Isolation of anaerobic,extremely thermophilic,sulphur metabolising archaebacteria from New Zealand hot springs

Enrichments of New Zealand geo‐thermal samples, initiated in anaerobic sulphur‐containing media and incubated at temperatures above 85°C, yielded rod and coccal shaped organisms which possessed archaebacterial characteristics. Pure cultures were isolated and characterised. Five of the seven isolates, which were rod‐shaped organisms and did not have an obligate requirement for sulphur respiration, were similar to Thermoproteus sp. but had more neutral pH optima for growth. Three of these five Thermoproteus sp. were obligate heterotrophs, which has not previously been reported. The two coccal isolates had an obligate requirement for sulphur as an electron acceptor and were similar to Desulfurococcus sp. but again with more neutral pH optima for growth.     

Onboard Automated CME Detection Algorithm for the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph on <Emphasis Type="Italic">ADITYA-L1</Emphasis>

ADITYA-L1 is India’s first space mission to study the Sun from the Lagrange 1 position. The Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) is one of seven payloads on the ADITYA-L1 mission, which is scheduled to be launched around 2020. One of the primary objectives of the VELC is to study the dynamics of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the inner corona. This will be accomplished by taking high-resolution (\({\approx}\,2.51~\mbox{arcsec}\,\mbox{pixel}^{-1}\)) images of the corona from \(1.05~\mbox{R}_{\odot}\,\mbox{--}\,3~\mbox{R}_{\odot}\) at a high cadence of 1 s in the 10 Å passband centered at 5000 Å. Because telemetry at the Lagrangian 1 position is limited, we plan to implement an onboard automated CME detection algorithm. The detection algorithm is based on intensity thresholding followed by area thresholding in successive difference images that are spatially rebinned to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. We present the results of the application of this algorithm on the data from existing coronagraphs such as STEREO/SECCHI COR-1, which is a space-based coronagraph, and K-Cor, a ground-based coronagraph, because they have a field of view (FOV) that is most similar to that of VELC. Since no existing space-based coronagraph has a FOV similar to VELC, we have created synthetic coronal images for the VELC FOV after including photon noise and injected CMEs of different types. The performance of the CME detection algorithm was tested on these images. We found that for VELC images, the telemetry can be reduced by a factor of 85% or more while maintaining a CME detection rate of 70% or higher at the same time. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this algorithm. The application of such an onboard algorithm in future will enable us to take higher resolution images with an improved cadence from space and simultaneously reduce the load on limited telemetry. This will help understanding CMEs better by studying their characteristics with improved spatial and temporal resolution.     

Burrowing activities of goby fish in the recent intertidal mud flats along the Navinal coast,Kachchh, Western India

Behavioural activities of the goby fish-Periophthalmodon septemradiatus were observed in the intertidal zone around Navinal coast in the Gulf of Kachchh, western India. Intertidal zone is broad, and comprise of creeks, which are muddy and vegetated by mangrove on eastern side and ridge runnel systems on western side of the study area which are hospitable for the goby fish. Different types of biogenic activities are observed such as crawling, pellet making, grazing and burrowing. The crawling activity is part of movement of the goby fish from one burrow to another burrow and pellet making activity is part of burrow modification. The grazing activity is feeding on the surface mud after receding of tide and exposure of the tidal flat by left and right movement of the front part of the body. The most conspicuous activity is burrowing, they construct unlined, vertical to incline ‘I’, ‘J’ and ‘Y’ shaped branched, circular to oval burrows with varying diameter and depth. In the muddy sediments goby fish produced circular to oval rimmed muddy lumps as surfacial expression around the burrows and further produced funnel shape depression and downward extended cylindrical holes, while in the runnels burrows are usually small and simple. The trail is consisting of fin marking on either side of the tail marks (grooves) which are radiate around the burrows. Occasionally burrows are interconnected in more than one burrow system which is nested within single funnel structure on the surface. The burrow systems of the goby fish in the intertidal sediments serves for protection and dwelling purpose and most importantly these burrows are irrigated by water which supply the oxygen and keep body surface wet. The overall dimensions of the burrow decrease towards the lower intertidal zone. In all, behavioural structure produced by the goby fish marks the combined activity of dwelling, feeding and grazing. The complex behavioural mechanisms have helped the goby fish to survive and flourish in the harsh intertidal environments along the Navinal Coast, in the Gulf of Kachchh.     

Liquid content of the lower clouds of venus as determined from mariner 10 radio occultation

S-band (13.06-cm) and X-band (3.56-cm) radio occulation data obtained during the flyby of Venus by Mariner 10 on February 5, 1974 were analyzed to obtain the effects of dispersive microwave absorption by the clouds of Venus. The received power profiles were first corrected for the effects of refraction in the atmosphere of Venus, programmed changes in the pointing direction of the high-gain antenna, and limit-cycle motion of the spacecraft attitude control system. The resulting excess attenuation profiles presumbaly due to cloud absorption have been inverted discretely to obtain profiles of absorption coefficient at the two wavelenghts. The ratios of the absorptivities are consistent with a sulfuric acid-water mixture as the constituent of the absorbing clouds, having a sulfuric acid concentration of 75 ± 25%. Three absorption peaks are evident in the profiles at altitudes of 68, 60, and 48 km. With a sulfuric acid concentration of 75%, the upper cloud has a peak liquid content of 0.08 g/m³, and an integrated content of 0.024 g/cm², which corresponds roughly to terrestrial stratus or altostratus clouds. The major absorption layer has a peak of 1.1 g/m³ at an altitude of 48 km, with an integrated content of 0.5 g/cm², similar to that of terrestrial cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds. The absorption ratios for the middle cloud at 60 km are not consistent with a sulfuric acid-water mixture.     

Development of a hard x-ray focal plane compton polarimeter: a compact polarimetric configuration with scintillators and Si photomultipliers

X-ray polarization measurement of cosmic sources provides two unique parameters namely degree and angle of polarization which can probe the emission mechanism and geometry at close vicinity of the compact objects. Specifically, the hard X-ray polarimetry is more rewarding because the sources are expected to be intrinsically highly polarized at higher energies. With the successful implementation of Hard X-ray optics in NuSTAR, it is now feasible to conceive Compton polarimeters as focal plane detectors. Such a configuration is likely to provide sensitive polarization measurements in hard X-rays with a broad energy band. We are developing a focal plane hard X-ray Compton polarimeter consisting of a plastic scintillator as active scatterer surrounded by a cylindrical array of CsI(Tl) scintillators. The scatterer is 5 mm diameter and 100 mm long plastic scintillator (BC404) viewed by normal PMT. The photons scattered by the plastic scatterer are collected by a cylindrical array of 16 CsI(Tl) scintillators (5 mm × 5 mm × 150 mm) which are read by Si Photomultiplier (SiPM). Use of the new generation SiPMs ensures the compactness of the instrument which is essential for the design of focal plane detectors. The expected sensitivity of such polarimetric configuration and complete characterization of the plastic scatterer, specially at lower energies have been discussed in [11, 13]. In this paper, we characterize the CsI(Tl) absorbers coupled to SiPM. We also present the experimental results from the fully assembled configuration of the Compton polarimeter.