Characterizing the forces that hold everything together
Amherst MA (SPX) Sep 24, 2015 -
As electronic, medical and molecular-level biological devices grow smaller and smaller, approaching the nanometer scale, the chemical engineers and materials scientists devising them often struggle to predict the magnitude of molecular interactions on that scale and whether new combinations of materials will assemble and function as designed.
This is because the physics of interactions at ...
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Flowing electrons help ocean microbes gulp methane
Pasadena CA (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
Good communication is crucial to any relationship, especially when partners are separated by distance. This also holds true for microbes in the deep sea that need to work together to consume large amounts of methane released from vents on the ocean floor. Recent work at Caltech has shown that these microbial partners can still accomplish this task, even when not in direct contact with one anothe ...
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Government Needs for Convergence, Disaggregation Will Require Commercial Support
McLean VA (SPX) Sep 25, 2015 -
Convergence on the ground. Disaggregation in space. They are more than just buzzwords in Air Force Space Command, and both concepts - considered key in the future satellite communications networks of the United States military - are going to be dependent on the commercial community to make them work as efficiently and effectively as needed.
We at Intelsat General Corp. are in a position to ...
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Japan to launch defense procurement agency
Washington (UPI) Sep 24, 2015 -
Japan's Ministry of Defense will use its new constitutional powers to set up an agency to manage international trade of weapons and military equipment.
The ministry confirmed with IHS Jane's that the new agency will be named the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency, and will begin operations on October 1.
The agency's key objectives will include promoting international co ...
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Mid-sized flare imaged by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory
Washington (UPI) Sep 28, 2015 -
On Monday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of a mid-class solar flare.
The moderate eruption is unlikely to cause space weather strong enough to affect Earth, but scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center will nonetheless monitor the after-effects of the flare.
Solar flares are the eruptions of the sun' ...
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Launch Of Astrosat: First Indian Astronomy Satellite
Sriharikota, India (SPX) Sep 29, 2015 -
The first Indian astronomy satellite Astrosat (http://astrosat.iucaa.in) was launched on 28 September 2015 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from Sriharikota on a PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket. Astrosat has unprecedented capability to simultaneously observe cosmic objects in visible light, the ultraviolet waveband and the entire X-ray waveband from very low energy t ...
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Impact produced comet's rubber duck shape: study
Paris (AFP) Sept 28, 2015 -
The characteristic "rubber duck" shape of the comet carrying a European robot probe through space was the result of a low-velocity impact billions of years ago between two objects which fused, a study said Monday.
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's quirky double-lobed form left scientists scratching their heads ever since the ancient cosmic traveller first came into the Rosetta spacecraft's v ...
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'Strongest evidence yet' of liquid water on Mars: NASA
Paris (AFP) Sept 28, 2015 -
Scientists on Monday announced "the strongest evidence yet" of liquid water on Mars, raising the distant prospect of microscopic life on the Red Planet.
Experts at NASA hailed the findings, made with the US space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and said they were "revolutionising our understanding" of Earth's neighbour.
"Mars is not the dry, arid planet we thought of in the past," ...
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How Rosetta's comet got its shape
Paris (ESA) Sep 29, 2015 -
Two comets collided at low speed in the early Solar System to give rise to the distinctive 'rubber duck' shape of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, say Rosetta scientists. The origin of the comet's double-lobed form has been a key question since Rosetta first revealed its surprising shape in July 2014. Two leading ideas emerged: did two comets merge or did localised erosion of a single object for ...
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exactEarth Launches Advanced Equatorial AIS Satellite
Cambridge, Canada (SPX) Sep 29, 2015 -
exactEarth has announced the successful launch of an advanced AIS satellite, exactView-9 (EV9), expanding its exactView global vessel monitoring constellation to eight in-orbit satellites.
The spacecraft was built by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies Space Flight Laboratory and launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in India earlier today aboard ...
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India launches first space observatory
Bangalore, India (AFP) Sept 28, 2015 -
India successfully launched Monday its first high-tech telescopes into space to study the stars, as New Delhi seeks to take another major step in its ambitious and low-cost space programme.
A rocket carrying the 150-tonne mini space observatory called Astrosat, along with six foreign satellites, blasted off on schedule from India's main southern spaceport of Sriharikota.
"About 20 minute ...
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Lockheed Martin moves forward with Space Fence program
Moorestown, N.J. (UPI) Sep 28, 2015 -
U.S. government officials approved Lockheed Martin's design for their Space Fence system, which includes a large-scale digital radar and a turn-key facility, the company announced today.
The Space Fence is a next-generation space surveillance system being built by the U.S. Air Force. Its purpose is to monitor both artificial satellites and space debris that orbit Earth. The plans were b ...
