Maharashtra Schools to Reopen From October 4 for Classes 5 to 12
Maharashtra government has decided to reopen schools from October 4. Schools will reopen in a phased manner. For rural areas classes, 5 to 12 will resume in physical form, and in urban areas classes, 8th to 12th will start. The decision came soon after Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar said that schools will reopen after Diwali.
Even as schools will reopen in the entire state, there is no compulsion for students to attend physical classes. Consent of parents will be necessary if they want to attend. As per a survey conducted by the school education department, more than 70 per cent of parents favoured reopening of schools, school education minister Varsha Gaikwad said.
The state had earlier formed a committee to set guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the reopening of schools. The expert panel has also suggested the Maharashtra government to reopen the schools in areas with a lower number of Covid positive cases and high vaccination coverage first.
Over the course of human history the Sun has been feared and worshipped. Rightfully so. What our ancestors knew on a fundamental level was that the Sun provides a vital ingredient for most of the life on Earth. Without the energy provided through sunlight, vegetation cannot grow, and without vegetation animals do not have a source of nourishment. However, what we know today that our ancestors did not is just how far reaching the scope of the Sun's influence is.
As our scientific knowledge has increased so too has our understanding that the Earth is merely a piece in the larger structure we know as the Solar System. What we have also discovered is that although other planets and bodies in the Solar System may not possess life, the Sun is just as influential to them.
What is the Sun?
The Sun is what is known as a main sequence star; that is, a sphere composed primarily of the two gases hydrogen and helium such that certain conditions are met. The first condition is that it must have a mass falling within a certain range. Though debated, this range is generally accepted to be between approximately 1.4 x 1029 kg and 3.0 x 1032 kg. (This range is often describe as at least 75 times the mass of Jupiter and no more than 150 times the mass of the Sun itself.) The second and most important condition is that nuclear fusion must be present. Nuclear fusion is the process whereby two lighter atomic nuclei join or “fuse” together to produce a heavier atomic nucleus. In the context of stars, hydrogen is the lighter and helium the heavier.
Size of the Sun
The size of the Sun compared to the largest known stars (red giants) is not very big. However, if compared to the most common type of star in the universe, the red dwarf, the Sun is quite a bit larger. Thus, the Sun is not the biggest type of star in the universe, but it is definitely larger than most.
As far as the Sun’s mass compared to other bodies found in our solar system, the Sun is easily the most massive. The Sun alone contains 99.8% of the total mass in the Solar System.
In terms of size, the Sun has a diameter of roughly 1.4 million kilometers (870,000 miles). To put this in perspective, this is almost 110 times the diameter of the Earth. What this means is that about one million Earth’s could fit inside the Sun.
Side by side comparison of the size of the Sun vs Earth, Uranus, Saturn & Jupiter
Facts about the Sun
The Sun accounts for 99.86% of the mass in the solar system. It has a mass of around 330,000 times that of Earth. It is three quarters hydrogen and most of its remaining mass is helium.
Over one million Earth’s could fit inside the Sun. If you were to fill a hollow Sun with spherical Earths, somewhere around 960,000 would fit inside. However, if you squashed those Earths to ensure there was no wasted space then you could fit 1,300,000 Earths inside the Sun. The surface area of the Sun is 11,990 times that of Earth.
One day the Sun will consume the Earth. The Sun will continue to burn for about 130 million years after it burns through all of its hydrogen, instead burning helium. During this time it will expand to such a size that it will engulf Mercury, Venus, and Earth. When it reaches this point, it will have become a red giant star.
The energy created by the Sun’s core is nuclear fusion. This huge amount of energy is produced when four hydrogen nuclei are combined into one helium nucleus.
The Sun is almost a perfect sphere. Considering the sheer size of the Sun, there is only a 10 km difference in its polar and equatorial diameters – this makes it the closest thing to a perfect sphere observed in nature.
The Sun is travelling at 220 km per second. It is around 24,000-26,000 light-years from the galactic centre and it takes the Sun approximately 225-250 million years to complete one orbit of the centre of the Milky Way.
The Sun will eventually be about the size of Earth. Once the Sun has completed its red giant phase, it will collapse. It’s huge mass will be retained, but it will have a volume similar to that of Earth. When that happens, it will be known as a white dwarf.
It takes eight minutes for light reach Earth from the Sun. The average distance from the Sun to the Earth is about 150 million km. Light travels at 300,000 km per second so dividing one by the other gives you 500 seconds – eight minutes and twenty seconds. This energy can reach Earth in mere minutes, but it takes millions of years to travel from the Sun’s core to its surface.
