Right from the days of film "Mr India", the enthusiasm to explore the possibility of invenitn an invisibility cloak that would bend light around an object and makes it invisible to the naked eye is gaining momentum.

Debashis Chanda and his team at the University of Central Florida have managed to create an artificial nanostructure that can do the job, called metamaterials, with which they are able to develop a larger swath of multilayer 3D metamaterial.

Researchers have reportedly stated that control of electromagnetic resonances over the 3-D space by structural manipulation allows precise control over propagation of light and larger pieces of this special material can be created.

Researchers are hoping to develop large-area metamaterial absorbers, which would enable fighter jets to remain invisible from detection systems.

Strengthening its advancement towards space research, India is all set to launch four foreign satellites in 2014-15 in the Earth's lower orbit, using its workhorse polar rocket, according to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sources. 

“Our commercial arm Antrix Corporation has signed agreements with a British firm Jan 29 and a Singapore agency Wednesday to launch their spacecraft onboard our polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV),” an official of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was quoted as saying to IANS.

An experiment to measure the earth's circumference, claimed to have been conceived 2,300 years ago, was carried out by more than hundred school students here today by using Qutub Minar's shadow. 

For the first time Qutub Minar was used as a towering gnomon- an object that by the position or length of its shadow serves as an indicator to measure the earth's circumference. 

Known as 'Eratosthenes' experiment, it saw the students also measuring the shadow of sun using gnomon sticks. 

The students also measured the shortest shadow at local noon on autumnal equinox which falls on September 23 every year. 

The event was organised by Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE). 

"Despite issues like protruding balconies from the Minar and the shadow falling on different structures, most students achieved above ninety-five per cent accuracy in measuring the earth's circumference," said SPACE president C.B. Devgun. 

"Gnomons of all sizes and shapes have been used previously. For instance, huge objects such as samrat and ram yantra at Jantar Mantar and sundial at Barapullah have been used for experimentation ," he added.

A scientist from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and his student have successfully applied Albert Einstein's gravity theory to unlock the mysteries of black holes.

Banibrata Mukhopadhyay, associate professor, department of physics, IISc, and his student Indrani Banerjee worked for over two years for their landmark discovery. Their study on black holes has been acknowledged by the scientific community across the globe, including professors from Harvard University. The duo has published its findings in the international journal Physical Review Letters.Black holes, as stars are known postdeath, are not visible to the plain eye. Though not visible, black holes devour everything in their neighbourhood given the gravitational pulls they exercise. It was hitherto believed that mass and spin are the determining properties of black holes and they would go a long way in determining the influence of black holes on their neighbourhood as well as their pre-death star existence.

Their new study, says Banibrata, who worked in Harvard for three years before joining IISc in 2007, throws more light on black holes and their properties, particularly the correlation between mass and spin or rotation. They have proved that mass and spin are not independent of each other but actually interdependent. They have established that mass of the star could be used to calculate the spin.

"The spin of the observed black holes is still a debatable issue — the exact value of the spin is not known. On the other hand mass can be determined more easily. Rotation of the black hole is determined by the mass and rotation of the initial star. The larger the mass of the initial star the greater it tends to have a high rotational speed and turn into swiftly spinning black holes. The smaller the mass of the initial star the slower its rotation and spin. This property shows that spin and mass are correlated. Hence if mass is known, the spin can be predicted. Eventually, only one fundamental parameter characterizes the black hole," Banibrata explained.

Indrani, a PhD student of physics, said, "First we were working on how stars collapse and end up into black holes. During the research, the thought of discovering the properties emerged," she said.

WHAT ARE BLACK HOLES?

Black holes are formed when stars exhaust their 'nuclear fuel' or are 'dead'. They are abyssinian spaces that exert strong gravitational force on everything in their vicinity. The hole is called 'black' because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing. The largest black holes are called 'supermassive'. These black holes have masses that are more than 1 million suns together.