Chandrayaan-1: ISRO loses contact, claims mission 'over'

Ten months after it was launched, India's maiden moon mission the ambitious Chandrayaan-1 came to an abrupt end on Saturday after ISRO

lost communication with the spacecraft, cutting short the dream odyssey that was expected to last two years.

"The mission is definitely over. We have lost contact with the spacecraft," Project Director of the Chandrayaan-1 mission M Annadurai said.

However, he said: "It (Chandrayaan-1) has done its job technically...100 per cent. Scientifically also, it has done almost 90-95 percent of its job".

The two-year mission, launched on October 22 last year with much fanfare, was abandoned early today after the after radio contact with the mooncraft was abruptly lost at 0130 hours.

The Deep Space Network at Byalalu near here received the data from the 1,380 kg Chandrayaan-1, which carried 11 instruments on board, including six from overseas, during the previous orbit up to 0025 hours.

ISRO is conducting detailed review of the telemetry data from the spacecraft. "We will analyse as to what happened," Annadurai said.

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched by homegrown PSLV-C11 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, has completed 312 days in orbit, making more than 3,400 orbits around the moon.

It has provided large volume of data from sophisticated sensors such as terrain mapping camera, hyper-spectral imager and moon mineralogy mapper, meeting most of the scientific objectives of the mission.

ISRO said last month Chandrayaan-1 had sent more than 70,000 images of the lunar surface which provide breathtaking views of lunar mountains and craters, especially craters in the permanently shadowed areas of the Moon's polar region.

Chandrayaan-1 was also collecting valuable data pertaining to the chemical and mineral content of the Moon, ISRO said on July 17.

Significantly, on August 21, ISRO and NASA performed a unique joint experiment that the Indian space agency said could yield additional information on the possibility of existence of ice in a permanently shadowed crater near the North Pole of the moon.

The end to the Chandrayaan-1 mission comes just over four months after the onboard star sensor for determining the orientation of the spacecraft started malfunctioning on April 26, and one of the bus management units failed.

Flickr tops TIME's list of Best 50 Websites of 2009

The hottest thing on the Internet is not social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, but Flickr-the popular photo-sharing portal - and the proof is: it has topped TIME's list of the best 50 websites this year.

One of the noticeable trends in this year's list, which was released this week, was on-demand video services, like YouTube, Vimeo and US services Hulu and Netflix.

However, the top two in the list were related to photographs, with California Coastline following Flickr at the second spot.

Third in the list was bookmark website Delicious, while community weblog Metafilter stood at the fourth place.

Popurls, the mashup of the web's most visited social news sites and portals, grabbed the fifth spot in the list.

Twitter ranked sixth and Facebook came 31st in the list, while YouTube and Hulu came at 12th and 14th place in the list.

TIME's list of 50 Best Websites of 2009 is:. Flickr

2. California Coastline

3. Delicious

4. Metafilter

5. popurls

6. Twitter

7. Skype

8. Boing Boing

9. Academic Earth

10. OpenTable

11. Google

12. YouTube

13. Wolfram|Alpha

14. Hulu

15. Vimeo

16. Fora TV

17. Craiglook

18. Shop Goodwill

19. Amazon

20. Kayak

21. Netflix

22. Etsy

23. PropertyShark.com

24. Redfin

25. Wikipedia

26. Internet Archive

27. Kiva

28. ConsumerSearch

29. Metacritic

30. Pollster

31. Facebook

32. Pandora and Last.fm

33. Musicovery

34. Spotify

35. Supercook

36. Yelp

37. Visuwords

38. CouchSurfing

39. BabyNameWizard.com's NameVoyager

40. Mint

41. TripIt

42. Aardvark

43. drop.io

44. Issuu

45. Photosynth

46. OMGPOP

47. WorldWideTelescope

48. Fonolo

49. Get High Now

50. Know Your Meme (ANI)

beast of burden

I took this for my assignment (B&W). This statue looks common and nothing much when look from far. But I was amazed that there is emotion coming out from it after I taken it in picture and b&w.

Swine flu scare hits World Badminton tournament in Hyderabad

After the reported terror threat, influenza A (H1N1) cast its shadow over the World Badminton Championship on Tuesday with the doubles coach of the Malaysian team displaying symptoms of the viral disease that has killed ten people in India. A Thai doubles player has pulled out of the match after showing flu-like symptoms.
Thailand’s doubles player Tatipat Chahard on Tuesday pulled out of men's doubles match against India after he complained of fever. He has been taken to the hospital.

Earlier, Jeremy Gan, a coach of Malaysian team, was quarantined at the Andhra Pradesh Chest Hospital, the nodal centre to deal with swine flu cases, and his samples were sent for testing for influenza A (H1N1) virus, organisers of the event said.

"The Malaysian doubles coach complained of throat pain last evening. His samples have been sent for testing. We don't want to take any chance. We are taking all precautions," Pullela Gopichand, director of the organising committee and Indian team coach, said.

IANS reported that Gopichand had earlier said the other Malaysian coach, Misbun Sidek, had shown swine flu symptoms.

Since the city has no testing facility, the samples would be sent to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in New Delhi. The reports are likely to be available on Wednesday.

A player from Singapore was also hospitalised Monday evening due to ill-health. Doctors said he had no visible symptoms of swine flu. The Malaysian coach was found with swine flu symptoms at a time when the virus has created a scare in parts of India, claiming eight lives.

Andhra Pradesh has recorded 76 swine flu cases. India's first confirmed swine flu case was detected on May 16. Some policemen at the venue of the badminton championship were seen wearing masks Monday night.

More than 250 players from 42 countries are competing in the six-day event that began Monday. The championship is the first of the series of world-class sporting events India will host ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

In view of the increasing number of swine flu cases in the country, the health ministry last week advised that festivals, sports, religious and political events should be discouraged and cancelled if possible.

The suspected swine flu case has come as another setback to the event after England pulled out citing security concerns.