The Sun is halfway through its life. At 4.5 billion years old, the Sun has burned off around half of its hydrogen stores and has enough left to continue burning hydrogen for another 5 billion years. Currently the Sun is a yellow dwarf star.
The distance between Earth and Sun changes. This is because the Earth travels on a elliptical orbit path around the Sun. The distance between the two ranges from 147 to 152 million km. This distance between them is one Astronomical Unit (AU).
The Sun rotates in the opposite direction to Earth with the Sun rotating from west to east instead of east to west like Earth.
The Sun rotates more quickly at its equator than it does close to its poles. This is known as differential rotation.
The Sun has a powerful magnetic field. When magnetic energy is released by the Sun during magnetic storms, solar flares occur which we see on Earth as sunspots. Sunspots are dark areas on the Sun’s surface caused by magnetic variations. The reason they appear dark is due to their temperature being much lower than surrounding areas.
Temperatures inside the Sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius. Energy is generated through nuclear fusion in the Sun’s core – this is when hydrogen converts to helium – and because objects generally expand, the Sun would explode like an enormous bomb if it wasn’t for it’s tremendous gravitational pull.
The Sun generates solar winds. These are ejections of plasma (extremely hot charged particles) that originate in the layer of the Sun know as the corona and they can travel through the solar system at up to 450 km per second.
The atmosphere of the Sun is composed of three layers: the photosphere, the chromosphere, and the corona.
The Sun is classified as a yellow dwarf star. It is a main sequence star with surface temperatures between 5,000 and 5,700 degrees celsius (9,000 and 10,300 degrees fahrenheit).
The Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis are caused by the interaction of solar winds with Earth’s atmosphere.
What type of star is the Sun?
Although we think of our Sun as a unique celestial body, it is, in fact, one of trillions of stars in the universe. On top of this, the Sun is rather ordinary as far as stars go. The official classification for our Sun is G V star (often referred to as a Yellow Dwarf star), which means that it is a main sequence star whose surface temperature is between 5027°C and 5727°C.
Some estimates for stars similar to the Sun in the Milky Way galaxy alone are as high as 7 billion. If this number is correct, there could be over one trillion stars that are roughly the same as our Sun in the universe.
Does the Sun have another name?
While our Sun does not have an official scientific name, it does have another common name: Sol. This name originates from the ancient Roman’s god of the Sun, Sol. This alternate name is where we get the term “solar system,” which literally means system of the Sun.
The camera hole isn't too big and it isn't really distracting in everyday use. Vivo shipped us our Z1 Pro review unit with a screen protector attached, and unfortunately this serves to highlight the camera hole with an extra ring around it. The plastic film also picked up a couple of nasty scuffs with ordinary use.
Vivo is one of India's biggest and most visible smartphone brands, with a massive offline presence across the country. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the flash sales and price wars that many brands engage in online, and now Vivo wants to get in on that action with its first “online focused” device, the new Vivo Z1 Pro, which will be sold on Flipkart. The company is targeting millennial and Gen Z buyers who want good-looking phones with all the latest capabilities, and the Vivo Z1 Pro specifically promises great cameras, battery life, and processing power for games.
It definitely looks as though Vivo studied all the current market trends when designing the Z1 Pro, and on paper at least, it's definitely trying to give Xiaomi, Realme, and Samsung a run for their money. We've got the brand new Vivo Z1 Pro in for review, and we're going to see if the features and specifications it boasts of will be enough to earn it a spot on our next list of recommended phones in the sub-Rs. 20,000 space.
Vivo Z1 Pro design
The first thing you'll notice about the front of the Vivo Z1 Pro is its oversized screen with a hole in the upper left corner for the front camera. This seems to be the next big trend after screen notches of various sizes, and Vivo is right on the ball.
As expected for a sub-Rs 20,000 phone these days, the Vivo Z1 Pro features an eye-catching glossy plastic rear panel with a multi-coloured gradient finish. Our review unit was the Sonic Blue version, which is emerald green at the top fading into cobalt blue at the bottom. The colours are rich and saturated, giving this phone a sort of jewel-tone appearance. It also catches the light as you tilt this phone around. The effect is anything but subtle – the Vivo Z1 Pro is definitely designed to be eye-catching from the front as well as the rear.
The gradient carries over to the frame of this phone, and because it bulges outwards a little, you can see the bright colours around the screen when you're using the Vivo Z1 Pro. Some might like this, but we think it detracts from the borderless screen look that the company was going for. There's also a more subtle Sonic Black option.The triple-camera module on the rear sticks out just a little bit and extends to include the flash. There's also a standard fingerprint sensor on the back of the Vivo Z1 Pro, positioned just slightly out of reach for us. The power and volume buttons are on the right, and there's a physical Google Assistant button on the left, just below the SIM and microSD card tray.
