Daily Current Affairs : 10th February 2022

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Daily Current Affairs for UPSC

Topics Covered

  1. Nuclear Fusion
  2. Hijab case
  3. Types of Orbits
  4. Solar Storm
  5. Facts for Prelims

1 . Nuclear Fusion

Context : Scientists in the United Kingdom said they have achieved a new milestone in producing nuclear fusion energy, or imitating the way energy is produced in the sun.

About the News

  • In February 2022, the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion experiment in Oxfordshire, U.K., produced 59 megajoules (MJ) of energy from thermonuclear fusion.
  • China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) also sustained the plasma at 70 million degrees Celsius for 1,056 seconds in January 2022.
  • These are dress rehearsals for the upcoming International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a global experiment to generate 500 MW of power by fusing hydrogen atoms into helium atoms by 2035.

What is Fusion

  • Without fusion, there would be no life on Earth.
  • What we see as light and feel as warmth is the result of a fusion reaction in the core of our Sun: hydrogen nuclei collide, fuse into heavier helium atoms and release tremendous amounts of energy in the process.
  • Over billions of years, the gravitational forces at play in the Universe have caused the hydrogen clouds of the early Universe to gather into massive stellar bodies. In the extreme density and temperature of the stars, including our Sun, fusion occurs.

How Fusion Produces Energy

  • The most efficient fusion reaction in the laboratory setting is the reaction between two hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T). The fusion of these light hydrogen atoms produces a heavier element, helium, and one neutron.
  • Atoms never rest: the hotter they are, the faster they move. In the Sun’s core, where temperatures reach 15,000,000 °C, hydrogen atoms are in a constant state of agitation. As they collide at very high speeds, the natural electrostatic repulsion that exists between the positive charges of their nuclei is overcome and the atoms fuse. The fusion of light hydrogen atoms produces a heavier element, helium.
  • The mass of the resulting helium atom is not the exact sum of the initial atoms, however—some mass has been lost and great amounts of energy have been gained. This is what Einstein’s famous formula E=mc² describes: the tiny bit of lost mass (m), multiplied by the square of the speed of light (c²), results in a very large figure (E), which is the amount of energy created by a fusion reaction.
  • Every second, our Sun turns 600 million tonnes of hydrogen into helium, releasing an enormous amount of energy. But without the benefit of gravitational forces at work in our Universe, achieving fusion on Earth has required a different approach.
  • Twentieth-century fusion science identified the most efficient fusion reaction in the laboratory setting to be the reaction between two hydrogen (H) isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T). The DT fusion reaction produces the highest energy gain at the “lowest” temperatures. It requires nonetheless temperatures of 150,000,000 degrees Celsius—ten times higher than the hydrogen reaction occurring in the Sun.

What is thermonuclear fusion?

  • In a thermonuclear fusion reaction, lighter atoms like those of hydrogen fuse to produce slightly heavier atoms like that of helium. The whole is greater than the sums; sometimes, the sums are greater than the whole.
  • The mass of one hydrogen atom is 1.007825 Atomic Mass unit (AMU). When four hydrogen atoms are combined, it transmutes into a helium atom. The sum of the mass of four hydrogen atoms is 4.03130 AMU, while the mass of one helium atom is just 4.00268 AMU. As we know, matter is neither created nor destroyed; hence the mass difference 0.02862 AMU is converted into pure energy by way of Einstein’s famous formula E=mc2.
  • If we fuse four grams of hydrogen into helium, about 0.0028 grams of mass would be converted to 2.6×10^11 joules; with that energy, we can light a 60-watt light bulb for over 100 years! 600 million tons of hydrogen are fused every second in the Sun, producing 596 million tons of helium.
  • If one-thousandth of a gram of mass can create energy to power a 60W bulb for a hundred years, imagine the amount of energy the remaining four million tons of hydrogen unleash every second by the Sun.

Benefits of Fusion reactors

  • Soviets came up with a viable design to kindle and sustain nuclear fusion—the Tokamak.
  • Unlike the fission reactors, like the ones in Kalpakam and Koodankulam, the fusion reactors do not pose the dangers of a radioactive leak.
  • Gram for gram, the thermonuclear power produces four million times more energy than burning coal.
  • The only waste product is harmless helium.

