19 infecting humans around the world would fit into a teaspoon, claims Australian mathematician Matt Parker. The microscopic size of coronavirus means its total volume is a minuscule 8 ml, he added.

Parker started his calculation with an estimate of the number of cells in each coronavirus patient. The mathematician based this on the viral load measured from swabs. He calculated the number of people infected with coronavirus on the assumption that each person was infected for two weeks and at least 300,000 new cases are recorded daily.

The size of coronavirus is so small that you cannot see the virus with naked eyes. The size of a human cell is about 100 micrometers, which is equal to the width of a hair found on our heads. The size of human cells is 10 million times the size of the Covid-19 virus.

Covid-19 has infected over 55 million people across the world and has caused the death of 1.34 million people.

 

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Chinese space probe Chang'e- 5, carrying rocks and soil from the Moon, returned to Earth safely on December 17. The capsule carrying the samples landed in northern China's Inner Mongolia region. This is the first lunar sample return since 1976, when the former Soviet Union's Luna 24 returned with lunar material. What's the current mission all about? What happened to the Moon rocks that were recovered by the U.S. and Russia?

What is Chang'e-5 mission about?

Chang'e-5 is a robotic mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, launched on November 23, 2020. The Chang'e 5 probe included a lander, an ascender, orbiter and a returner. After it entered the designated circular lunar orbit, the lander-ascender pair separated from the orbiter-returner group and descended and successfully touched down near Mons Rumker, a volcanic mountain in the Moon's huge Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") region on December 1, 2020. The mission spent only two days on the Moon's surface, gathering samples by digging and scooping. The 2kg samples were loaded onto an ascent vehicle that subsequently docked with an Earth return module. The service module of the mission's orbiter then released the return capsule, which eventually landed on Earth with the samples on December 17.

What is the significance of the landing site?

• The landing site is a volcanic plain called Mons Rumker in the Oceanus Procellarum region on the Moon's near side. The places explored by Apollo and Luna were all more than 3 billion years old, whereas Mons Rumker is estimated to be around 1.2 billion years old.


• A young surface is smooth and almost unblemished, while an old surface is heavily cratered With Moon rocks collected by Neil Armstrong and other astronauts, scientists could measure radioactive elements in the rocks and precisely calculate when a volcanic eruption had occurred, and thus the age of the parts of the Moon where the Apollo explorers set foot But none of the previous missions landed on a younger part of the Moon, leaving a large gap of uncertainty.


• Scientists also want to understand the differences in composition of the varying parts of the Moon, and the samples might explain how part of the Moon was still molten some 3 billion years after it formed.

How will the samples help scientists understand the Moon?

The new specimens could provide fresh insights into the geology and early history of Earth's natural satellite. Scientists hope the samples will help them learn about the Moon's origins, formation and volcanic activity on its surface. China will make some of the samples available to scientists in other countries.

Where are the Moon rocks previously collected by the U.S. and Russia now?

In the 1970s, three successful Soviet Luna missions brought back a total of 301 grams of Moon samples. NASA's Apollo astronauts lugged back 842 pounds of Moon rock and soil Scientists are still studying the Apollo and Luna samples.

• The Moon samples collected by Apollo astronauts are stored at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, in nitrogen filled steel cabinets. Some of those collected by Luna missions had been auctioned.


• In 2000, the U.S. decided to give away Moon rocks to 32 Apollo astronauts, on the condition that they should not be sold.


• Moon rocks collected by Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 astronauts were given away to 135 countries around the world and the 50 U.S. states as a token of goodwill.

What are China's other moon missions?

In this century so far, only China has successfully put robotic spacecraft on the surface of the Moon: Chang’e-3 in December 2013, and Chang’e-4 in January 2019 became the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the Moon Chang’e-4 is still roving and studying lunar geology. Chang’e-1 and Chang’e-2 were lunar orbiters, launched in 2007 art 2010 respectively. All the missions have been named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang’e.

What are China's upcoming Moon missions?

China plans to launch a spacecraft called Change 6 to return samples from the Moon's South pole. The more advanced Chang'e 7 and Chang'e-8 spacecraft are also slated to land near tire south pole to carry out analysis of the region and test new technologies, including detecting and extracting materials such as water and hydrogen that could be useful to future human explorers, and testing 3D printing on the lunar surface China hopes to launch an international Lunar research station and ultimately a human colony on the Moon by the 2030.

 

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How do you drink your beverages, irrespective of whether they are hot or cold? Do you take swigs directly off the glass or bottle, or do you take your time and sip it slowly, using a straw for good measure? If you draw straws to sip your drinks, or even just for picking lots, you are bound to like this one.

The credit for inventing the first paper straws goes to American Marvin C. Stone. Stone was born in 1842 to Chester Stone, an inventor himself, and Rachel. He started to pursue a degree after high school when the Civil War broke out in 1861.

Serves in Civil War

Stone enlisted into service and fought gallantly, but was wounded and disabled from active duty in the Battle of Lookout Mountain. He enrolled as a music major after the war, but eventually graduated in theology. Following his marriage and years as a newspaper journalist, Stone’s inventive spirit shone through when he took to business.