The Vivo Z1 Pro has two Nano-SIM slots and a separate microSD card slot. The Google Assistant button can't be reassigned to other functions.
We're increasingly disappointed to see Vivo continue to stick with Micro-USB ports on its modern phones, including this one. There's also a 3.5mm headphones socket and a speaker grille on the bottom.
The Vivo Z1 Pro bears a resemblance to the Vivo Y17₹ 12,890 (Review), which we reviewed a little while ago, with similar dimensions and styling. The Z1 Pro is actually heavier at 201g but a hair thinner at 8.85mm thick.
In the retail box, you get a flexible plastic case, a pretty bulky 18W charger, a Micro-USB cable, 3.5mm wired headset, SIM eject pin, and some pamphlets.
A small valley near Volcán in Panama has garnered the distinction of being the world’s healthiest place to live, according to a 2018 report by International Living. Called Shangri-La Valley, the area is home to beautiful scenery, a low cost of living, and a significantly longer life expectancy than the surrounding areas. All in all, the world’s healthiest areas have some common factors, according to the ranking: a warm climate, an active social scene, healthy food, and a slower pace of life that makes for less daily stress.
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A Pharaoh Lathered His Slaves in Honey to Keep Bugs Away From Him
The pharaohs of ancient Egypt were believed to be literally divine. The word pharaoh itself means “great house,” as in the house of God. In fact, King Pepi II, who supposedly ruled for 90 years, thought so highly of himself that when he was bothered by insects, he would command that one of his slaves be covered in honey to lure the flies away from himself.
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Some People Have an Extra Bone in Their Knee That Is Getting More Common
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If you were under the impression that the human body had finished evolving, think again. It turns out that some people have a bone in their knee called a fabella. And while this particular little bone with an unknown purpose was once fading away, over the last century and a half, it’s gotten more common. Back in 1875, nearly 18 percent of people examined had a fabella. That number dropped to 11 percent by 1918. However, by 2018, 39 percent of individuals had this mysterious bone.
14
Pringles Aren’t Actually Potato Chips
The next time you see a can of Pringles, take a closer look—you won’t see the word “chip” anywhere on the packaging. That’s because Pringles aren’t made of thinly-sliced potatoes, but instead dehydrated potato flakes pressed into their signature parabolic shape. That’s what makes them less greasy. But when other potato chip manufacturers complained, the Food and Drug Administration ruled that Pringles couldn’t be marketed as chips. The company eventually settled on “potato crisp.”
15
There’s a Giant Fish With a Transparent Head
The deepest levels of our oceans are some of the least explored areas of the planet. Because of the extreme pressure, cold, and dark at these depths, only the very strangest of creatures can survive there. These include giant tube worms, vampire squids, goblin sharks, and viperfish with teeth so long that they can’t close their mouths. Perhaps the strangest, though, is the barreleye, a large fish with a completely transparent head.
16
There’s a Decorated War Hero Dog
Image via Wikimedia Commons
While in the trenches of World War I, the U.S. First Infantry Division found themselves unable to communicate with other troops because shellfire had damaged the telephone wires. A young private came up with a unique solution: Rags, a mixed breed terrier whom the soldiers had adopted in Paris, would carry the messages from one division to the next tucked into his collar. He saved many lives, and when Rags passed away—in Maryland, at the very advanced age of 20—he was buried with military honors.
17-Showers Really Do Spark Creativity
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Showers aren’t just good for your hygiene—they’re good for your creativity, too. For a 2012 study published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers gave volunteers creativity problems to solve followed by a period of rest. During that period, some were assigned demanding tasks, while others did simpler tasks that allowed their minds to wander (just like a shower does). Those doing the simpler tasks during the resting time were more likely to solve the original creativity problems.
18
Abraham Lincoln’s Bodyguard Left His Post at Ford’s Theater to Go for a Drink
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You already know that Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth while watching a performance at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. But what you might not have been aware of is that the president had a bodyguard named John Frederick Parker with him on that fateful night, according to Smithsonian.
Unfortunately, Parker was a police officer with a less-than-stellar reputation. After arriving three hours late for his shift, the officer left his post protecting the president to get a drink at the Star Saloon next door to the theatre. It was during this time that Booth entered the box seats where Lincoln was sitting and shot the president.
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Dolphins Have Been Trained to Be Used in Wars
Dolphins are known widely as adorable, intelligent animals. What is not as widely known is that these crafty creatures were used largely by the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Both countries studied the creatures for their sonar capabilities, but also trained them to detect mines, bring equipment to divers, find lost equipment, and guard submarines amongst other nifty tricks.
