Delhi's air quality remains "poor" on Wednesday despite slight improvement
New Delhi (PTI): Delhi breathed a little easier on Wednesday as pollution levels dropped marginally; however, the air quality continued to stay in the "poor" range with an AQI of 279, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
According to the 24-hour average recorded by the CPCB, the city's AQI stood at 279 on Wednesday, compared to 294 on Tuesday. On Monday, the AQI was 301, falling under the "very poor" category.
Despite the slight improvement, several parts of the national capital continued to record the highest pollution levels. Wazirpur (347), Vivek Vihar (339), Rohini (337) and Anand Vihar (331) were among the 19 of the city's 38 monitoring stations that reported AQI in the "very poor" range with readings above 300, data from the CPCB’s Sameer app showed.
According to the CPCB, an AQI between zero and 50 is considered "good", 51 to 100 "satisfactory", 101 to 200 "moderate", 201 to 300 "poor", 301 to 400 "very poor" and 401 to 500 "severe".
The Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi has forecast that the city's air quality will remain in the "poor" category till October 31 and may deteriorate to "very poor" levels on November 1. The outlook for the subsequent six days indicates that the air quality is likely to fluctuate between the "poor" and "very poor" categories.
Meanwhile, the maximum temperature in the city dipped to 29 degrees Celsius, about 4.6 notches below the seasonal average, while the minimum settled at 18.2 degrees Celsius, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The IMD has predicted shallow fog for Thursday, with maximum and minimum temperatures expected to be around 30 degrees Celsius and 18 degrees Celsius, respectively.
The humidity level was recorded at 79 per cent at 5.30 pm.
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Bengaluru: ISRO receives 1.5 lakh satellite collision alerts from US
Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) received over 1.5 lakh space debris and collision alerts for its Earth-orbiting satellites from the United States-led Combined Space Operations Centre, according to the Indian Space Situational Awareness Report for 2025 (ISSAR-2025), as reported by The New Indian Express.
The report was released by ISRO on Thursday for the public to assess. It was announced on April 8 during the international conference on spacecraft mission operations-2026, in Bengaluru.
According to ISRO, a total of four collision avoidance manoeuvres (CAM) were carried out for Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites, while 14 CAMs, including one for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), were performed for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites.
ISRO said that, wherever possible, collision avoidance requirements were being met by adjusting orbit maintenance manoeuvres to avoid exclusive CAMs. All manoeuvre plans were subjected to close approach risk analysis to prevent potential collisions with nearby space objects.
They accounted revising 82 manoeuvre plans to avoid post-manoeuvre close approaches with other space objects for LEO satellites, while two manoeuvre plans were modified for GEO satellites for the same reason.
Conjunction assessment and collision risk mitigation were also being followed for deep-space missions. Citing the case of Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, ISRO scientists said 16 orbital manoeuvres were carried out in the lunar orbit and on two occasions (January 1 and July 24, 2025), the orbits were readjusted to avoid collisions with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
ISRO said the first such coordinated collision avoidance effort with NASA dates back to October 18, 2021. Since then, technological interventions have been strengthened for early detection of objects in orbit. ISRO scientists added that for spaceflight security, they have also been coordinating with many agencies, particularly for Chandrayaan-2 with Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines and iSpace.
The ISSAR-2025 report also detailed how the IRNSS-1D, the fourth of the seven Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System satellites, was raised to a graveyard orbit nearly 600 km above the geostationary belt and made inactive. ISRO said this was the first-ever disposal of an Indian satellite operating in an inclined geosynchronous orbit.
Similarly, the Cartosat-2A satellite, launched in 2008, was moved to a graveyard orbit after becoming non-operational in 2025.
Following the objective for a debris-free space environment, the Technology Experiment Satellite and POEM-4 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere through natural decay. Additionally, two upper stages of the SSLV-D3 mission, the Velocity Trimming Module (VTM) and the solid stage (SS3), also re-entered the atmosphere.
ISRO reported that eight debris objects from the PSLV-C3 mission re-entered the atmosphere in 2025, while 33 remained in orbit as of 31 December 2025. The total number of Indian objects re-entering the atmosphere in 2025 was 12.