Tokamaks

  • In stars such as the sun, hydrogen atoms combine to produce helium in the thermonuclear reaction and release immense energy in light and radiation. Ordinarily, the atoms cannot fuse. The like charges of the electron clouds surrounding the atoms would repulse and keep them at bay from coming too close. However, in the core of the stars, the temperature is some 15 million Kelvins. All the electrons are ripped away at these temperatures, forming what is known as plasma. Further, due to gravity, the pressure builds up 200 billion times greater than Earth’s atmospheric pressure, making the density to become 150 times that of water. In this sizzling heat, intense pressure and dense core, the plasma of hydrogen fuse with each other to form helium, spewing colossal energy in the form of light and heat.
  • If only one can mimic the condition of the interior of the stars, we can artificially ignite fusion; and the fusion reactors which permits us to do so are Tokamaks.

What is Tokamak ?

  • Visualization courtesy of Jamison Daniel, Oak Ridge Leadership Computing FacilityPower plants today rely either on fossil fuels, nuclear fission, or renewable sources like wind or water. Whatever the energy source, the plants generate electricity by converting mechanical power, such as the rotation of a turbine, into electrical power. In a coal-fired steam station, the combustion of coal turns water into steam and the steam in turn drives turbine generators to produce electricity.
  • The tokamak is an experimental machine designed to harness the energy of fusion. Inside a tokamak, the energy produced through the fusion of atoms is absorbed as heat in the walls of the vessel. Just like a conventional power plant, a fusion power plant will use this heat to produce steam and then electricity by way of turbines and generators.
  • The heart of a tokamak is its doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber. Inside, under the influence of extreme heat and pressure, gaseous hydrogen fuel becomes a plasma—the very environment in which hydrogen atoms can be brought to fuse and yield energy.
  • The charged particles of the plasma can be shaped and controlled by the massive magnetic coils placed around the vessel; physicists use this important property to confine the hot plasma away from the vessel walls.
  • The term “tokamak” comes to us from a Russian acronym that stands for “toroidal chamber with magnetic coils.”
  • First developed by Soviet research in the late 1960s, the tokamak has been adopted around the world as the most promising configuration of magnetic fusion device. ITER will be the world’s largest tokamak—twice the size of the largest machine currently in operation, with ten times the plasma chamber volume.

About International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor

  • The research on fusion commenced by being shrouded in the worrying secrecy of the Cold War. But the effort to harness energy from thermonuclear fusion today, thankfully, is a global collaborative effort. Thirty-five countries, including India, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, European Union, are collaborating to jointly build the largest Tokamak as part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
  • In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating to build the world’s largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars.
  • The experimental campaign that will be carried out at ITER is crucial to advancing fusion science and preparing the way for the fusion power plants of tomorrow.
  • ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. And ITER will be the first fusion device to test the integrated technologies, materials, and physics regimes necessary for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity.
  • Thousands of engineers and scientists have contributed to the design of ITER since the idea for an international joint experiment in fusion was first launched in 1985.
  • With the installation of the Cryostat, a device to cool the reactor, covering the assembly is slated to be completed by 2025. If all goes well, the first plasma will be produced at the end of 2025 or early 2026. After testing and troubleshooting, energy production will commence in 2035.
  • The plant is expected to generate 500 MW power and consume 50 MW for its operation, resulting in a net 450 MW power generation. Although there are many experimental tokamaks worldwide, including one in India, none has demonstrated net energy production more than the input. Thus, the main task of the experimental ITER reactor is to get operational experience and train human resources. Scientists, engineers and technicians from all the 35 participating countries are working on the site learning along the way, hoping to lay the foundation for their own national fusion energy programmes.
  • The ITER Members—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States—are now engaged in a 35-year collaboration to build and operate the ITER experimental device, and together bring fusion to the point where a demonstration fusion reactor can be designed.

What will ITER do

The amount of fusion energy a tokamak is capable of producing is a direct result of the number of fusion reactions taking place in its core. Scientists know that the larger the vessel, the larger the volume of the plasma … and therefore the greater the potential for fusion energy.

With ten times the plasma volume of the largest machine operating today, the ITER Tokamak will be a unique experimental tool, capable of longer plasmas and better confinement. The machine has been designed specifically to:

1) Produce 500 MW of fusion power
The world record for fusion power is held by the European tokamak JET. In 1997, JET produced 16 MW of fusion power from a total input heating power of 24 MW (Q=0.67). ITER is designed to produce a ten-fold return on energy (Q=10), or 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of input heating power. ITER will not capture the energy it produces as electricity, but—as first of all fusion experiments in history to produce net energy gain—it will prepare the way for the machine that can.

2) Demonstrate the integrated operation of technologies for a fusion power plant
ITER will bridge the gap between today’s smaller-scale experimental fusion devices and the demonstration fusion power plants of the future. Scientists will be able to study plasmas under conditions similar to those expected in a future power plant and test technologies such as heating, control, diagnostics, cryogenics and remote maintenance.

