Monday 31 July 2017

Earth-like atmosphere may not survive Proxima b's orbit

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An Earth-like planet outside the solar system may not be able to keep a grip on its atmosphere, leaving the surface exposed to harmful stellar radiation and reducing its potential for habitability.
via Science Daily
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Astronomers discover 'heavy metal' supernova rocking out

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An extraordinarily bright supernova occurred in a surprising location, astronomers have found. This 'heavy metal' supernova discovery challenges current ideas of how and where such super-charged supernovas occur. In the past decade, astronomers have discovered about 50 supernovas, out of the thousands known, that are particularly powerful. Following the recent discovery of one of these, the researchers have uncovered vital clues about where some of these extraordinary objects come from.
via Science Daily
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Out There: The Eclipse That Revealed the Universe

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In 1919, British astronomers photographed a solar eclipse and proved that light bends around our sun — affirming Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
via New York Times

Pluto Flyover from New Horizons

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What if you could fly over Pluto -- what might you see? The New Horizons spacecraft did just this in 2015 July as it shot past the distant world at a speed of about 80,000 kilometers per hour. Recently, many images from this spectacular passage have been color enhanced and digitally combined into the featured two-minute time-lapse video. As your journey begins, light dawns on mountains thought to be composed of water ice but colored by frozen nitrogen. Soon, to your right, you see a flat sea of mostly solid nitrogen that has segmented into strange polygons that are thought to have bubbled up from a comparatively warm interior. Craters and ice mountains are common sights below. The video dims and ends over terrain dubbed bladed because it shows 500-meter high ridges separated by kilometer-sized gaps. Although the robotic New Horizons spacecraft has too much momentum ever to return to Pluto, it has now been targeted at Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU 69, which it should shoot past on New Year's Day 2019.

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Extreme stellar factory

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Space Science Image of the Week: Massive stars emerge from glowing gas and dust in one of the Milky Way’s most active stellar nurseries
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/07/Intense_star_formation_in_the_Westerhout_43_region

Sunday 30 July 2017

A Total Eclipse at the End of the World

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Would you go to the end of the world to see a total eclipse of the Sun? If you did, would you be surprised to find someone else there already? In 2003, the Sun, the Moon, Antarctica, and two photographers all lined up in Antarctica during an unusual total solar eclipse. Even given the extreme location, a group of enthusiastic eclipse chasers ventured near the bottom of the world to experience the surreal momentary disappearance of the Sun behind the Moon. One of the treasures collected was the featured picture -- a composite of four separate images digitally combined to realistically simulate how the adaptive human eye saw the eclipse. As the image was taken, both the Moon and the Sun peeked together over an Antarctic ridge. In the sudden darkness, the magnificent corona of the Sun became visible around the Moon. Quite by accident, another photographer was caught in one of the images checking his video camera. Visible to his left are an equipment bag and a collapsible chair. A more easily visible solar eclipse will occur in about three weeks and be visible from the USA.

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Glittering stars: Spiral galaxy NGC 4248

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This beautiful clump of glowing gas, dark dust and glittering stars is the spiral galaxy NGC 4248, located about 24 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs).
via Science Daily
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Saturday 29 July 2017

Monogram Cassiopeia, Milky Ways Youngest Supernova Postage

Monogram Cassiopeia, Milky Ways Youngest Supernova Postage
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…


Robust catalyst to split water into hydrogen, oxygen produced

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A single, robust catalyst that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen has been developed with Earth-abundant materials that approach the efficiency of more expensive platinum, according to scientists.
via Science Daily

Chasing the Total Solar Eclipse from NASA's WB-57F jets

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A team of scientists will take to the skies during the Aug. 21 eclipse, using two of NASA's WB-57 jet planes to chase the shadow of the moon for unparalleled observations of the sun and Mercury.
via Science Daily
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Aurora Slathers up the Sky

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Like salsa verde on your favorite burrito, a green aurora slathers up the sky in this June 25 snapshot from the International Space Station. About 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth, the orbiting station is itself within the upper realm of the auroral displays. Aurorae have the signature colors of excited molecules and atoms at the low densities found at extreme altitudes. Emission from atomic oxygen dominates this view. The tantalizing glow is green at lower altitudes, but rarer reddish bands extend above the space station's horizon. The orbital scene was captured while passing over a point south and east of Australia, with stars above the horizon at the right belonging to the constellation Canis Major, Orion's big dog. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major, is the brightest star near the Earth's limb.

