Researchers see Kelvin wave on quantum 'tornado' for first time
College Park MD (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Draining the water from a bathtub causes a spinning tornado to appear. The downward flow of water into the drain causes the water to rotate, and as the rotation speeds up, a vortex forms that obeys the laws of classical mechanics. However, if the water is extremely cold liquid helium, the fluid will swirl around an invisible line to form a vortex that obeys the laws of quantum mechanics.
S ...
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Hunt for an unidentified electron object
Cambridge, UK (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Researchers have developed a new mathematical framework capable of describing motions in superfluids - low temperature fluids that exhibit classical as well as quantum behavior. The framework was used to lift the veil of mystery surrounding strange objects in superfluid helium (detected ten years ago at Brown University).
The study, conducted by an international collaboration of researcher ...
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Comet-probing robot to wake from hibernation
Paris (AFP) March 26, 2014 -
A fridge-sized robot lab hurtling through the Solar System aboard a European probe is about to wake from hibernation and prepare for the first-ever landing by a spacecraft on a comet.
The delicate operation, starting Friday, marks the next phase in the European Space Agency's billion-dollar mission to explore one of these ancient wanderers of our star system.
Sent to sleep in 2011 to sav ...
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Dust in the wind drove iron fertilization during ice age
Princeton NJ (SPX) Mar 24, 2014 -
Researchers from Princeton University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have confirmed that during the last ice age iron fertilization caused plankton to thrive in a region of the Southern Ocean.
The study published in Science confirms a longstanding hypothesis that wind-borne dust carried iron to the region of the globe north of Antarctica, driving plankton growth an ...
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LockMart Taps General Dynamics For Network Element On GPS 3 Birds
Fairfax VA (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems was recently awarded a $26 million contract from Lockheed Martin to support the U.S. Air Force Global Positioning System (GPS) III Network Communications Element (NCE).
The Air Force's next-generation GPS III satellites will improve position, navigation and timing services and provide advanced anti-jam capabilities yielding superior system secu ...
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Mutualink Obtains Key NATO Certification
Wallingford CT (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Mutualink has announced that it received certification from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for its secure interoperable communications and real time multimedia solution. With this certification, Mutualink can be deployed globally on NATO's Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation Systems (BICES) Network, enabling anywhere, anytime secure interoperable communications in ...
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US's old satellites cannot track Malaysian airplane, as war drones suck funds dry
Moscow (Voice of Russia) Mar 25, 2014 -
The US's old satellites cannot track the missing Malaysian airplane as money is being spent on war drones instead. As the world grows obsessed with drone imagery, it comes at the expense of ignoring satellite radar technology. In today's day and age, high-resolution image satellites are capable of snapping very detailed photos of small locations.
However, an imagery solutions manager for t ...
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Northrop Grumman, US Navy Complete Initial Flight Testing of the Triton Unmanned Aircraft System
San Diego CA (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy have successfully completed the first major milestone of the Triton unmanned aircraft system (UAS) flight test program, clearing the aircraft to fly at various altitudes, speeds and weights.
During the test program, which is known as initial envelope expansion, the Northrop Grumman/Navy test team validated more than 568 test points. The flights took place ...
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Sentinel-1 controllers ready for hectic first days
Paris (ESA) Mar 26, 2014 -
Following a spectacular launch, Sentinel-1A's first few days in orbit will be some of the most complex in recent memory. Mission control teams will work around the clock to nurse the satellite through its early critical hours in space.
As part of Europe's Copernicus programme, ESA's Sentinel-1A is the first of a two-satellite mission that will scan land and oceans using an advanced radar t ...
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Plugging the hole in Hawking's black hole theory
East Lansing MI (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
Recently physicists have been poking holes again in Stephen Hawking's black hole theory - including Hawking himself. For decades physicists across the globe have been trying to figure out the mysteries of black holes - those fascinating monstrous entities that have such intense gravitational pull that nothing - not even light - can escape from them. Now Professor Chris Adami, Michigan State Univ ...
