Saturday 18 July 2015

Letting go with lasers

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Small objects tend to cling to everything. It’s why parents dread hosting parties that involve confetti. It’s why

The post Letting go with lasers has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
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The Orion Nebula Print

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


tagged with: orion, nebula, pretty, awesome, cosmic, cosmos, universe, lovely, amazing, astronomy

A massive image of The Orion Nebula in infrared, thanks to NASA/Hubble Space Telescope Program. The image file is 6000x6000.

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Floating through the abyss

Science Focus

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On March 18, 1965, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov stepped out of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft and into the unknown.


Leonov floats through space at the end of a lifeline during the first spacewalk. (AP Photo)



The Soviets had practiced the entire operation countless times on Earth. But actually opening the hatch hundreds of miles above our planet's surface must have been unimaginably nerve-wracking for Leonov. The astronaut told TIME photographer Marco Grob that one facet of the first spacewalk still stands out sharply in his memory.

"I remember the sound, this remarkable silence," he said. "You can hear your heart beat and you can hear yourself breathe. Nothing else can accurately represent what it sounds like when a human being is in the middle of this abyss."

Below, stunning images of other astronauts who, in the five decades since Leonov opened the Voskhod hatch, have ventured into that same silent chasm in the name of science.


June 3, 1965: Edward H. White completes the first U.S. spacewalk during the Gemini 4 mission. | (NASA/Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS)



August 6, 1973: Jack Lousma, Skylab 3 pilot, deploys the twin-pole solar shield to help shade the Orbital Workshop. | (NASA)



February 9, 1984: Bruce McCandless fires the nitrogen-gas jets from his Manned Maneuvering Unit to venture some 300 feet from the Challenger shuttle without a tether. | (AP Photo/NASA)



September 3, 2009: John "Danny" Olivas smiles for the camera while he works on construction and maintenance of the International Space Station. | (NASA/Reuters/Corbis)



April 6, 1984: Two astronauts work on a satellite in the cargo bay of the Challenger space shuttle. | (NASA/Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS)



October 22, 1993: Kathryn Thornton hovers over equipment on the Hubble Space Telescope, guided by the Remote Manipulator System. | (CORBIS)



December 2006: Astronauts Robert L. Curbeam and Christer Fugelsang work to attach a new truss segment to the ISS and upgrade the power grid. | (STS-116 Shuttle Crew/NASA.gov)



November 2007: Scott Parazynski assesses his repair work during a 7-hour, 19-minute spacewalk. | (NASA)



November 15, 2010: Oleg Skripochka helps install a multipurpose workstation on the ISS. | (NASA)



November 9, 2013: Oleg Kotov smiles while working on the ISS. | (NASA)

 
#science 
 » see original post http://theweek.com/captured/545360/floating-through-abyss
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Electric vehicle batteries are getting cheaper much faster than we expected

Science Focus

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Earlier this year, Telsa Motors made headlines when it announced that the company would start selling Tesla-branded stationary storage batteries. The move was expected, but a bit odd—battery storage for homes has been around for years, but it has never really been cost-effective enough in most households to merit the kind of treatment that Tesla gave it. While Tesla successfully nurtured a luxury electric vehicle market, it still seemed out of place to see a luxury brand going out of its way to put car batteries on homes.

Ars argued that the real news behind Tesla's stationary storage announcement was not that of the consumer-focused Powerwall, but that of the power pack, Tesla's stationary battery system for industrial use cases.

The truly surprising part of Tesla's Powerwall announcement, however, was its price point. In 2014, the average cost of installing a stationary Li-ion battery in a California home was $23,429, according to The Wall Street Journal. In May, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that these batteries would start at $3,500, plus a $500 installation cost.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

 
#science 
 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/EvZcu-CA58c/
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Hello, Gorgeous! “Pulse” Technology May Replenish Skin’s Collagen

Science Focus

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Americans spend over \$10 billion a year on products and surgery in their quest to find a “fountain

The post Hello, Gorgeous! “Pulse” Technology May Replenish Skin’s Collagen has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/RdrqcYo8qcE/
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Red Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis Star Sticker

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


tagged with: amazing astronomy images, hubble images, monocerotis, supermassive red giant, stars, interstellar dust, swirling dust clouds, monoceros constellation, red supergiant star, fun stickons

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous astronomy picture featuring a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis, in the direction of the constellation of Monoceros on the outer edge of our Milky Way. The image shows the swirls of dust spiralling across trillions of miles of interstellar space, lit mainly from within by a pulse of light from the red supergiant, two years into its journey.