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Friday 28 July 2017

Complex chemistry in Saturn's moon Titan's atmosphere

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Saturn’s frigid moon Titan has a curious atmosphere. In addition to a hazy mixture of nitrogen and hydrocarbons, like methane and ethane, Titan’s atmosphere also contains an array of more complex organic molecules, including vinyl cyanide, which astronomers recently uncovered in archival ALMA data. Under the right conditions, like those found on the surface of Titan, vinyl cyanide may naturally coalesce into microscopic spheres resembling cell membranes.
via Science Daily
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Astrophysicists map out the light energy contained within the Milky Way

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For the first time, a team of scientists has calculated the distribution of all light energy contained within the Milky Way, which will provide new insight into the make-up of our galaxy and how stars in spiral galaxies such as ours form.
via Science Daily
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Noodle Mosaic of Saturn

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On April 26 the Cassini spacecraft swooped toward Saturn on the first of its Grand Finale dives between Saturn and rings. In this long, thin, noodle mosaic, a rapid series of 137 low resolution images captured by Cassini's wide-angle camera track its progress across the gas giant's swirling cloud tops. The mosaic projection maps the arc along Saturn's atmospheric curve on to a flat image plane. At top, the first mosaic panel is centered at 90 degrees north, about 72,400 kilometers above Saturn's dark north polar vortex. As the mosaic progresses it narrows, the pixel scale shrinking from 8.7 kilometers to 1 kilometer per pixel. For the last panel, the spacecraft is 8,374 kilometers above a region 18 degrees north of Saturn's equator. Frame orientation changes near the bottom as Cassini rotates to maneuver its large, dish-shaped, high-gain antenna forward, providing a shield before crossing Saturn's ring plane.

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Milky Way's origins are not what they seem

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Up to half of the matter in our Milky Way galaxy may come from distant galaxies, astrophysicists have discovered in a first-of-its-kind analysis. As a result, each one of us may be made in part from extragalactic matter. Using supercomputer simulations, the researchers found an unexpected mode for how galaxies acquired matter: intergalactic transfer. Supernova explosions eject copious amounts of gas from galaxies, causing atoms to be transported from one galaxy to another via powerful galactic winds.
via Science Daily
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Thursday 27 July 2017

SpaceX Is Now One of the World’s Most Valuable Privately Held Companies

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Elon Musks’s rocket company raised $350 million in a new financing, raising its valuation to about $21 billion.
via New York Times

Giant Telescope Atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea Should Be Approved, Judge Says

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The Thirty Meter Telescope, which would be the largest in the Northern Hemisphere, could survey black holes and planets orbiting distant stars, but opponents say it would desecrate a sacred mountain.
via New York Times

Solar eclipse science along the path of totality

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A number of research projects will take place across the country during the upcoming Aug. 21 solar eclipse. The research will advance our knowledge of the sun's complex and mysterious magnetic field and its effects on Earth's atmosphere and land.
via Science Daily
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Galactic David and Goliath

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The gravitational dance between two galaxies in our local neighbourhood has led to intriguing visual features in both as witnessed in this new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The tiny NGC 1510 and its colossal neighbour NGC 1512 are at the beginning of a lengthy merger, a crucial process in galaxy evolution. Despite its diminutive size, NGC 1510 has had a significant effect on NGC 1512's structure and amount of star formation.
via Science Daily
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Reality check for 'wonder material'

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Topological insulators, a class of materials which has been investigated for just over a decade, have been heralded as a new 'wonder material', as has graphene. But so far, topological insulators have not quite lived up to the expectations fueled by theoretical studies. Physicists now have an idea about why.
via Science Daily

ICARUS lands at Fermilab

Over the last six weeks, ICARUS has traveled across land and sea. Yesterday, the neutrino detector finally arrived at Fermilab near Chicago, Illinois. (Image © Fermilab)

After six weeks on the road, the two ICARUS modules have finally arrived at Fermilab near Chicago, Illinois. The Italian-made detector will be put to work, along with two others on the Fermilab site, to capture and inspect one of the most enigmatic particles in the cosmos: neutrinos. Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, but little is known about them because they rarely interact with ordinary matter. The ICARUS detector will use Fermilab’s neutrino beam to measure the properties of the three types of neutrinos that have been seen, and search for a long-theorised but never-detected cousin.

