NASA Selects Launch Services Contract for OSIRIS-REx Mission

NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC of Englewood, Colo. to launch the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft.

via NASA Breaking News

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/august/nasa-selects-launch-services-contract-for-osiris-rex-mission

Astronomers image lowest-mass exoplanet around a sun-like star

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Using infrared data from the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, an international team of astronomers has imaged a giant planet around the bright star GJ 504. Several times the mass of Jupiter and similar in size, the new world, dubbed GJ 504b, is the lowest-mass planet ever detected around a star like the sun using direct imaging techniques.

via Science Daily

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New explanation for odd double-layer Martian craters

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The surface of Mars it pocked by more than 600 "double-layered ejecta" DLE craters, but how these odd craters formed has been a mystery. A new study makes the case that glacial ice, possibly tens of meters thick at the time of impacts millions of years ago, may be responsible for the unique features of DLEs.

via Science Daily

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NASA Begins Launch Preparations for Next Mars Mission

NASA's next spacecraft going to Mars arrived Friday, Aug. 2, at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and is now perched in a cleanroom to begin final preparations for its November launch.

via NASA Breaking News

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/august/nasa-begins-launch-preparations-for-next-mars-mission

Making a mini Mona Lisa

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The world's most famous painting has now been created on the world's smallest canvas. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have "painted" the Mona Lisa on a substrate surface approximately 30 microns in width – or one-third the width of a human hair. The team's creation, the "Mini Lisa," demonstrates a technique that could potentially be used to achieve nanomanufacturing of devices because the team was able to vary the surface concentration of molecules on such short-length scales.



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New research aids ability to predict solar storms, protect Earth

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Three new solar modeling developments are bringing scientists closer to being able to predict the occurrence and timing of coronal mass ejections from the sun.

via Science Daily

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Understanding interface properties of graphene paves way for new applications

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Researchers have revealed more about graphene's mechanical properties and demonstrated a technique to improve the stretchability of graphene -- developments that should help engineers and designers come up with new technologies that make use of the material.

via Science Daily

NASA Television to Broadcast Two Russian Spacewalks in August

NASA Television will provide live coverage as two Russian cosmonauts venture outside the International Space Station on spacewalks Friday, Aug. 16, and Thursday, Aug. 22. NASA TV coverage will begin at 10 a.m. EDT both days.

via NASA Breaking News

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/august/nasa-television-to-broadcast-two-russian-spacewalks-in-august

An infallible quantum measurement

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Entanglement is a key resource for upcoming quantum computers and simulators. Now, physicists in Innsbruck and Geneva realized a new, reliable method to verify entanglement in the laboratory using a minimal number of assumptions about the system and measuring devices. Hence, this method witnesses the presence of useful entanglement.



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Condolences, Sympathy, Grief, Carina Nebula Stars Card

Condolences, Sympathy, Grief, Carina Nebula Stars Card

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

Hubble's view of the Carina Nebula shows star birth in a new level of detail. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. In the process, these stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born. The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina the Keel (of the old southern constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts, from Greek mythology).
The original image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of ionized hydrogen. Colour information was added with data taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.

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Image code: carnebngcttst

Image credit: Hubble Space Telescope; colour data from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile

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