Directions (next 10 questions) : Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions. Today, the discipline of science that Sir Isaac Newton helped found in the second half of the 17th Century has extended humanity’ s horizons to a degree he could scarcely have envisaged. Even though Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006, with the discovery of other similarly sized bodies nearby , the latest mission of America’s space agency NASA to Pluto is expected to produce plenty of data for planetary scientists to pore over. But then the stream of mission to the outer planets namely- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune- turns into a trickle. At the same time, Cassini was launched in 1997 to explore Saturn and its moons but by 2017 its propellant will be depleted and provided it survives a series of fly-bye through Saturn’s rings- It will burn up as it plunges through the planet’s thick atmosphere. Sometime, before 2025 even the stalwart voyage probes, both launched in 1977, will lack the power to continue sending back data. Voyager-1, now in interstellar space, is the most distant man-made object in the Universe, and Voyage-2 is not far behind. The upshot is that for a decade or so, discoveries will come mostly from objects closer to Earth, regular excursions to Mars are planned. There will also be plenty of instruments launched to look at Earth itself. The hiatus might not end until two proposed space missions are launched in the early 2020s.
It seems an abrupt slowdown after a golden age of missions by NASA and European Space Agency (ESA). But, building a space probe in both complicated and expensive, it takes years of planning and jostling for funds as well as hefty dose of lack to ensure that complex equipment works well. We are travelling today from some good science and good funding in the 1990s. And money has become much scarcer in recent years. In 1981, the recent high-water mark for NASA, the agency received $25 billion. Its budget fell to a low of $16.9 billion in 2013. Some of NASA’S cash has been shifted to other projects. NASA’S co-operation with ESA on future missions has also been scaled back as a result of budget cuts. The Europeans, by contrast, have kept their funding fairly steady. But ESA’s budget is just £ 4.4 billion ($4.9 billion). Other countries are interested in space and have missions under way or in the making, including China, Japan and India. But so far they have no ambitions to venture beyond mars.
Does the coming gap in planetary exploration matter ? Studying the geology, atmospheres and evolution of plants, and comets provides valuable science. Others have loftier ambitions-Keeping planetary science going is critical to the long term survival of the species on this planet. Because space missions have such long lead times, the looming urn of years will have deleterious effects even if budgets start to rise again. The concern is that when funding does get back, there will be a missing generation of valuable knowledge almost. It’s really difficult to go through boom and bust cycles since you’ve got to keep the scientific community and the engineers ticking over to maintain the expertise will have in outer solar-system exploration.
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In 2012, the Arctic was hot. But while it still matters for environmental reasons, the surge of interest in its economy has ebbed. That surge was driven by three things. First, the Arctic contains vast amounts of energy which could become accessible as the world warms and the ice retreats in summer. The US Geological Survey has said that about a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas lies in Arctic waters. Send, the melting ice allows cargo ships to sail round Russia’s northern coast for about two months in summer. This cuts the distance for ships travelling from Shanghai to Rotterdam by almost a quarter and the transit time by about two weeks. It was once said the Northern Sea Route would one day rival the Suez Canal as the best way to ship goods from East Asia to Europe. Third, the Arctic seemed a model of international co-operation. The eight countries with territory inside the Arctic Circle settled through the Arctic Council, originally a scientific forum which in 2011-13 signed its first treaties, on search and rescue missions and cleaning up oil spills. Nothing exemplified is popularity better than the r4ush of tropical Asian countries to join. China, India and Singapore were granted observer status in 2013.
But since mid-2014, the Arctic’s allure has lessened. Its energy is pricey. Even at $100 a barrel, many fields were marginal because the weather is so extreme. A Russian and Norwegian firm together developing one of the largest gasfields ever discovered, mothballed the project in 2012. With oil at $50 a barrel, few Arctic fields would be economic. Energy exploration in the Arctic fields would be economic. Energy exploration in the Arctic is in fact referred to by some as a licence to lose money. With regard to the Northern Sea Route- In 2013, 71 ships traversed Russia’s Arctic, according to the Northern Sea Route information Office: a large increase since 2010, when the number was just four. But 16,000 ships passed through the Suez Canal between Europe and Asia in 2013, so the northern route is not starting to compete. In 2014 traffic alone the Northern Sea Route fell to 53 ships, only four of which sailed from Asia and docked in Europe (the rest went from one Russian port to another). The route does not yet link Europe and East Asia. The decline in 2014 was partly caused by the weather. Less sea ice melted last summer than in 2013, so the route was more dangerous. But its limitations go beyond that. Cutting a week or two off transit time is not the benefit it may seem if the vessel arrives a day late. In shipping, just-in-time arrival matters, not only speed. The new-generation container ships are too cumbersome to use the Arctic so, as these become more common, the northern route becomes less attractive.
The Arctic council continues to expand: it is setting up a new economic body to boost business. But however much its members co-operate, the council cannot offset hostilities between Russia and the West-hostilities which affect the Arctic, too. Russia is stepping up its military operations there. This does not mean fighting is about to break out in the Arctic; nor are shipping and energy exploration about to end.
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The Arctic is the canary in global-warming. Canaries expired in contact with gases such as carbon monoxide and methane, warning miners to leave the area. The Arctic sea is similarly sensitive to changes which might otherwise not be obvious as the Earth warms up in response to more of another gas, carbon dioxide. The area of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice at the height of summer has been shrinking by 11% a decade for the past 35 years. But the details are obscure-because gathering data in the Arctic Ocean is hard. But, a systematic approach to that gathering has begun. The Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) programme, paid for by the United States Navy, has laid dozens of devices. These measure the thickness of the icy layer, and also the salinity, temperature, oxygen concentration, organic-matter composition and movement of the seawater beneath. With luck, the MIZ's researchers with their elaborate network of sensors and instrument-laden robots known as Seagliders will gather the largest quantity of data yet collected on the seasonal melting of the Arctic ice sheet and thus find out exactly what song the Arctic canary is singing.
Monitoring sea ice is a fairly recent activity. It began seriously in the 1950s, from aboard nuclear submarines. Satellite monitoring started in 1979. Since then the summer sea ice has shrunk by 12% a decade. That is consistent with the trend predicted by climate-change models over the past three decades, an indication that their mathematical simulations of global warming are roughly right. Scientists have constructed a record of the Arctic past suggest that the summer sea ice is at its lowest level for at least 2000 years. Six of the hottest years on record- going back to 1880- have occurred since 2004. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the last time the polar regions were significantly warmer was about 1,25,000 years ago. This transformation is in fact happening faster than anyone had predicted. According to the scientists, the average thickness of the pack ice has fallen by roughtly half since the 1970s, probably for two main reasons. In the summer of 2007, coastal parts of the Arctic Occean rose to 70C- bracingly swimmable. The other was a prolonged eastward shift in the early 1990s in the Arctic's prevailing winds, known as the Arctic Oscillation. This moved a lot of ice into the Atlantic and has not been replaced.
Attention has recently also been focused on lesser-known greenhouse gases, including ozone and methane, and on soot from diesel exhaust and forest fires. These are known as "short-lived climate forcers". Though they linger in the atmosphere for a relatively short time, they can have a powerful greenhouse effect. Soot, or black carbon, stays in the atmoshere for an average of six days, whereas carbon dioxide lasts for centuries, even millennia. Yet black carbon has an unusually potent warming effect in the snowy Arctic because the dark soot, after being rained or snowed onto bright snow or ice, continues to absorb heat. The UN's Environment programme estimates that reducing black carbon and methane emission could cut Arctic warming by two-thirds over the next three decades. That would not prevent the disappearance of the summer sea ice, but it might delay it by a decade or two.