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image code: monocerotis

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

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Name, Cassiopeia, Milky Ways Youngest Supernova Gift Wrapping Paper

Get your out-of-this-world gift wrap here! Perfect for Christmas gifts for anyone who is fascinated by what the universe holds in store for us!


tagged with: star galaxies, outer space picture, supernova explosion, supernovae remnant, milky way youngest supernova, cosmic ray, neutron star, cassasn, deep space astronomy, cassiopeia

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series This extraordinarily deep Chandra image shows Cassiopeia A (Cas A, for short), the youngest supernova remnant in the Milky Way. New analysis shows that this supernova remnant acts like a relativistic pinball machine by accelerating electrons to enormous energies. The blue, wispy arcs in the image show where the acceleration is taking place in an expanding shock wave generated by the explosion. The red and green regions show material from the destroyed star that has been heated to millions of degrees by the explosion.
Astronomers have used this data to make a map, for the first time, of the acceleration of electrons in a supernova remnant. Their analysis shows that the electrons are being accelerated to almost the maximum theoretical limit in some parts of Cas A. Protons and ions, which make up the bulk of cosmic rays, are expected to be accelerated in a similar way to the electrons. Therefore, this discovery provides strong evidence that supernova remnants are key sites for energizing cosmic rays.
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image code: cassasn

Image credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/UMass Amherst/M.D. Stage et al.

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Fly Over Pluto

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It took 9.5 years to get this close, but you can now take a virtual flight over Pluto in this animation of image data from the New Horizons spacecraft. The Plutonian terrain unfolding 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) below is identified as Norgay Montes, followed by Sputnik Planum. The icy mountains, informally named for one of the first two Mount Everest climbers Tenzing Norgay, reach up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface. The frozen, young, craterless plains are informally named for the Earth's first artificial satellite. Sputnik Planum is north of Norgay Montes, within Pluto's expansive, bright, heart-shaped feature provisionally known as Tombaugh Regio for Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

The Orion Nebula iPad Cases

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: pink, red, orion, nebula, nasa, hubble, space, images, pretty, beautiful, artistic, amazing, awe-inspiring, astronomy

A lovely detailed image of the Orion Nebula in infrared thanks to NASA/Hubble.

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Bacterial boost makes biofuel production more efficient

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A team of investigators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University have created a process for

The post Bacterial boost makes biofuel production more efficient has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Orion, From Head to Toe Print

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


tagged with: nebula, space, astronomy, poster, orion, horsehead, rigel, betelgeuse, constellation, stars, nebulae

An incredible and colorful deep wide field image of the Constellation of Orion.

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Yoichiro Nambu, Nobel-Winning Physicist, Dies at 94

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Professor Nambu contributed to the prediction of the Higgs boson, or “God particle.”










via New York Times

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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Name, Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672 Wrapping Paper

Get your out-of-this-world gift wrap here! Perfect for Christmas gifts for anyone who is fascinated by what the universe holds in store for us!


tagged with: star galaxies, deep space astronomy, barred spiral galaxy, bsgsst, starry space picture, galactic arms, supermassive black hole, dust lanes, star forming galaxy, outer space telescope images

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series: This NASA Hubble Space Telescope view of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672 unveils details in the galaxy's star-forming clouds and dark bands of interstellar dust.
One of the most striking features is the dust lanes that extend away from the nucleus and follow the inner edges of the galaxy's spiral arms. Clusters of hot young blue stars form along the spiral arms and ionize surrounding clouds of hydrogen gas that glow red. Delicate curtains of dust partially obscure and redden the light of the stars behind them by scattering blue light.
Galaxies lying behind NGC 1672 give the illusion they are embedded in the foreground galaxy, even though they are really much farther away. They also appear reddened as they shine through NGC 1672's dust. A few bright foreground stars inside our own Milky Way Galaxy appear in the image as bright and diamond-like objects.
As a prototypical barred spiral galaxy, NGC 1672 differs from normal spiral galaxies, in that the arms do not twist all the way into the center. Instead, they are attached to the two ends of a straight bar of stars enclosing the nucleus. Viewed nearly face on, NGC 1672 shows intense star formation regions especially off in the ends of its central bar.
Astronomers believe that barred spirals have a unique mechanism that channels gas from the disk inward towards the nucleus. This allows the bar portion of the galaxy to serve as an area of new star generation.
NGC 1672 is also classified as a Seyfert galaxy. Seyferts are a subset of galaxies with active nuclei. The energy output of these nuclei can sometimes outshine their host galaxies. This activity is powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes.
NGC 1672 is more than 60 million light-years away in the direction of the southern constellation Dorado. These observations of NGC 1672 were taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in August of 2005. The composite image was made by using filters that isolate light from the blue, green, and infrared portions of the spectrum, as well as emission from ionized hydrogen.
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image code: bsgsst

image credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

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Galaxy M82 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: galaxy, galactic, ngc, 3034, m82, colorful, space, image, nasa, hubble

Colorful composite image of M82 that was released around the time of Hubble's 16th anniversary.

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