3) Achieve a deuterium-tritium plasma in which the reaction is sustained through internal heating
Fusion research today is at the threshold of exploring a “burning plasma”—one in which the heat from the fusion reaction is confined within the plasma efficiently enough for the reaction to be sustained for a long duration. Scientists are confident that the plasmas in ITER will not only produce much more fusion energy, but will remain stable for longer periods of time.

4) Test tritium breeding
One of the missions for the later stages of ITER operation is to demonstrate the feasibility of producing tritium within the vacuum vessel. The world supply of tritium (used with deuterium to fuel the fusion reaction) is not sufficient to cover the needs of future power plants. ITER will provide a unique opportunity to test mockup in-vessel tritium breeding blankets in a real fusion environment.

5) Demonstrate the safety characteristics of a fusion device
ITER achieved an important landmark in fusion history when, in 2012, the ITER Organization was licensed as a nuclear operator in France based on the rigorous and impartial examination of its safety files. One of the primary goals of ITER operation is to demonstrate the control of the plasma and the fusion reactions with negligible consequences to the environment.

What is the significance of the recent feats?

  • The ITER fusion reaction will use the isotopes of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium. Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, has a neutron and a proton in its nucleus. In contrast, ordinary hydrogen has only one proton. Tritium, another isotope of hydrogen, has two neutrons and one proton. To create plasma for fusion, the mixture of deuterium and tritium needs to be heated to temperatures 10 times hotter than the Sun’s centre. Using strong magnets, the weltering plasma must be held in place, made to swill around, beams collide, fuse and release tremendous energy as heat. The heat must be removed from the reaction to boil water, produce steam and turn a turbine to generate electricity.
  • The plasma at high temperature needs to be sustained for a long time if commercial energy has to be obtained. One of the critical challenges in the Tokamak is the sudden appearance of plasma instabilities. We need to get experience and assess the probability of such disruptions and work out how we can manage them. Making plasma at higher and higher temperatures and sustaining it at that temperature for more and more time will provide insights on disruptions.
  • The Chinese accomplishment of maintaining 2.8 times the Sun’s temperature for 17 minutes is a milestone in this direction.
  • For the first time, the Joint European Torus experiment used the tritium fuel mix, the same one that will power ITER. They could harvest one-third of the input energy as an output, a significant step from earlier results. The experimental results from this JET indicate that the models used to design ITER are robust, boosting our confidence in them. These experiments would help validate ITER’s designs.

What about India vis-à-vis fusion?

  • Way back in 1955, in the first ‘Atoms for Peace’ meeting in Geneva, Homi J. Bhabha saw a future in energy coming from thermonuclear fusion.
  • The Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) in Gandhinagar and the Hot Plasma Project at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), Kolkata, took the lead in nuclear fusion research in India.

2 . Hijab Case and associated issues

Context : After six students were banned from entering a college in Karnataka’s Udupi district for wearing a hijab last month, the row over whether educational institutions can impose a strict dress code that could interfere with rights of students has spilled to other colleges in the state. The issue throws up legal questions on reading the freedom of religion and whether the right to wear a hijab is constitutionally protected.

What is the government order?

  • Karnataka government passed an order exercising its powers under Section 133(2) of the Karnataka Education Act, 1983. The provision grants powers to the state to issue directives for government educational institutions to follow. In 2013, under this provision, the state had issued a directive making uniforms compulsory for education institutions. Referring to the 2013 directive, the latest directive specifies that a headscarf is not part of the uniform.
  • It states that wearing a headscarf is not an essential religious practice for Muslims that can be protected under the Constitution.
  • The order takes refuge in three cases decided by different High Courts to hold that banning the headscarf is not violative of fundamental rights, particularly freedom of religion.
  • The petitioners, however, have argued that the facts and circumstances of the three cases are different and cannot be applied to the Karnataka case. This means that the High Court will have to first decide whether wearing a hijab is an essential religious practice.

How is religious freedom protected under the Constitution?

  • Article 25(1) of the Constitution guarantees the “freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion”.
  • It is a right that guarantees a negative liberty — which means that the state shall ensure that there is no interference or obstacle to exercise this freedom. However, like all fundamental rights, the state can restrict the right for grounds of public order, decency, morality, health and other state interests.
  • Over the years, the Supreme Court has evolved a practical test of sorts to determine what religious practices can be constitutionally protected and what can be ignored. In 1954, the Supreme Court held in the Shirur Mutt case that the term “religion” will cover all rituals and practices “integral” to a religion. The test to determine what is integral is termed the “essential religious practices” test.

