September 29, 2009
A team of Université de Montréal researchers, led by physics PhD student Olivier Daigle, has developed the world’s most sensitive astronomical camera. Marketed by Photon etc., a young Quebec firm, the camera will be used by the Mont-Mégantic Observatory and NASA, which purchased the first unit.
The camera is made up of a CCD [...]
September 29, 2009
Planning a trip to Mars? Take plenty of shielding. According to sensors on NASA’s ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) spacecraft, galactic cosmic rays have just hit a Space Age high.
“In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we’ve seen in the past 50 years,” says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. “The increase is [...]
September 29, 2009
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is testing a new robotic lunar lander test bed that will aid in the development of a new generation of multi-use landers for future robotic space exploration.
The test article is equipped with thrusters which function to guide the lander via closed- loop, autonomous flight algorithms.
One set of [...]
September 29, 2009
Chemical engineers at Oregon State University have invented a new technology to deposit “nanostructure films” on various surfaces, which may first find use as coatings for eyeglasses that cost less and work better.
Ultimately, the technique may provide a way to make solar cells more efficiently produce energy.
The films reduce the reflectance of [...]
September 29, 2009
Since 2000, John Pendry’s work on metamaterials has been at the van guard of efforts to create a perfect image – images with perfect resolution that can stem from light being moved in odd directions to create, among other tricks of the light, the illusion of invisibility.
One exciting development was Pendry’s theoretically [...]
September 29, 2009
A team of international scientists led by Mirjam Langhans, from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), will present first results of a global analysis of spatial patterns, occurrence and origin of river channels on Titan at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany, on Wednesday 16 September.
To date scientists have focused their investigations [...]
September 28, 2009
On certain nights, an arresting green line pierces the sky above NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It’s a laser directed at the moon, visible when the air is humid. No, NASA is not repelling an invasion. Instead, it’s tracking its own spacecraft.
28 times per second, engineers at NASA Goddard fire [...]
September 28, 2009
Using an RNA-powered nanomotor, University of Cincinnati (UC) biomedical engineering researchers have successfully developed an artificial pore able to transmit nanoscale material through a membrane.
In a study led by UC biomedical engineering professor Peixuan Guo, PhD, members of the UC team inserted the modified core of a nanomotor, a microscopic biological machine, into [...]
September 28, 2009
The third image of ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project has just been released online, completing this eye-opening dive into our galactic home in outstanding fashion. The latest image follows on from views, released over the last two weeks, of the sky as seen with the unaided eye and through an amateur telescope. This third [...]
September 28, 2009
NASA’s Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft known as MESSENGER will fly by Mercury for the third and final time on Sept. 29. The spacecraft will pass less than 142 miles above the planet’s rocky surface for a final gravity assist that will enable it to enter Mercury’s orbit in 2011.
Determining [...]
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