How many satellites have to be launched by ISRO in April?

Bengaluru Raptors have won their first ever Premier Badminton League, PBL title. In the title clash played at Bengaluru, Bengaluru edged out Mumbai Rockets, with a 4-3 win. Star player Kidambi Srikanth, Vu Ji Trang and the Men's Doubles pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Satiawan won their matches for Bengaluru guiding them to victory.

Scientists have developed a device named WAND which stands for "Wireless artifact-free neuromodulation device" that works like a "Pacemaker for the brain" to monitor the brain's electrical activity and potentially deliver fine-tuned treatments to patients suffering from diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson's. The most important feature of the device is that it is both wireless and autonomous, which means when it learns to recognize the signs of tremor or seizures then it can adjust the stimulation parameters on its own to prevent the unwanted movements. The device has custom integrated circuits to record the full signal from both the subtle brain wave and the strong electrical pulses.

Researchers at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, have developed an ultrasensitive quantum thermometer by using graphene quantum dots. It can precisely measure a wide range of temperature from 27 degree C to -196 degree C. It has high sensitivity in different temperatures and can measure every little (micro Kelvin) changes in temperature and has an extremely quick response time of just about 300 milliseconds. The team led by Saikh S. Islam, Director of the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology developed the thermometer. The results of the study were published in the journal Nanoscale Advances.

Researchers have Genetically Modified (GM) a common indoor plant, golden pothos or Devil's ivy (Epipremnum aureum), to remove pollutants inside the house. It has been modified to produce a liver enzyme called cytochrome p450 2e1, which is taken from rabbits, that breaks down a wide range of pollutants. The researchers put the modified plant and normal pothos ivy in glass tubes and added either benzene or chloroform gas into each tube. They found that the concentration of either gas did not change for normal plants. However, for the modified plants, the concentration of chloroform dropped by 82%, and it was almost undetectable by day six.

NASA's first flight to the moon Apollo 8 is marking its 50th anniversary. On Dec. 21st, 1968, three men flew to the moon for the first time in human history. Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders orbited the moon on Christmas Eve, reading from the Book of Genesis. To this day, the mission is considered NASA's boldest and perhaps most dangerous undertaking ever. NASA whipped it together in four months, in order to beat the Soviets to the moon.

Karnataka's Kaiga Atomic power station created a world record for the longest uninterrupted operation for 962 days on December 10. It had earlier set a record of 941 days. The earlier record of 940 days by Heysham-2 unit 2 was set by the United Kingdom. Generating Station-1 (KGS-1) at Kaiga in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka has now been shut down for maintenance after 962 days of operation. It will be commissioned again after the maintenance activities. Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) said that during its continuous operation of 962 days KGS-1 had produced 5 billion units of electricity at a plant load factor of 99.3%. Kaiga has four indigenously developed Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors of 220 MW each fuelled by domestic fuel. Of them, KGS-2 has been operating since the last 661 days.

NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Cassini spacecraft has made an incredible observation about the extraordinary deep lakes filled with methane in the Saturn's moon, Titan. This new study has been published in the scientific journal Astronomy.Titan, Saturn's largest moon has methane rain that can fill lakes as much as 330 feet deep.Titan has become only planetary body known to have stable liquid on its surface, apart from Earth.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given the approval for ongoing GSLV continuation programme Phase-4 that consists of 5 GSLV rocket flights during 2021-2024.The GSLV Programme- Phase 4 will enable the launch of 2 tonne class of satellites for geo-imaging, navigation, data delay communication and space sciences. The total fund requirement for the phase 4 programme is Rs 2,729.13 crore. This amount includes the cost of 5 Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicles (GSLVs), addition of essential facility, programme management, launch campaign and extra funds required to meet the scope of the programme.

Scientists have discovered the most-distant body ever observed in our solar system, located over 100 times farther than Earth is from the Sun. The new object has been nicknamed Farout. Earlier, 2018 VG18, the object is the first to be observed at a distance of more than 100 astronomical units from the sun. Farout is about 120 AU, or about 11 billion miles, from the sun. One AU is the distance from Earth to the sun or about 93 million miles

Maitrayee Bose, Indian-origin cosmochemist along with Ziliang Jin, a postdoctoral scholar in Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration, have found water in asteroid Itokawa samples collected by the Japanese space probe Hayabusa. The research paper detailing the analysis of five of the particles from the asteroid samples was published in the journal Science Advances on 8th May 2019. Itokawa is a peanut-shaped S-type asteroid about 1,800 feet long and 700 to 1,000 feet wide. It circles the Sun every 18 months at an average distance of 1.3 times the Earth-Sun distance. The samples were collected from an area on Itokawa known as the Muses Sea, which is smooth and dusty.