What is the essential religious practices test?

  • The doctrine of “essentiality” was invented by a seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in the ‘Shirur Mutt’ case in 1954. The court held that the term “religion” will cover all rituals and practices “integral” to a religion, and took upon itself the responsibility of determining the essential and non-essential practices of a religion.
  • Judicial determination of religious practices, has often been criticised by legal experts as it pushes the court to delve into theological spaces.
  • In several instances, the court has applied the test to keep certain practices out. In a 2004 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the Ananda Marga sect had no fundamental right to perform Tandava dance in public streets, since it did not constitute an essential religious practice of the sect.
  • A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court upheld the discharge of a Muslim airman from the Indian Air Force for keeping a beard. Justices T S Thakur, D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao distinguished the case of a Muslim airman from that of Sikhs who are allowed to keep a beard. Regulation 425 of the Armed Force Regulations, 1964, prohibits the growth of hair by Armed Forces personnel, except for “personnel whose religion prohibits the cutting of hair or shaving of face”. The court essentially held that keeping a beard was not an essential part of Islamic practices. The court did not examine religious practices as required in the Shirur Mutt case, but referenced an input by senior advocate Salman Khurshid.

How have courts ruled so far on the issue of a hijab?

The three cases cited in the government order are from the Kerala, Bombay and Madras High Courts.

  • Kerala High Court, 2018: In Fathima Thasneem v State of Kerala, a writ petition had been moved by Mohammad Sunir, the father of two minor girls aged 12 and 8. The petitioner challenged the school’s denial of permission to wear full-sleeved shirts and a headscarf as it was against the prescribed dress code. A single-judge Bench of the Kerala High Court ruled in favour of the school which was a Christian Missionary school, a minority educational institution. The court said that “collective rights” of the school must be given primacy over individual rights of the students.
    • In the current case in the Karnataka High Court, senior advocate Devadatt Kamath argued on Thursday that this case cannot be a valid precedent as it refers to a minority education institution as opposed to a government educational institution. Constitutionally, minority educational institutions have greater freedom to regulate their affairs.
  • Bombay High Court, 2003: In Fathema Hussain Sayed v Bharat Education Society, a minor student had challenged the school’s prescribed dress code that did not allow the wearing of a headscarf. Since the minor girl attended an all-girls school, the Bombay High Court ruled against her, despite the argument that wearing a headscarf is an essential religious practice which must be protected under the Constitution. The High Court referred to relevant verses from the Quran and held that the book did not prescribe wearing of a headscarf before other women. “A girl student not wearing the head scarf or head covering studying in exclusive girls section cannot be said to in any manner acting inconsistent with the aforesaid verse 31 or violating any injunction provided in Holy Quran,” the court held.
    • In the Karnataka case, the petitioners have argued that even through the state government had cited this Bombay HC case to buttress the point that courts have refrained from interfering with prescribed dress codes for educational institutions, the current case actually supports the cause of the petitioners and not the state. Since the decision is in “the context of Muslim girls studying in an exclusively girls sections”, the counsel for the petitioners argued that as a corollary, headscarves must be allowed in a co-education establishment.
  • Madras High Court, 2004: Sir M Venkata Subba Rao, Matriculation Higher Secondary School Staff Assn v Sir M Venkata Subba Rao, Matriculation Higher Secondary School was a case challenging the dress code imposed by the management of a school on teachers. Although the Madras High Court held that the imposition of the dress code had no statutory backing, it refused to interfere on the grounds that the teachers “should set high standards of discipline and should be a role model for the students”.

3 . Types of Orbits

Geosynchronous Orbits

  • A geosynchronous orbit (GEO) is a prograde, low inclination orbit about Earth having a period of 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds. A spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit appears to remain above Earth at a constant longitude, although it may seem to wander north and south. The spacecraft returns to the same point in the sky at the same time each day.

Geo Stationary Orbits

  • A geostationary orbit, often referred to as a GEO orbit, circles the Earth above the equator from west to east at a height of 36 000 km. As it follows the Earth’s rotation, which takes 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds, satellites in a GEO orbit appear to be ‘stationary’ over a fixed position. Their speed is about 3 km per second.
  • As satellites in geostationary orbit continuously cover a large portion of the Earth, this makes it an ideal orbit for telecommunications or for monitoring continent-wide weather patterns and environmental conditions. It also decreases costs as ground stations do not need to track the satellite. A constellation of three equally spaced satellites can provide full coverage of the Earth, except for the polar regions.

