Zygaenid:

• It is a newly discovered species of moth. This discovery represents the first record of Elcysma from Arunachal Pradesh. Researchers have suggested that the new species be commonly called Apatani Glory, named after a local tribe called Apatani.
• The species was discovered from the Talle Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh.
• This species has only been seen during autumn, notably in the month of September, indicating that it is a univoltine species, meaning it has one brood of young in a year.

NCDEX Agri-Options in Guar Seed:

• The Union Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley recently launched the country’s First Agri-commodity Options Contracts in Guar Seed.
• NCDEX Agri-Options in Guar Seed aim to provide farmers better engagement in the commodity markets.​

Chandrayaan-2:

• To prepare for landing on the moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation is planning to conduct landing simulation tests for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft at Mahendragiri in coming weeks.
• Chandrayaan-2 includes soft-landing on Moon and moving a rover on its surface.
• It is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission.
• It consists of an orbiter, lander and rover configuration.
• The Orbiter spacecraft when launched from Sriharikota will travel to the Moon and release the Lander, which will in turn deploy a tiny Rover to roam the lunar surface — all three sending data and pictures to Earth.
• It is planned to be launched as a composite stack into the earth parking orbit (EPO) of 170 X 18,500 km by GSLV-Mk II.

SEXTANT:

• NASA has invented a new type of autonomous space navigation that could see human-made spacecraft heading into the far reaches of the Solar System, and even farther – by using pulsars as guide stars.
• It’s called Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT (named after an 18th century nautical navigation instrument).
• It works like a GPS receiver getting signals from at least three GPS satellites, all of which are equipped with atomic clocks.
• The receiver measures the time delay from each satellite and converts this into spatial coordinates.
• The technology uses X-ray technology to see millisecond pulsars, using them much like a GPS uses satellites.
• The electromagnetic radiation beaming from pulsars is most visible in the X-ray spectrum, which is why NASA’s engineers chose to employ X-ray detection in SEXTANT.
• To do so, they used a washing machine-sized observatory attached to the International Space Station.
• Called Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, it contains 52 X-ray telescopes and silicon-drift detectors for studying neutron stars, including pulsars.
• It could be used to calculate the location of planetary satellites far from the range of Earth’s GPS satellites, and assist on human spaceflight missions, such as the space agency’s planned Mars mission.

Giant burrowing bat:

• Fossilized remains of a giant burrowing bat, which lived on New Zealand between 16 and 19-million-years ago, have been found.
• It is “the first new bat genus to be added to New Zealand’s fauna in more than 150 years.”
• It has been given the name Vulcanops jennyworthyae, after team member Jenny Worthy who found the fossils. 
• The omnivore ate invertebrates like insects and spiders, as well as fruit, flowers, and nectar.
• Compared with other short-tailed New Zealand bats, this species shows a shift in diet, which is more similar to that of its South American relatives.
• They are of particular interest because they can fly, as well as walk on all of its limbs along the forest floor.

Rizhao:

• The People’s Liberation Army Navy commissioned a new missile frigate, named ‘Rizhao’, in a naval port in China’s Dalian located in the Liaoning Province. 
• Rizhao is China’s indigenous missile frigate. It is 140-meter-long and 16-meter-wide with the capability to displace more than 4,000 tonnes.
• Rizhao is equipped with an advanced weapon systems. 
• It has the capability to attack enemy ships and submarines alone or along with other naval forces.

SPARCS:

• Scientists are planning to launch a small telescope into the Earth’s orbit that will monitor the flares and sunspots of small stars to assess how habitable the environment is for planets orbiting them.
• The spacecraft is known as the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat, or SPARCS.
• SPARCS is a new NASA-funded space telescope and will be launched in 2021
• This is a mission to the borderland of astrophysics and astrobiology.
• The stars that SPARCS will focus on are small, dim, and cool by comparison to the Sun.

 James Webb Space Telescope:

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope — the world’s premier infrared space observatory of the next decade — has successfully completed critical testing in a massive thermal vacuum chamber, enabling it to function properly in the extremely cold and airless environment in space in 2019.
• Webb Space Telescope, developed in coordination among NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, is the most sophisticated — and expensive — space observatory ever designed.
• Scheduled for launch in the spring of 2019 aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket, the gamut of tests ensured that Webb will safely reach its orbit at Earth’s second Lagrange point (L2) and be able to successfully perform its science mission. 
• The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the largest space telescope ever built. It is an international collaboration between of about 17 countries including NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
• When it is launched in 2019, it will be the world’s biggest and most powerful telescope.

Global Biodiversity Information Facility:

• GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility—is an open-data research infrastructure funded by the world’s governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere access to data about all types of life on Earth.
• Coordinated through its Secretariat in Copenhagen, the GBIF network of participating countries and organizations, working through participant nodes, provides data-holding institutions around the world with common standards and open-source tools that enable them to share information about where and when species have been recorded.
• GBIF arose from a 1999 recommendation by the Biodiversity Informatics Subgroup of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Megascience Forum.
• Its report concluded that “An international mechanism is needed to make biodiversity data and information accessible worldwide”, arguing that this mechanism could produce many economic and social benefits and enable sustainable development by providing sound scientific evidence.
• India is an associate country participants to the facility.