His business life in the late 1870s began when he invented a machine for making paper cigarette holders. His experience with making these holders and his eye for a solution to an everyday problem, led Stone to the first paper straws.

Not the “rye” way

Stone recognised that even though using natural materials such as rye grass and reeds to make straws were popular, they had serious shortcomings. When consuming beverages using these straws, they not only added an additional flavour or taste, but also some unpleasant odour. To add to this, the grass and reeds were also prone to cracking or growing musty.

By winding strips of paper around a pencil and gluing it together, Stone had his first prototypes ready. What followed was more experimenting to make his straws more conducive for drinking.

Stone used paraffin-coated manila paper to ensure that the straws didn’t become too soggy when drinking. He also settled upon 8.5 inches as the ideal length of a straw with a diameter that was just wide enough to prevent things such as lemon seeds from lodging inside and clogging the tube.

Stone received the patent for his paper straws on January 3, 1888. Within a couple of years, Stone’s factory was producing more straws than cigarette holders. By 1896, he had patents for a machine that made artificial straw from paper. He wasn’t around to see his machines go into production in 1906, however, as he died in 1899. The success of these machines brought an end to the hand-winding process.

A kind boss

Apart from being an inventor and tinkerer, Stone was seen as a benevolent boss. A kind and generous employer, Stone looked after the comfort and moral welfare of his employees, which included female workers. The factory was equipped with a singing room and a dance floor, with a library and a meeting room for debates to boot.

The winding process that Stone pioneered with his straws had implications in other industries as well. When electrical engineers employed spiral-wound tubes for radios as they were mass-produced for the first time in the 1920s, they used a similar process. From electrical motors and apparatus to aerospace, textiles and packaging for medicine and other products, the spiral-wound tubing is now found almost everywhere.

The next time you are sipping your favourite drink, spare a thought for the man who gave us the first paper straws. And in case you are doing it with your friends or family, regale them with the story of Stone...

 

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The Venus transit of 1882 was followed by a pair that occurred in 2004 and 2012. This means that there were no Venus transits in the 20th Century. The 20th Century, however, saw the first successful interplanetary mission conducted by humans. And the target for that mission was… yes, you guessed it right. Venus?

While the beginning of the Space Age is best remembered for the various firsts that were made possible, the failures that went along aren’t often mentioned in the same breath. The lack of success in some missions, however, weren’t out of the ordinary as humanity was venturing into uncharted territories for the first time.

The failures weren’t entirely frowned upon either as even these situations afforded opportunities afforded opportunities to learn. In fact, missions were planned keeping in mind the higher chances of failure and how to best cope with it if it were to happen.

Backup ready

The Americans had a backup strategy that involved building two similar spacecraft. This meant that even if the first one failed, the second one from the identical pair could be deployed at the earliest.

Mariner 1 and Mariner 2 were the first set of such twins in the Mariner series. Each of these spacecraft, which was powered by solar cells but also carried supplemental batteries on board, were 1 m across and 0.36 m thick.

Mariner 1 lifted off on July 22, 1962, but had to be detonated just 293 seconds after launch as it veered off course due to a typo in the computer code guiding it. Despite the fact that Mariner 1 lasted for less than five minutes, Mariner 2 was brought out of storage and launched towards Venus just 36 days later, on August 27.

Number of glitches

Using the Earth and sun as references, the spacecraft was to keep its attitude stable while making its way through space. It wasn’t without incident though, as there were a number of glitches through its flight.

On September 4, a course correction had to be performed to put it back on track. Four days later, cruise science experiments turned off for reasons NASA couldn’t determine. September 29 once again saw a loss of attitude control followed by a quick recovery. One month later, on October 31, there was a partial short circuit to one of the solar panels on the spacecraft. By November 15, this panel completely failed.

The fact that the spacecraft was approaching Venus and hence getting closer to the sun meant that the working solar panel could generate enough power to keep it going. Eighty years on after the last transit of Venus had been observed from Earth, a spacecraft was now getting close to perform a Venus flyby.

Temperatures, dense clouds

Mariner 2 made its closest approach to the planet on December 14, 1962, flying at a distance of 34,854 km from Venus. Having become the first successful interplanetary mission, mariner 2 had its glimpse of Venus, scanning the planet for 42 minutes. Before continuing on its heliocentric orbit around the sun, Mariner 2 gathered data about our neighbouring planet. NASA maintained contact with the spacecraft till January 3, 1963.

The data conveyed by Mariner 2 showed that temperatures across Venus were more or less uniform and that the planet in general was a hothouse. It also revealed that the planet is under high pressure and that the entire Venus is shrouded in a dense cloud layer above the surface.

Even though Mariner 2 enjoyed only modest success in terms of scientific results, it is remembered and honoured for the first it went out and achieved. The mission served as a gateway to many future endeavours that followed, as it opened up space to the human race like never before.

 

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