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Playing the Accordion Was Once Required for Teachers in North Korea
The most popular instrument in North Korea is the accordion, so much so that all teachers used to be required to play to get their teaching certifications. Because the accordion is portablein a way that, say, a grand piano isn’t, it was thought of as the “people’s instrument” that could be taken outside and played for laborers in the fields.
The original comic book Superman could leap tall buildings in a single bound. But then he had to come right back down to Earth—because he didn’t fly. It wasn’t until the 1940s, when animators for a new animated series decided it would be too difficult to routinely draw him bending his knees, that it was decided that Superman could take off into the air. Readers got to see smooth animation and a superhero gained a new power.
2
The First Computer Was Invented in the 1940s
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
These days, supercomputers are everywhere—and they really don’t need much space at all. Have an Xbox One posted up in your living room? That’s a supercomputer. A laptop-tablet hybrid in your bag? That’s a supercomputer, too. (Don’t even get us started on the thing in your pocket…) But when supercomputers first came around, they needed much, much more space. Just take a look at the world’s first one: The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).
Originally built at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering, in 1946, ENIAC weighed 60,000 pounds and took up a room larger than most studio apartments (1,500 square feet). Shortly after construction, ENIAC was sent off to the military, where it was used to calculate ballistic trajectories (translation: launch missiles) with frightening accuracy. Today, computer experts at Penn credit ENIAC with heralding in the “dawn of the information age.”
3
Space Smells Like Seared Steak
When you see footage of astronauts floating peacefully in space, do you ever wonder, What does space smell like? Well, according to some former astronauts, space does have a distinct odor that hangs around when they come back in the ship after a spacewalk. They’ve described it as “hot metal” or “searing steak.”
4
The Longest Wedding Veil Was the Same Length as 63.5 Football Fields
When Maria Paraskeva, a woman from Cyprus, got married in August 2018, her goal wasn’t just to say “I do.” She was also determined to set a record. “My dream as a child has always been to break the Guinness World Record title for the longest wedding veil,” she explained. She fulfilled her dream by wearing a lace veil that stretched 22,843 feet and 2.11 inches, or as long as 63.5 football fields.
5
The Unicorn Is the National Animal of Scotland
While Scotland proudly boasts the Loch Ness Monster, one of the world’s most famous fabled creatures, the country opted to make another mythical beast its national animal: the unicorn. Although this might seem like an odd choice, Visit Scotland explains that unicorns played an integral role in the country’s history. Back in the 12th century, William I used the “proud beast” in the Scottish royal coat of arms.
6
Bees Sometimes Sting Other Bees
Bees are notorious for their stings, but humans aren’t the only ones who experience this pain in the neck (or the arm, or the leg…). In protecting their hives from outsiders, some “guard bees” will stay by the entrance and sniff the bees that come in, says Marianne Peso from the biology department of Macquarie University. If there’s a rogue bee from another hive trying to steal some nectar, the guard bee will bite and even sting the intruder.
7
Kids Ask 300 Questions a Day
A 2013 U.K. study from online retailer Littlewoods.com observed young children and recorded the questions they asked the adults around them. The children tended to turn to their mothers for answers, and these moms could end up answering an average of nearly 300 questions per day, or one question every two-and-a-half minutes, the study found. The moms reported that the hardest questions they were asked included “Why is water wet?” and “What are shadows made of?”
8
The Total Weight of Ants on Earth Once Equaled the Total Weight of People
Entomologists have estimated that there are at least one million trillion insects and only one percent of that number is ants, according to the BBC. And if you took all those ants (about ten thousand trillion) and put them on one side of a giant scale, you could almost put all of the people in the world onto the other and balance things out. Unfortunately, as humans have become heavier, this probably wouldn’t hold up today—but it once did. Francis Ratnieks, professor of Apiculture at the University of Sussex, told the BBC this might have held true around 2,000 years ago.
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“E” Is the Most Common Letter and Appears in 11 Percent of All English Words
Try writing out a few sentences—anything at all. Now take a minute to look at how frequently each letter in the alphabet appears. Chances are you’ll see a lot of the letter “e.” That’s because the commonly used vowel appears in around 11 percent of all words in the English language, according to Oxford Dictionaries. The next most popular letter was “a,” which appears in around 8.5 percent of all words. The least common letter is “a,” which appears in just 0.2 percent of words.
10
A Dozen Bodies Were Found in Benjamin Franklin’s Basement
But were you aware of the fact that multiple skeletons were found in the basement of Benjamin Franklin’s London home? The bones were discovered during a 1998 renovation of the house and were identified as being from nearly a dozen people, including six children. “The most plausible explanation is not mass murder, but an anatomy school run by Benjamin Franklin’s young friend and protege, William Hewson,” wrote The Guardian.