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Opportunity Mars Rover Preparing for Active Winter
Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 28, 2015 -
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is conducting a "walkabout" survey of "Marathon Valley," where the rover's operators plan to use the vehicle through the upcoming Martian winter, and beyond, to study the context for outcrops bearing clay minerals.
Marathon Valley slices downhill from west to east for about 300 yards or meters through the western rim of Endeavour Crater. Opportunit ...
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NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today's Mars
Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 29, 2015 -
New findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.
Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to fl ...
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The Urgency of Modernizing Satellite Control Infrastructure
McLean VA (SPX) Sep 25, 2015 -
The satellite infrastructure that the DoD relies on for operational awareness is inefficient and is badly in need of modernization. The status quo isn't acceptable, and changes must begin now.
Those aren't my words, although I agree with them strongly. It's the message contained in a memorandum dated July 29th sent by General John Hyten, Commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, to se ...
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Synthesizing how molecules formed at dawn of life on Earth
Barcelona, Spain (SPX) Sep 25, 2015 -
Researchers from the Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC-CSIC), with support from the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Service of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) have developed a method for synthesising organic molecules very selectively, by assembling simple molecules and using an enzyme from E. coli (FSA: D-fructose-6-phosphate aldolase), which acts as a biocatalyst.
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Ridley Scott's 'The Martian' takes off in Toronto
Toronto, Canada (AFP) Sept 12, 2015 -
Matt Damon got to relive his childhood fantasies of being an astronaut in Ridley Scott's 3D space epic "The Martian," where he portrays a character left for dead on the Red Planet.
The film adaptation of Andy Weir's 2011 book about fictional NASA astronaut Mark Watney (played by Damon) becoming stranded by a sudden storm on Mars and the heroic efforts to bring him home premiered Friday at th ...
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Mars Panorama from Curiosity Shows Petrified Sand Dunes
Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 13, 2015 -
Some of the dark sandstone in an area being explored by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows texture and inclined bedding structures characteristic of deposits that formed as sand dunes, then were cemented into rock.
This sandstone outcrop - part of a geological layer that Curiosity's science team calls the Stimson unit - has a structure called crossbedding on a large scale that the team has ...
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Team Continues to Operate Rover in RAM Mode
Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 13, 2015 -
Opportunity is within 'Marathon Valley' on the west rim of Endeavour Crater exploring for clay minerals.
The rover is operating in persistent RAM mode (not using Flash for data storage). On Sol 4127 (Sept. 3, 2015), Opportunity bumped just 26 inches (65 centimeters) towards the surface target, 'Pvt. Silas Goodrich' to begin an in-situ (contact) science campaign.
On Sols 4130 and 4131 ...
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Supervising two rovers from space
Paris (ESA) Sep 13, 2015 -
ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen is proving to be an expert space driver after commanding two rovers from space this week. As part of ESA's Meteron project, Andreas drove a second, car-sized rover from the International Space Station to repair a mockup lunar base in the Netherlands.
Andreas directly controlled the Eurobot rover in a simulated troubleshooting Moon scenario. A second rover was ...
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Record-breaking astronauts return to Earth
Lancaster, UK (SPX) Sep 17, 2015 -
Expedition 44 to the International Space Station has been successfully completed after three astronauts landed in Kazakhstan. The mission saw a cosmonaut clock up more days in space than any other human being, the launch of the most audacious twin study in the history of science, and astronauts eating lettuce grown in space for the first time.
The crew have taught us plenty about how to su ...
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Expect Martian Colonies to Build Themselves First
Moscow (Sputnik) Sep 18, 2015 -
Space explorers will travel to prefabricated colonies on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere, says the Self-deployable Habitat for Extreme Environments project (SHEE).
SHEE is developing domiciles to be deployed on alien worlds, the brain-child of architect Ondrej Doule, to be used as the European Space Agency's first autonomously deployed space habitat. The SHEE habitat is a hybrid structure com ...
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Opportunity Continues Search for Clay Minerals On Mars
Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 22, 2015 -
Opportunity is within 'Marathon Valley' on the west rim of Endeavour Crater conducting a walk-about in search of clay minerals.
The rover is operating in persistent RAM mode (not using Flash for data storage). On Sol 4133 (Sept. 9, 2015), the rover used the robotic arm to collect a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of a surface target and then place the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS ...
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ExoMars 2016 targets March launch window
Paris (ESA) Sep 22, 2015 -
A problem recently discovered in two sensors in the propulsion system of the entry, descent and landing demonstrator module has prompted the recommendation to move the launch of the ExoMars 2016 mission, initially foreseen in January, to March, still within the launch window of early 2016.
ExoMars is a joint endeavour between ESA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency. The recommendation was ...
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NASA Seeks Big Ideas from Students for Inflatable Heat Shield Technology
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
NASA is giving university and college students an opportunity to be part of the agency's journey to Mars with the Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge.
NASA's Game Changing Development Program (GCD), managed by the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington, and the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) are seeking innovative ideas for generatin ...
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