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Underwater snow on Earth gives clues about Europa’s icy shell

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Studying a bizarre underwater snow below ice shelves on Earth can help understand the ice shell Jupiter’s moon Europa, according to researchers.

Europa is a rocky world about the size of the Earth’s moon that is surrounded by a global ocean and a miles-thick ice shell.

Below Europa’s thick icy crust is a massive, global ocean where the snow floats upwards onto inverted ice peaks and submerged ravines.

The underwater snow is much purer than other kinds of ice, which means Europa’s ice shell could be much less salty than previously thought, revealed the study published in the journal Astrobiology.

The finding is important for mission scientists preparing NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will use radar to peek beneath the ice shell to see if Europa’s ocean could be hospitable to life.

Previous studies suggest the temperature, pressure and salinity of Europa’s ocean nearest to the ice is similar to what you would find beneath an ice shelf in Antarctica.

The new information will be critical because salt trapped in the ice can affect what and how deep the radar will see into the ice shell, so being able to predict what the ice is made of will help scientists make sense of the data.

Knowing what kind of ice Europa’s shell is made of will also help decipher the salinity and habitability of its ocean, said the team from the University of Texas at Austin.

“When we’re exploring Europa, we’re interested in the salinity and composition of the ocean, because that’s one of the things that will govern its potential habitability or even the type of life that might live there,” said lead author Natalie Wolfenbarger, a graduate student researcher at the varsity’s Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).

The new study also examined the two different ways that water freezes under ice shelves, congelation ice and frazil ice. Congelation ice grows directly from under the ice shelf. Frazil ice forms as ice flakes in supercooled seawater which float upwards through the water, settling on the bottom of the ice shelf.

Both ways make ice that’s less salty than seawater, which Wolfenbarger found would be even less salty when scaled up to the size and age of Europa’s ice shell.

Further, the frazil ice – which keeps only a tiny fraction of the salt in seawater – could be very common on Europa. That means its ice shell could be orders of magnitude purer than previous estimates. This affects everything from its strength, to how heat moves through it, and forces that might drive a kind of ice tectonics, Wolfenbarger said.

According to co-author Donald Blankenship, a senior research scientist at UTIG, the research is validation for using the Earth as a model to understand the habitability of Europa.

“We can use Earth to evaluate Europa’s habitability, measure the exchange of impurities between the ice and ocean, and figure out where water is in the ice,” he said.

National News

Important news for Jio Airtel, Vi and BSNL users, rules changing from November 1

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Important news for Jio Airtel, Vi and BSNL users, rules changing from November 1

Technology Desk, New Delhi: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is continuously working to curb spam and fake calls. A few days ago, new telecom rules were implemented, which were brought by the government body with the aim of curbing fake and spam calls. New rules are being implemented again from November 1. After which there will be more strictness on such calls.

TRAI has asked all telecom companies to implement message traceability. However, telecom companies have objected to this and said that doing so will affect their work.

New rules will be implemented

New telecom rules are being implemented from November 1. According to which it will be mandatory for all telecom companies to implement message traceability. By doing this, it will be easy to trace fake and spam callers. TRAI clearly said that the traceability of transactional and service messages sent by banks, e-commerce platforms and other financial institutions should be implemented compulsorily. So that the spam calls coming to the customers can be curbed.

What is message traceability?

Message traceability is a method with the help of which it is easy to trace fake and fake callers and they are blocked even before the call comes. After this, the call will become more secure than before and they can be monitored better. There are many other things that will be corrected after the message traceability rules are implemented.

Jio-Airtel and Vi’s tension increased
TRAI has made it clear that new telecom rules are coming into effect from November 1, but all the major telecom companies have expressed concern over this. They said that the implementation of message traceability will make their work difficult and many things will be affected by it.

According to a report, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has sought some time from TRAI to implement the new rules. Telecom companies said, “Instead of implementing these rules in a hurry, we want them to be implemented step by step.” Behind doing this, telecom companies say that many telemarketers and many major institutions are not ready to follow the new rule.

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Huawei launches world’s first smartphone with triple foldable display, here’s how much it costs

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Companies have been teasing its tri-fold smartphone design for a while now. However, Huawei has managed to beat everyone to the race by launching the world’s first foldable smartphone with triple foldable display. Dubbed Mate XT, the smartphone features a 10.2-inch display that can fold three times to fit in a regular phone-like form factor.

How much the phone costs

Huawei has launched the phone in China at 19999 yuan or $2800 which roughly translates to Rs 2,35,000. The phone comes in two other configurations – 16GB + 512GB and 16GB + 1TB that are priced at 21999 yuan and 23999 yuan respectively.

The phone has launched only in China and will start shipping starting September 20.

Huawei Mate XT: Features

The Huawei Mate XT features a 10.3-inch foldable OLED display, providing a large screen area when fully unfolded. It is powered by a 5600mAh battery with support for 66-watt fast charging.

The smartphone comes with a triple-camera setup, including a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens, and a 12-megapixel periscope lens, offering 5.5x optical zoom.

The triple-foldable design allows the device to fold into a Z-shape using two hinges, creating three distinct display areas. Users can partially unfold the screen.

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National News

Passport Seva Portal To Be Shut From Today: Technical Maintenance Work From August 29-September 2, All Appointments Rescheduled

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Individuals gearing up to travel and perhaps even relocate will have to wait for some days, as the Passport Seva Portal, India’s official website processing passport-related exercises, will be down from August 29 to September 2.

According to the website, the portal, “Passport Seva portal will be down for technical maintenance from 29th August 2024, Thursday 20:00 hrs IST to 2nd September, Monday 06:00 hrs IST.”

The pop notification on the government website said, “System will not be available during this period for citizens and for all MEA/RPO/BOI/ISP/DoP/Police Authorities. The already booked appointments for 30th August 2024 will be suitably rescheduled and informed to applicants.”

This therefore would mean that all the existing appointments will in all probability be rescheduled.

The Passport Seva Portal X account posted the notifications on August 25. It also reposted posts from Regional Passport Offices.

According to the External Affairs Ministry, “The External Affairs Ministry said this is a routine procedure. “For rescheduling of appointments, we always have contingency plans. The maintenance activity for a public centric service (like Passport Seva Kendras) is always planned in advance so that no inconvenience is meted out to public. So rescheduling an appointment will not be a challenge,” a source from the ministry has said.”

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