Moon rock now on display in Oval Office of White House
Washington, Jan 22: NASA has loaned a Moon rock for display in the Oval Office of the White House at the request of the Joe Biden administration.
The Moon rock now sits in the Oval Office in symbolic recognition of earlier generations’ ambitions and accomplishments, and support for America’s current Moon to Mars exploration approach.
The “Lunar Sample 76015,143” is from the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the US space agency said on Thursday.
Apollo 17 astronaut Ronald Evans and moonwalkers Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan, the last humans to set foot on the Moon, chipped this sample from a large boulder at the base of the North Massif in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, 3km from the Lunar Module, according to the inscription on the display case.
This 332 gram piece of the Moon, which was collected in 1972, is a 3.9-billion-year-old sample formed during the last large impact event on the nearside of the Moon, the Imbrium Impact Basin, which is 1,145 km in diameter. NASA plans to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024.
NASA chief Jim Bridenstine officially stepped down from his role as the administrator of the US space agency, as Biden took the president’s office.
President Biden is expected to pick a woman to fill the NASA administrator role, which has only been occupied by men since the agency’s founding in 1958. (IANS)
Indian man wins over USD 54,000 in UAE weekly draw
Dubai, Jan 22: A UAE-based Indian engineer has won 200,000 dirhams (USD 54,451) at a weekly draw in Dubai, according to a media report.
Shivin Wilson, who is from Kerala, got five of the six winning numbers right during the draw held on January 16. “I was very excited to be playing for the first time. I actually missed watching the live draw, so I checked the results the following morning and it was only then that I realised I had won. Finding this out was a brilliant feeling and I am very happy,” Wilson was quoted as saying by the Gulf News on Thursday.
He said his friends, who are regular Mahzooz players, encouraged him to join in the digital draw that promises a whopping first-tier prize of 50 million dirhams (USD 13.6 million). Wilson, who works as an engineer in the construction wing of a petrochemical plant, said he will spend a part of his winning amount to pursue career-related qualifications that will help provide him with greater opportunities in the future.
“Besides using the money for educational purposes, I plan on using it to support my parents,” he said. “Just try it (Mahzooz). If you play, you can also have some luck. I played for the first time and had the fortune of winning. So anything is possible,” he added. Last month, Navaneeth Sajeevan, a 30-year-old unemployed Indian man from Kerala, won USD 1 million in a raffle draw contest in the UAE. (PTI)