Saturday 16 May 2015

Flaw clue to building a better solar cell

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A new study published in Science by researchers from the University of Washington and Oxford University suggests that

The post Flaw clue to building a better solar cell has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Tesla Energy’s goal? Changing the “energy infrastructure of the world”

Science Focus

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk formally announced last week that his electric car company will spin off a new battery business. Tesla Energy—now distinct from Tesla Motors—will manufacture lithium ion batteries for households and businesses that can be used to augment solar or wind-powered systems, or just to provide an extra layer of redundancy for customers connected to the traditional grid.

But over the next several years, Tesla's consumer-grade batteries may not make much financial sense for households in many places around the US. Unless traditional power is very expensive in your state (as it is in Hawaii), it's likely cheaper to stay on the grid when the sun goes down every day, especially if utilities buy back excess solar from rooftop systems (as they do in California). And though consumers might want batteries to use as backup electricity, for a multi-day emergency scenario a generator can still deliver more power for less money. So what's Tesla Energy's business model?

Consumer batteries have garnered most of the media's attention, but Musk admitted in an earnings call this week that Tesla Energy's near-term target demographic is actually business and utilities. “We expect most of our stationary storage sales to be at the utility or industrial scale,” is how he phrased it.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/hzHe76rwJYI/
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Two-Dimensional Semiconductor Comes Clean

Science Focus

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In 2013 James Hone, Wang Fong-Jen Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia Engineering, and colleagues at Columbia demonstrated

The post Two-Dimensional Semiconductor Comes Clean has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/IYhw0W8KXIw/
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Carina Nebula, Star Forming Gas-cloud Sculpture Star Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: billowing interstellar gas clouds, cnbigc, star forming activity, carina nebula, amazing space sculpture, star nurseries, stellar winds, young hot stars, gas cloud sculpture

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A beautiful space photograph featuring the 7500 light year distant Carina Nebula. This Hubble image shows rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new stars. As a proto star forms, the gas clouds get dragged to its surface and some gets emitted as tight jets of material travelling at hundreds of miles per second. These in turn help sculpt the gas clouds into weird and grotesque shapes, some looking like strange worms, swimming through space.

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image code: cnbigc

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited

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This close-up from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera shows weathered craters and windblown deposits in southern Acidalia Planitia. A striking shade of blue in standard HiRISE image colors, to the human eye the area would probably look grey or a little reddish. But human eyes have not gazed across this terrain, unless you count the eyes of NASA astronauts in the scifi novel The Martian by Andy Weir. The novel chronicles the adventures of Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded at the fictional Mars mission Ares 3 landing site corresponding to the coordinates of this cropped HiRISE frame. For scale Watney's 6-meter-diameter habitat at the site would be about 1/10th the diameter of the large crater. Of course, the Ares 3 landing coordinates are only about 800 kilometers north of the (real life) Carl Sagan Memorial Station, the 1997 Pathfinder landing site.

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Horsehead Nebula - Our Awesome Universe Wall Graphic

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, hrshdneb, stars, nebulae, star clusters, starfields, star nurseries, horsehead nebula, galaxies, vista, european southern observatory, eso

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous deep space photograph featuring the Horsehead Nebula.
It's actually a composite colour image based on three exposures in the visual part of the spectrum with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN telescope at Paranal.

It was produced from three images, obtained on February 1, 2000, with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN Unit Telescope and extracted from the VLT Science Archive Facility.

The frames were obtained in the B-band (600 sec exposure; wavelength 429 nm; FWHM 88 nm; here rendered as blue), V-band (300 sec; 554 nm; 112 nm; green) and R-band (120 sec; 655 nm; 165 nm; red).

The original pixel size is 0.2 arcsec.

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image code: hrshdneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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How some beetles produce a scalding defensive spray

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Bombardier beetles, which exist on every continent except Antarctica, have a pretty easy life. Virtually no other animals

The post How some beetles produce a scalding defensive spray has been published on Technology Org.

 
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NASAs Jupiter Swirls Posters

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: astronomy, space, nasa, nebula, galaxy, best, unique, original, quality, custom, affordable, photography, gift, popular, science, planet, space exploration, solar system, outer space, deep space, space age, space design, space image, space travel, space shuttle, space telescope, space and time, space race, space center, space time, universe, mystical, laureen, laureenr

This close-up of swirling clouds around Jupiter's Great Red Spot was taken by Voyager 1. It was assembled from three black and white negatives.

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Tarantula Nebula Star Forming Gas Cloud Sculpture Star Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: envelope sealers, tnlmcsfr, billowing interstellar gas clouds, awesome hubble images, tarantula nebula, large magellanic cloud, star forming activity, young hot stars, star nurseries, triggering star formation

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series An awesome mobile phone shell featuring the Tarantula Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, our galactic home. This Hubble image shows old stars from the distant past and rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new ones. The most massive and hottest stars are intense, high-energy radiation sources and this pushes away what remains of the gas and dust, compressing and sculpting it. As the whorls and eddies clump and stretch it, gravity takes over and the birth of the next generation of new stars is triggered.

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image code: tnlmcsfr

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Cone Nebula iPad Mini Case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: cone, nebula, space, image, nasa, hubble, astronomy

A lovely detail of an image of the Cone Nebula thanks to NASA/Hubble.

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