“We’ve seen hints that there might be a fourth kind of neutrino, but we haven’t detected it yet,” said Fermilab scientist Angela Fava, a member of the ICARUS collaboration. “The ICARUS experiment will join our suite of neutrino detectors to help us resolve this long-standing, open question of whether there is indeed a fourth member of the neutrino family.”

The ICARUS experiment was designed and built at Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy and started its career as a neutrino hunter in 2010. In 2014, scientists transported ICARUS to CERN for updating and refurbishment, and in June packaged and shipped it to Fermilab, where it will start the next phase of its life.

Over the last six weeks ICARUS has traveled across land and sea by truck, barge and ship. On the outside the two modules look like extra-large shipping containers, but inside the walls are lined with incredibly delicate panels of wires.

“The wire planes look like enormous harps and are very fragile,” says Andrea Zani, a researcher at CERN. “We worked for several months to prepare for the shipment and ensure that our detectors arrive in the US safety. However, you can never control everything, especially the passage across the sea.”

Zani and his colleagues attached impact sensors onto the shipping containers to measure if their irreplaceable detectors met any unexpected turbulence during their journey to the United States. From CERN, the modules traveled by truck to Basel, where they were lifted onto a barge and then cruised down the Rhine river to Antwerp, Belgium, and then into the Atlantic. Luckily, the ocean was calm during the two-week voyage to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in Quebec, Canada. From there, ICARUS snaked its way up the Saint Lawrence River, drifted through Montreal, traversed the Great Lakes and finally docked in Burns Harbor, Indiana, on Lake Michigan. The last leg of the journey was a slow three-day drive to Fermilab.

“We met the convoy every time it stopped to check the shock sensors and verify that CERN’s handling instructions were respected during all operations of movement from one means of transport to the other,” Zani said. “An unexpected challenge was learning about and abiding by the different transport regulations in Europe and the United States.”

Now that ICARUS has finally arrived at Fermilab, the next step will be a series of final checks followed by its installation inside a building specifically constructed and outfitted for it, and preparing it for operation.

“It feels good to have ICARUS here in its new Midwestern U.S. home," Fava said. "And now that it is, we can go full-bore in hunting down that elusive fourth.”

 


via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.cern/about/updates/2017/07/icarus-lands-fermilab

A tale of three stellar cities

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Using new observations from ESO's VLT Survey Telescope, astronomers have discovered three different populations of baby stars within the Orion Nebula Cluster. This unexpected discovery adds very valuable new insights for the understanding of how such clusters form. It suggests that star formation might proceeds in bursts, where each burst occurs on a much faster time-scale than previously thought.
via Science Daily
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A Sagittarius Triplet

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These three bright nebulae are often featured on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula above and left of center, and colorful M20 near the bottom of the frame. The third emission region includes NGC 6559, right of M8 and separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant. Over a hundred light-years across the expansive M8 is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae. In striking contrast, blue hues in the Trifid are due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful composite skyscape was recorded with two different telescopes to capture a widefield image of the area and individual close-ups at higher resolution.

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Wednesday 26 July 2017

Dawn of the cosmos: Seeing galaxies that appeared soon after the Big Bang

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Astronomers have discovered 23 young galaxies, seen as they were 800 million years after the Big Bang.
via Science Daily
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Gamma-ray burst captured in unprecedented detail

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Gamma-ray bursts are among the most energetic and explosive events in the universe. They are also short-lived, lasting from a few milliseconds to about a minute. This has made it tough for astronomers to observe a gamma-ray burst in detail. Using a wide array of ground- and space-based telescope observations, astronomers constructed one of the most detailed descriptions of a gamma-ray burst to date.
via Science Daily
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Color-shifting electronic skin could have wearable tech and prosthetic uses

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Researchers have developed a new type of user-interactive electronic skin, with a color change perceptible to the human eye, and achieved with a much-reduced level of strain. Their results could have applications in robotics, prosthetics and wearable technology.
via Science Daily

Has Cassini found a universal driver for prebiotic chemistry at Titan?