Geostationary transfer orbit

  • This is an elliptical Earth orbit used to transfer a spacecraft from a low altitude orbit or flight trajectory to geostationary orbit. The apogee is at 36 000 km. When a spacecraft reaches this point, its apogee kick motor is fired to inject it into geostationary orbit.

Low Earth orbits

  • A low Earth orbit is normally at an altitude of less than 1000 km and could be as low as 160 km above the Earth. Satellites in this circular orbit travel at a speed of around 7.8 km per second. At this speed, a satellite takes approximately 90 minutes to circle the Earth.
  • In general, these orbits are used for remote sensing, military purposes and for human spaceflight as they offer close proximity to the Earth’s surface for imaging and the short orbital periods allow for rapid revisits. The International Space Station is in low Earth orbit.

Medium low Earth orbit

  • This orbit takes place at an altitude of around 1000 km and is particularly suited for constellations of satellites mainly used for telecommunications. A satellite in this orbit travels at approximately 7.3 km per second.

Polar orbits

  • As the name suggests, polar orbits pass over the Earth’s polar regions from north to south. The orbital track of the satellite does not have to cross the poles exactly for an orbit to be called polar, an orbit which passes within 20 to 30 degrees of the poles is still classed as a polar orbit.
  • These orbits mainly take place at low altitudes of between 200 to 1000 km. Satellites in polar orbit look down on the Earth’s entire surface and can pass over the North and South Poles several times a day.
  • Polar orbits are used for reconnaissance and Earth observation. If a satellite is in polar orbit at an altitude of 800 km, it will be travelling at a speed of approximately 7.5 km per second.

Sun synchronous orbits

  • These are polar orbits which are synchronous with the Sun. A satellite in a sun synchronous orbit would usually be at an altitude of between 600 to 800 km. Generally these orbits are used for Earth observation, solar study, weather forecasting and reconnaissance, as ground observation is improved if the surface is always illuminated by the Sun at the same angle when viewed from the satellite.

4 . Geomagnetic Storm

Context : Elon Musk’s Starlink has lost dozens of satellites that were caught in a geomagnetic storm a day after they were launched on February 3. Up to 40 of the 49 satellites were impacted, Starlink said, causing them to fall from orbit before they could be commissioned.

About Solar storms/flares

  • Solar storms are magnetic plasma ejected at great speed from the solar surface. They occur during the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots (‘dark’ regions on the Sun that are cooler than the surrounding photosphere), and can last for a few minutes or hours.
  • Not all solar flares reach Earth, but solar flares/storms, solar energetic particles (SEPs), high-speed solar winds, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that come close can impact space weather in near-Earth space and the upper atmosphere.
  • Solar storms can hit operations of space-dependent services like global positioning systems (GPS), radio, and satellite communications. Geomagnetic storms interfere with high-frequency radio communications and GPS navigation systems. Aircraft flights, power grids, and space exploration programmes are vulnerable.
  • CMEs, with ejectiles loaded with matter travelling at millions of miles an hour, can potentially create disturbances in the magnetosphere, the protective shield surrounding the Earth. Astronauts on spacewalks face health risks from possible exposure to solar radiation outside the Earth’s protective atmosphere.
  • Solar physicists and other scientists use computer models to predict solar storms and solar activities in general. Current models are capable of predicting a storm’s time of arrival and its speed. But the storm’s structure or orientation still cannot be predicted

5 . Facts for Prelims

Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS)

  • ESSO-INCOIS was established as an autonomous body in 1999 under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and is a unit of the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO).
  • INCOIS provides ocean information and advisory services to various stakeholders in the country, including Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories, Ocean State Forecast (OSF), high wave alerts, tsunami early warnings, storm surge and oil-spill advisories, among others, using state-of-the-art technologies and tools to get real time information on oceanographic and marine meteorological data.
  • The institute has been serving as the National Argo Data Centre and Regional Argo Data Centre of the International Argo Programme, he added, in a press release.
  • ESSO-INCOIS has a prominent international presence, being a permanent member of the Indian delegation to IOC of UNESCO and a founding member of the Indian Ocean Global Ocean Observing System (IOGOOS) and the Partnership for Observing the Oceans (POGO) which is actively engaged in capacity building and international exchange of students and researchers.
  • ESSO-INCOIS houses the IOGOOS secretariat and the Sustained Indian Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (SIBER) International Programme Office. Through the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES), ESSO-INCOIS provides ocean information and forecasts to member countries.
  • ESSO-INCOIS is also a member of the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE) OceanView Science Team (GOVST) and Patrons Group.

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