Current Affairs: Other Issues: 16 April - 01 May 2010

CAG Weekly
(Current Affairs & GK)
By Om Prakash (goldy sir)

Content:

1. Hubble turns 20
2. Bid to clean Mount Everest

Brief Description:

Hubble turns 20

• The Hubble Space Telescope celebrated the 20th anniversary of its launch with NASA releasing a new photograph from the orbiting observatory of a cosmic pillar of gas and dust in the Carina Nebula galaxy.
• Three light years tall towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula, said the U.S. space agency, reminiscent of Hubble's classic “Pillars of Creation” photograph from 1995.
• Hubble, named after the astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953), was launched into low-Earth orbit on April 24, 1990. Since then, it has been sending back some of the most spectacular images of galaxies — helping scientists place the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, learn that black holes are at the centre of most galaxies, monitor planetary formation and discover that the universe is expanding at an ever-faster pace.

Bid to clean Mount Everest

• A Nepalese expedition left on Saturday on a high-risk Everest clean-up to bring down garbage left by climbers and possibly retrieve the bodies of some who died in the “death zone” of the world's highest peak.
• Twenty professional Nepali climbers, including some top summiteers, headed to the Everest Base Camp, from where they will begin their ascent of the mountain.
• Their target is the “death zone” above 8,000 metres, where successive expeditions have, over the years, left an ugly legacy of discarded climbing equipment, including tonnes of empty oxygen cylinders.
• Almost 4,000 people have climbed Everest since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
• There is no definitive figure on how much trash has been left on the mountain, but the debris of 50 years of climbing has given Everest the name of the world's highest dumpster.
• As well as oxygen canisters, the detritus includes food containers, discarded tents, ropes and backpacks.
• The team is also considering bringing down the bodies of several climbers who perished near the mountain's summit, such as Gianni Goltz, a member of a Swiss expedition who died in 2008. Other corpses in the “death zone” include those of New Zealander Rob Hall and American Scott Fischer, who were guides on Everest during the infamous 1996 disaster described in the best-selling book Into Thin Air.
• Since 1953, there have been 300 deaths on Everest, according to Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Many bodies have been brought down, but those above 8,000 metres have generally been left to the elements — their bodies preserved by the freezing temperatures.