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The international Cassini-Huygens mission has made a surprising detection of a molecule that is instrumental in the production of complex organics within the hazy atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Has_Cassini_found_a_universal_driver_for_prebiotic_chemistry_at_Titan

Graphenea provides material for space experiment

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Graphenea’s suspended CVD graphene will be used in weightless conditions for testing the possibility of designing a light sail. Light sails are propulsion systems that utilize the pressure of light to move an object through space. Graphenea speaks to Santiago Cartamil-Bueno, leader of GrapheneX, the team of PhD students that will perform the experiment in weightless conditions in the ZARM Drop Tower at Bremen, Germany. The experiment is supported by the ESA Education’s Drop Your Thesis program.

Photograph of the graphene light sail to be used in the experiment

Q: How did the idea of using graphene for a light sail come about? How did you find out about the ESA Education’s Drop Your Thesis program that allows you to put your idea to practice?

A: The idea of graphene light sails arose when I considered participating in one of ESA Education’s programs for the second time. A couple of years ago, I wanted to participate in the Fly your Thesis program, where teams make measurements in milli-gravity inside a plane that performs parabolic flights. I thought that we could detect gravitational waves by measuring the space-time tensioning of a suspended graphene membrane from Graphenea: when the “drum” is facing a black hole, its resonance frequency should be higher than when it is not facing one, and this could be arranged with the plane descending towards the right direction. Unfortunately, this idea was practically unfeasible… Very soon after that gravitational waves were detected with LIGO!

One year later, I was hiking in the Salkantay mountains (Peru), and it was the first time I saw the Milky Way shining in all its majesty. Then, I remembered my child dream of becoming an astronaut and realized that my curiosity for space was never fulfilled…  and it would be hard to satiate it from my nanoscience career. Once back to The Netherlands, I found out that I missed the deadline for the parabolic program, so I checked the other ones. I thought that the Drop your Thesis program had some potential, and after discussions with colleagues we found what we could drop and study: I had read of some people willing to make a huge light sail and push it with powerful lasers to bring it to Alpha Centauri (Breakthrough Initiatives), and we had some graphene samples that could do the job. Since technically the graphene will be propelled vertically like a rocket, we thought to call our team after Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX. That’s how GrapheneX was born!

Q: Are there already real existing light sails put to practice in space? What would be the advantages of using graphene for this application?

A: Light sails were proposed in the 50’s as the most promising route for interstellar travel. In the last 25 years prototypes were made and tested on Earth, but in-space projects that aim to use light sails as an important thrust component were realized only in the last decade. The most outstanding successful story was the acceleration of IKAROS spacecraft from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in 2010 before arriving to Venus.

The most important characteristics of a light sail are its weight, area, and the optical and mechanical properties. The radiation pressure from photons is very weak and the sail must have a very large area to collect as much light as possible. Then, the sailing effect will be stronger if the sail has a small mass (and hence thinner sails are better). Moreover, the light force relies on preventing the photons from going through the sail (or it would be like a wind sail with holes!). And the most challenging part of a light sail shuttle is the sail deployment once in space, so the sail material has to be strong and robust. Graphene has all these properties, while being only one atom thick!

Q: When will the experiment take place and how long will it last? Given that the ZARM tower is a shared user facility, will you have the chance to make changes and correct any deficiencies in the experiment during your allocated time slot, or will you have to make everything perfect at the onset?

A: GrapheneX’s campaign will take place from 6th to 17th of November 2017. During the first week, we will integrate the setup in ZARM tower’s capsule and perform the final tests and automatization. Then the real experiments will take place during the second week: the capsule with the graphene sails will be launched once per day, therefore having five attempts to measure their movement. Each launch lasts only about 10 seconds, although if we count the preparations and post-experiment checks, it requires several hours of intense efforts from the team and ZARM personnel. We have to use the remaining time of a day to evaluate the status of the setup and sails, and analyze the measured data to decide if the experiment succeeded and how to continue. We really hope for the best, but I am also confident that we can overcome the difficulties in the other attempts if a disaster happens in the first launch. Stay tuned and support us through our social accounts!

Q: What kind of data do you expect to gain from the experiment? Do you expect to get a clear yes/no answer to the question of using graphene for light sails?

