1. Of which astronomer did 7th century astronomer Brahmagupta say, “Since he knows nothing of mathematics, celestial sphere or time, I have not mentioned separately his demerits”?
2. Indian mathematicians were the first to employ negative numbers in the 6th-7th century, a concept unknown to the Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians and Arabs. For what very practical purpose were these numbers used?
3. Who claimed that his equations came to him in his dreams, whispered by his village goddess of Namagiri? He was the first research scholar of the Madras University (the post was created for him).
4. Name the space observatory launched by NASA to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars?
5. A vital component of Marconi’s wireless was the coherer, which was required to amplify faint signals. Marconi claimed that this component came out of research by the Italian Navy, thus diverting attention from the real inventor. Who was the inventor?
6. What substance is used as a fixative for the perfume in the making of attar?
7. Who recognised heavy element particles in cosmic rays which he called “mesons”?
8. Who is the second scientist after Sir C V Raman to be awarded the Bharat Ratna?
9. What ‘scientific’ gift was given by Porus to Alexander?
10. Carl Sagan’s ninth book was called The Pale Blue Dot. What does the title refer to?
11. Charles II was interested in astronomy and kept a telescope in the Tower of London. His close friend was John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal. One day the ravens in the Tower so annoyed him by their droppings on the telescope, that he ordered the ravens shot. Flamsteed however reminded him of the traditional belief that if the ravens left the Tower, the monarchy would fall. So how did Charles find a solution to his problem?
12. What word describes the area covered on the earth’s surface by a satellite?
13. What famous procedure in space launches originated from the film Woman on the Moon?
14. Which faint constellation named after an animal is so called because it would take the sharp eyes of that animal to spot it?
15. Which newly discovered planet did William Herschel, the astronomer, want to name Georguim Sidum (George’s Star) in honour of King George III?
16. What heavenly phenomena owe their names to French astronomer Pierre Gassendi and the English explorer James Cook?
17. What first did cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov achieve on April 24, 1967?
18. What does the Torino Impact Hazard Scale measure?
19. Which radio telescope in Puerto Rico has been beaming a famous message since 1974 to detect extraterrestrial intelligence?
20. Which is the only planet that rotates in the opposite direction?
21. The Russian space programme Salut means salute and is in honour of which famous person?
22. What celestial bodies originate from the Oort cloud outside the solar system?
23. What is the famous last line: “Here man from the planet Earth; First set foot on the moon; July 1969 AD; …”
24. What is the name given to the imaginary belt across the sky in which the Sun, moon, and all of the planets can always be found?
answers
1. Aryabhatta, who was so ahead of his time that he was the butt of ridicule among his peers and many generations of astronomers to follow.
2. For accounting purposes. In their ledgers, they inscribed amounts owed as negative numbers, tallied against assets written as positive numbers. It was much later that the pure abstract concept of negative numbers evolved.
3. Srinivasa Ramanujam.
4. Chandra X-ray Observatory named after Nobel laureate S. Chandrashekar. Since its launch on July 23, 1999, the observatory has been NASA’s flagship mission for X-ray astronomy,
5. Dr Jagdish Chandra Bose. He published a paper on this component in the proceeding of the Royal Society in London in 1899. He also invented the crescograph, an instrument designed to measure growth in plants, thus proving plants have life
6. Sandalwood oil.
7. Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha.
8. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam.
9. 30 pounds of steel made in India. Indian steel was highly valued all over the world and exported between 700 and 800 BC.
10. It describes the Earth as seen by the Voyager 2’s last backward look at the planet of its birth before leaving the solar system forever.
11. He shifted his telescope to Greenwich, which was the foundation of the Royal Observatory and the now famous GMT.
12. Footprint.
13. The countdown sequence.
14. The Lynx.
15. Uranus, the name finally suggested by German astronomer Johann Bode.
16. Aurora borealis and aurora australis respectively.
17. He became the first person to die in space — as pilot of Soyuz 1 while on a solo mission.
18. The possibility of asteroids colliding with the Earth.
19. Arecibo.
20. Venus.
21. Yuri Gagarin.
22. Comets.
23. “We came in peace for all mankind”. These words are found on a plaque left on the moon by the crew of Apollo XI.
24. Zodiac