Porsche 911 GT3 RS Unveiled In India

Highlights

The 911 GT3 RS comes powered by a 4.0-litre engine. It develops 494bhp and 480Nm of torque. The Porsche 911 GT3 RS can go from zero to 100Km/h in 3.3 seconds

Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the German sports car manufacturer's "definitive track car for everyday use", was unveiled in India at the Porsche Centre Bengaluru yesterday. Hailed as "the race car for the circuit and everyday driving" by Porsche, the 911 GT3 RS brings together the best of both, road-legal sports cars and race cars.

Rosetta space probe captures comet outburst

European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe has unexpectedly captured a dramatic comet outburst that may have been triggered by a landslide. 

Nine of Rosetta's instruments, including its cameras, dust collectors, and gas and plasma analysers, were monitoring the comet from about 35 kilometres in a coordinated planned sequence when the outburst happened on February 19 this year.
"Over the last year, Rosetta has shown that although activity can be prolonged, when it comes to outbursts, the timing is highly unpredictable, so catching an event like this was pure luck," said Matt Taylor, ESA's Rosetta project scientist. 

Sri Lankan teen held for allegedly hacking President's official website

Sri Lanka's police Monday arrested a 17-year-old teenager for hacking into President Maithripala Sirisena's official website and posting a message calling for the postponement of A-level examinations.

The unnamed boy was taken into custody under the Computer Crimes Act and on conviction faces a fine of 300,000 rupees ($2,000) and up to three years in jail.

"We traced the hack to his home in Kadugannawa," a police official said referring to a town about 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of the capital Colombo. "The website was crippled over the weekend after the attack."

On Monday, the president's official site was up and running again.

ShakeAlert provides earthquake early warning system

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and a series of university partners are developing an earthquake early warning system calledShakeAlert, which aims to provide the general public with alerts up to 10 seconds before an earthquake hits. The system is not yet public, but it is now undergoing testing in California, Oregon and Washington.

“There is a similar test effort for an earthquake early warning system in theIrpinia region of Italy, run by the University of Naples,” said Richard Allen, one of the leaders of the ShakeAlert project and director of the Seismological Laboratory at UC Berkeley and chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

SCIENCEAANasa's Juno probe completes first Jupiter flyby

WASHINGTON: Nasa's solar-powered Juno spacecraft has successfully executed its first flyby of Jupiter, passing just 4,200 kilometres above the gas giant's swirling clouds - the closest contact ever achieved by a man-made probe with the king of planets.

The flyby on August 27 was the first time Juno had its entire suite of science instruments activated and looking at the giant planet as the spacecraft zoomed past, Nasa said.

During the closest approach with the gas-giant world, Juno passed about 4,200 kilometres above Jupiter's clouds, travelling at 208,000 kilometres per hour with respect to the planet.

China's largest space rocket gets ready for space missions

BEIJING: China is moving its new largest carrier rocket, which will be used for lunar and Mars probes, to its launch base in southern Hainan from northern China's Tianjin Port.

Long March-5 rocket, carried by two special rocket- carrying ships Yuanwang-21 and Yuanwang-22, will arrive at Qinglan Port in Wenchang, Hainan Province early next month.

As the country's strongest carrier rocket, the Long March-5 has a payload capacity of 25 tonnes in low Earth orbit and 14 tonnes in geostationary orbit.
The rocket is planned to carry the Chang'e-5 lunar probe in 2017 and will be used to launch China's space station modules and Mars probes.