A: At the end of the day, this is just a (serious) student project, and the first of a kind. If everything goes well, we could determine the physical mechanism behind the light-induced displacement as previous studies report other phenomena that happen in graphene beside the radiation pressure. Moreover, a successful experiment will show us how the graphene sail moves and how much it moved, so we could extrapolate the results to longer propulsion times and suggest the suitability of graphene for a real sail project such as the one from Breakthrough Initiatives.

Using this material for light sails will in the end depend on the overall performance of a shuttle and its interaction with other sail components, so mainly our goal is to pave the way for more research experiments and to raise interest in graphene for space applications, rather than settling for good the use of graphene as a light sail.

We aim for the best results after having a robust plan and partnering with the best material and component providers in Europe. However, being the first ones to do such an ambitious and challenging experiment means that we have no reference of a previous success and failure is a possible scenario. But we are not afraid of that at all! Being able to perform the experiment will be a success on its own as the setup and experimental procedure can be reused for more experiments on graphene and other 2D materials, and it would be a matter of being perseverant until good data and answers come.

Q: What sorts of technical challenges does your team have to solve before the drop experiment takes place?

A: Every single piece of the experiment is an overwhelming challenge! The setup had to be designed from scratch to allow the electrical release of two graphene light sails in parallel inside a vacuum chamber while shining a powerful laser at the right moment, and we have to record a 2mm displacement in 10 seconds with a consumer camera. Having a (high) vacuum environment is required to prevent the sail from moving due to air convection and photophoresis (and also to avoid setting the sails on fire!). The release mechanism had to be engineered to keep the sails floating in vacuum at the right moment without causing extra unwanted forces during their release. The chamber had to accommodate vacuum-compatible accesses for the optical components that must be aligned with millimetric precision. Also, we had to raise sufficient funds to be able to purchase all these components and the three laser units for the high scientific quality we seek. All of this is just the work before the experiment! Once all the components arrive, we will assemble them and possibly will have to make changes after the first tests. This is a real time trial!

Q: You’re collaborating with Graphenea on graphene mechanical pixels, which are part of GIMOD (Graphene Interferometric MOdular Display), a product you are trying to take to the market. Overall you are a rare kind of PhD student that seems to constantly try to weigh their research against real world and market needs. Do you have any word of advice for other practically-oriented science PhD students?

A: I am a crazy guy indeed, but not that rare when it comes to being curious and passionate about the research one does. Not everyone is attracted or motivated to look for applications of fundamental findings from the lab, and that is good and necessary for scientific progress of the modern society. However, more researchers should feel stressed like me by the challenges of our time and that is why I cannot sit here only satisfying my curiosity.

Finding applications is relatively easy if you understand a real existing societal problem, although implementing them requires an engineering attitude that not many have the patience for. Also, one has to believe in what one does and how one does it, and that typically comes with a lot of intuition and determination gained from life experiences outside the lab or university.

If I could influence other students, I would encourage them to be bold and be owners of their own future – a future shared with other people in a challenged world. To dream and act. No one has the recipe to success, if such a thing exists, and there are no excuses to avoid trying and failing in life. Never postpone life experiences: travel, learn and surround yourself with people willing to cooperate and improve things; the rest is just about having fun!


via Graphenea

The Milky Way over Monument Valley

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You don't have to be at Monument Valley to see the Milky Way arc across the sky like this -- but it helps. Only at Monument Valley USA would you see a picturesque foreground that includes these iconic rock peaks called buttes. Buttes are composed of hard rock left behind after water has eroded away the surrounding soft rock. In the featured image taken in 2012, the closest butte on the left and the butte to its right are known as the Mittens, while Merrick Butte can be seen farther to the right. Green airglow fans up from the horizon. High overhead stretches a band of diffuse light that is the central disk of our spiral Milky Way Galaxy. The band of the Milky Way can be spotted by almost anyone on almost any clear night when far enough from a city and surrounding bright lights, but a sensitive digital camera is needed to capture these colors in a dark night sky.