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A Wet Moon
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
The Moon's status as a "dry" rock in space has long been questioned. Competing theories abound as to the source of the H20 in the lunar soil, including delivery of water to the Moon by comets.
This week, Tartese et al announced in Geology that new analyses of lunar soil samples demonstrates that basalts from the Moon's mantle contain hydrogen from water indigenous to Earth.
According ...
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Mars-mimicking chamber explores habitability of other planets
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
A research team in Spain has the enviable job of testing out new electromechanical gear for potential use in future missions to the "Red Planet." They do it within their Mars environmental simulation chamber, which is specially designed to mimic conditions on the fourth planet from the sun - right down to its infamous Martian dust.
Mars is a key target for future space exploration, thanks ...
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First Images Available from NASA-JAXA Global Rain and Snowfall Satellite
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have released the first images captured by their newest Earth-observing satellite, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, which launched into space Feb. 27.
The images show precipitation falling inside a March 10 cyclone over the northwest Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,000 miles east of Japan. The data were colle ...
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The NASA Z-2 Spacesuit Design Vote
Houston TX (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
NASA's Z-2 Suit is the newest prototype in its next-generation spacesuit platform, the Z-series. As a follow-up to the previous Z-1 suit, which was named one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of 2012, the Z-2 takes the next step in fidelity approaching a final flight-capable design. Most exciting, the Z-2 marks several milestones for NASA:
+ First surface-specific planetary mobility suit ...
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NASA Seeks Collaborative Partnerships With Commercial Space
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
Building on the success of NASA's commercial spaceflight initiatives, agency officials announced Monday plans to solicit proposals from U.S. private enterprises for unfunded partnerships to collaboratively develop new commercial space capabilities.
"The growing U.S. commercial spaceflight industry is opening low-Earth orbit in ways that will improve lives on Earth, drive economic growth an ...
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NASA Seeks Suborbital Flight Proposals
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
NASA is seeking proposals from U.S. commercial suborbital reusable launch vehicle providers to integrate and fly technology payloads for the space agency. NASA uses companies for suborbital flights to encourage and facilitate the growth of this important aerospace market while also providing a means to advance a wide range of new launch vehicle and space technologies.
NASA successfully sel ...
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Orbital-Built Amazonas 4A Commerical Communications Satellite Launched
Dulles VA (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
Orbital Sciences reports that the Amazonas 4A commercial communications satellite, built by the company for HISPASAT S.A. of Spain, was successfully launched into orbit aboard an Ariane 5 ECA rocket on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Lift-off occurred at 6:04 p.m. EDT from the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana.
The satellite was successfully deployed approximately 35 minutes into the m ...
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Exploding stars prove Newton's gravity unchanged over cosmic time
Melbourne, Australia (SPX) Mar 26, 2014 -
Australian astronomers have combined all observations of supernovae ever made to determine that the strength of gravity has remained unchanged over the last nine billion years.
Newton's gravitational constant, known as G, describes the attractive force between two objects, together with the separation between them and their masses. It has been previously suggested that G could have been sl ...
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Technical hitch delays US-Russia crew's ISS docking
Moscow (AFP) March 26, 2014 -
A US-Russian three man crew Wednesday faced an unprecedented two-day delay in their docking with the International Space Station (ISS) after their Russian Soyuz spacecraft suffered a technical glitch on its approach in orbit.
The two Russian cosmonauts and American astronaut were to have docked with the ISS early Wednesday just six hours after launch from Kazakhstan but the problem means tha ...
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First Ring System Around Asteroid
La Silla, Chile (ESO) Mar 27, 2014 -
Observations at many sites in South America, including ESO's La Silla Observatory, have made the surprise discovery that the remote asteroid Chariklo is surrounded by two dense and narrow rings.
This is the smallest object by far found to have rings and only the fifth body in the Solar System - after the much larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - to have this feature. The or ...
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