{"id":129501,"date":"2026-10-18T15:31:59","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T10:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=129501"},"modified":"2026-10-18T15:31:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T10:01:59","slug":"puffins-telescope-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/puffins-telescope-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"PUFFINS Telescope Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>PUFFINS Telescope Mission Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Bengaluru-born astronomer Dr. Ramya Anche will be heading the $20 million NASA space telescope mission PUFFINS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About PUFFINS Telescope Mission<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A PUFFIN (<\/span><b>Polarimetry in the Ultraviolet to Find Features in INterStellar dust<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) is a SmallSat selected under NASA\u2019s highly competitive <\/span><b>Astrophysics Pioneers programme.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>NASA funded mission<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a joint effort between the University of Arizona, McDonald Observatory and other scientists.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It involves sending up a small satellite that will <\/span><b>contain a telescope<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with an aperture of <\/span><b>about 10 inches to observe the ultraviolet light of about<\/b> <b>70 stars.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It will study the <\/span><b>smallest grains of dust between the stars<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It will observe them using <\/span><b>UV spectropolarimetry<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It gives scientists insights into the characteristics, presence, and behavior of <\/span><b>interstellar dust particles.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The measurements are supposed to provide information on the particles\u2019 characteristics and how they behave in relation to the <\/span><b>magnetic field of the Milky Way galaxy.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The mission intends to bridge the gaps that exist in existing astronomy studies, especially those concerning the observation of <\/span><b>interstellar dust particles using ultraviolet polarisation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Interstellar dust refers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to particles that <\/span><b>exist in the space between the stars.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These particles have sizes <\/span><b>ranging from less than 50 nanometers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; therefore, they cannot be detected using the traditional optical or infrared techniques.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/karnataka\/bengalurean-to-lead-nasas-20-million-space-telescope-mission\/article71588128.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PUFFINS Telescope Mission is a SmallSat selected under NASA\u2019s highly competitive Astrophysics Pioneers programme. Read more about PUFFINS Telescope Mission, Objectives, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":129524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10969],"class_list":["post-129501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-puffins-telescope-mission","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129501"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129540,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129501\/revisions\/129540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}