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Carbon nanotubes turn electrical current into light-emitting quasi-particles

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Light-matter quasi-partic­les can be generated electrically in semiconducting carbon nanotubes, report scientists. Strong light-matter coupling in these semiconducting tubes may hold the key to electrically pumped lasers, they add.
via Science Daily

Venus's turbulent atmosphere

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Astronomers shed light on the so far unexplored nightside circulation at the upper cloud level of Venus. Researchers have discovered unexpected patterns of slow motion and abundant stationary waves in Venus's nighttime sky.
via Science Daily
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Tuesday 25 July 2017

Large, distant comets more common than previously thought

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There are about seven times more long-period comets measuring at least 1 kilometer across than previously predicted, suggests new research. The researchers also found that long-period comets are, on average, nearly twice as large as 'Jupiter family' comets, whose orbits are shaped by Jupiter's gravity and have periods of less than 20 years.
via Science Daily
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Cosmologists produce new maps of dark matter dynamics

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New maps of dark matter dynamics in the Universe have been produced by a team of international cosmologists, outlines a new report.
via Science Daily
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NASA mission surfs through waves in space to understand space weather

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NASA's Van Allen Probes have observed a new population of space sound waves, called plasmaspheric hiss, which are important in removing high-energy particles from around Earth that can damage satellites.
via Science Daily
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Large single-crystal graphene is possible, say scientists

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The target of large, cheap and quick graphene synthesis has been achieved, report researchers in a new article.
via Science Daily

Chemical route towards electronic devices in graphene

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Essential electronic components, such as diodes and tunnel barriers, can be incorporated in single graphene wires (nanoribbons) with atomic precision. The goal is to create graphene-based electronic devices with extremely fast operational speeds.
via Science Daily

From battery waste to electrochemical sensor

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Multiplex detection of antioxidants, food additives and preservatives in food samples is possible using our newly developed graphite-based nanocomposite electrochemical sensor from used alkaline battery. The chemical sensor not only leads to shorter analysis time but also is a greener chemistry innovation.
via Science Daily

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672 Astronomy Picture Fleece Blanket

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672 Astronomy Picture Fleece Blanket
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…


Int-Ball Drone Activated on the Space Station

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What if you were followed around by a cute floating ball that kept taking your picture? Then you might be an astronaut on today's International Space Station (ISS). Designed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the JEM Internal Ball Camera -- informally "Int-Ball" -- is a bit larger than a softball, can float and maneuver by itself but also be controlled remotely, can take high resolution images and videos, and is not related to Hello Kitty. Int-Ball was delivered to the ISS in early June and is designed to allow ground-control to increase the monitoring of ISS equipment and activities while decreasing time demands on human astronauts. Int-Ball moves by turning on small internal fans and sees with a camera located between its two dark eyes.

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Saturn surprises

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New views from Cassini’s weekly dives between Saturn and its rings
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Highlights/Saturn_surprises

Monday 24 July 2017

Q&A: Even Tiny Changes in Earth’s Orbit Would Yield Global Catastrophe

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A minute alteration in the planet’s trajectory around the sun would have disastrous results, a scientist estimates.
via New York Times

Moon has a water-rich interior

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Using satellite data, researchers have for the first time detected widespread water within ancient explosive volcanic deposits on the moon, suggesting that its interior contains substantial amounts of indigenous water.
via Science Daily
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A Hybrid Solar Eclipse over Kenya

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Chasing solar eclipses can cause you to go to the most interesting places and meet the most interesting people. Almost. For example, chasing this eclipse brought this astrophotographer to Kenya in 2013. His contact, a member of the Maasai people, was to pick him up at the airport, show him part of southern Kenya, and even agreed to pose in traditional warrior garb on a hill as the hopefully spectacular eclipse set far in background. Unfortunately, this contact person died unexpectedly a week before the astrophotographer's arrival, and so he never got to participate in the shoot, nor know that the resulting image went on to win an international award for astrophotography. Pictured in 2013 from Kenya, the Moon covers much of the Sun during a hybrid eclipse, a rare type of solar eclipse that appears as total from some Earth locations, but annular in others. During the annular part of the eclipse, the Moon was too far from the Earth to block the entire Sun. Next month a total solar eclipse will cross the USA.

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Ubuntu* - a powerful motto for an important experiment

Virtual Universe

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Space Science Image of the Week: Record-breaking simulation reproduces large-scale structure of the Universe to prepare for Euclid mission
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/06/Euclid_flagship_mock_galaxy_catalogue

Sunday 23 July 2017

Mercury as Revealed by MESSENGER

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Mercury had never been seen like this before. In 2008, the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft buzzed past Mercury for the second time and imaged terrain mapped previously only by comparatively crude radar. The featured image was recorded as MESSENGER looked back 90 minutes after passing, from an altitude of about 27,000 kilometers. Visible in the image, among many other newly imaged features, are unusually long rays that appear to run like meridians of longitude out from a young crater near the northern limb. MESSENGER entered orbit around Mercury in 2011 and finished its primary mission in 2012, but took detailed measurements until 2015, at which time it ran out of fuel and so was instructed to impact Mercury's surface.

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Saturday 22 July 2017

Starry Wingtip of Small Magellanic Cloud Business Card

Starry Wingtip of Small Magellanic Cloud Business Card
Astronomy series: The tip of the "wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is dazzling in this view from NASA's Great Observatories. The Small Magellanic Cloud, or…


Apollo 11: Catching Some Sun

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Bright sunlight glints and long dark shadows mark this image of the lunar surface. It was taken July 20, 1969 by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the Moon. Pictured is the mission's lunar module, the Eagle, and spacesuited lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin unfurling a long sheet of foil also known as the Solar Wind Composition Experiment. Exposed facing the Sun, the foil trapped particles streaming outward in the solar wind, catching a sample of material from the Sun itself. Along with moon rocks and lunar soil samples, the solar wind collector was returned for analysis in earthbound laboratories.

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Bag With Moon Dust in It Fetches $1.8 Million From a Mystery Buyer

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A lunar landing, a museum loan, a theft, a critical error, a legal battle — and now, a sale at auction. What’s next for this bag of moon dust?
via New York Times

Friday 21 July 2017

Superluminous supernova marks the death of a star at cosmic high noon

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The death of a massive star in a distant galaxy 10 billion years ago created a rare superluminous supernova, one of the most distant ever discovered. The brilliant explosion, more than three times as bright as the 100 billion stars of our Milky Way galaxy combined, occurred about 3.5 billion years after the big bang at a period known as 'cosmic high noon,' when the rate of star formation in the universe reached its peak.
via Science Daily
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The moon is front and center during a total solar eclipse

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In the lead-up to a total solar eclipse, most of the attention is on the sun, but Earth's moon also has a starring role.
via Science Daily
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Flashes of light on dark matter

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A web that passes through infinite intergalactic spaces, a dense cosmic forest illuminated by very distant lights and a huge enigma to solve. These are the picturesque ingredients of a scientific research that adds an important element for understanding one of the fundamental components of our Universe: dark matter.
via Science Daily
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Scientists get best measure of star-forming material in galaxy clusters in early universe

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The international Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS) collaboration has combined observations from several of the world's most powerful telescopes to carry out one of the largest studies yet of molecular gas -- the raw material which fuels star formation throughout the universe -- in three of the most distant clusters of galaxies ever found, detected as they appeared when the universe was only four billion years old.
via Science Daily
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Groundbreaking for an international neutrino experiment

Holographic imaging could be used to detect signs of life in space

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Engineers say a method called digital holographic microscopy could be used to detect living microbes in space.
via Science Daily
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Phobos: Moon over Mars

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A tiny moon with a scary name, Phobos emerges from behind the Red Planet in this timelapse sequence from the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Over 22 minutes the 13 separate exposures were captured near the 2016 closest approach of Mars to planet Earth. Martians have to look to the west to watch Phobos rise, though. The small moon is closer to its parent planet than any other moon in the Solar System, about 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) above the Martian surface. It completes one orbit in just 7 hours and 39 minutes. That's faster than a Mars rotation, which corresponds to about 24 hours and 40 minutes. So on Mars, Phobos can be seen to rise above the western horizon 3 times a day. Still, Phobos is doomed.

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NASA looks to solar eclipse to help understand Earth's energy system

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It was midafternoon, but it was dark in an area in Boulder, Colorado on Aug. 3, 1998. A thick cloud appeared overhead and dimmed the land below for more than 30 minutes. Well-calibrated radiometers showed that there were very low levels of light reaching the ground, sufficiently low that researchers decided to simulate this interesting event with computer models. Now in 2017, inspired by the event in Boulder, NASA scientists will explore the moon's eclipse of the sun to learn more about Earth's energy system.
via Science Daily
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