Recent Comments

    Category Astronomy/Space

    Age of the neutrino: Plans to decipher mysterious particle take shape

    August 12, 2015, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Neutrinos are more abundant than any particle other than photons, yet they interact so weakly with other matter that every second, more than 100 billion stream — mainly unnoticed — through every square centimetre of Earth. Once thought to be massless, they in fact have a minuscule mass and can change type as they travel, a bizarre and entirely unexpected feature that physicists do not fully understand. Indeed, surprisingly little is known about the neutrino. “These are the most ubiquitous matter particles in the Universe that we know of, and probably the most mysterious,” says Nigel Lockyer, director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois.

    4 unprecedented experiments look poised to change this...

    Read More

    New Tools for Predicting Arrival, Impact of Solar Storms

    August 12, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    On Jan. 7, 2014, the Sun's surface erupted with an unusually large explosion, called coronal mass ejection (CME), with NOAA releasing a significant false alarm geomagnetic storm at Earth. Credit: NASA

    On Jan. 7, 2014, the Sun’s surface erupted with an unusually large explosion, called coronal mass ejection (CME), with NOAA releasing a significant false alarm geomagnetic storm at Earth. Credit: NASA

    When the sun hurls a billion tons of high-energy particles and magnetic fields into space at speeds of >a million miles/ hour and the ‘space weather’ conditions are right, the resulting geomagnetic storm at Earth can wreak havoc on communication and navigation systems, electrical power grids, and pose radiation hazards to astronauts and airline passengers and crew.

    University of New Hampshire’s Space Science Center (SSC) scientists are now adding some powerful tools to the predictive toolbox using data from NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, Geo-chemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER,...

    Read More

    What Resupplies Pluto’s Nitrogen content as its Atmosphere is Depleted?

    August 12, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist’s concept of the interaction of the solar wind (the supersonic outflow of electrically charged particles from the Sun) with Pluto’s predominantly nitrogen atmosphere. Some of the molecules that form the atmosphere have enough energy to overcome Pluto’s weak gravity and escape into space, where they are ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation. As the solar wind encounters the obstacle formed by the ions, it is slowed and diverted (depicted in the red region), possibly forming a shock wave upstream of Pluto. The ions are “picked up” by the solar wind and carried in its flow past the dwarf planet to form an ion or plasma tail (blue region). The Solar Wind around Pluto (SWAP) instrument on the New Horizons spacecraft made the first measurements of this region of low-energy atmospheric ions shortly after closest approach on July 14. Such measurements will enable the SWAP team to determine the rate at which Pluto loses its atmosphere and, in turn, will yield insight into the evolution of the Pluto’s atmosphere and surface. Also illustrated are the orbits of Pluto’s five moons and the trajectory of the spacecraft. Credits: NASA/APL/SwRI.

    Artist’s concept of the interaction of the solar wind (the supersonic outflow of electrically charged particles from the Sun) with Pluto’s predominantly nitrogen atmosphere. Some of the molecules that form the atmosphere have enough energy to overcome Pluto’s weak gravity and escape into space, where they are ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation. As the solar wind encounters the obstacle formed by the ions, it is slowed and diverted (depicted in the red region), possibly forming a shock wave upstream of Pluto. The ions are “picked up” by the solar wind and carried in its flow past the dwarf planet to form an ion or plasma tail (blue region)...

    Read More

    Space Farming Yields a Crop of Benefits for Earth

    August 11, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology, Environment/Geology

    Air Cleaner

    NASA air purification technology, originally designed for plant-growing experiments on the space station, has been licensed and turned into a consumer device that keeps household air cleaner and healthier. Credits: Akida Holdings Inc.

    The red romaine lettuce is far from the first crop grown on a space station. For decades, NASA etc have experimented with plants in space, but the results were always sent to Earth for examination, rather than eaten. A number of technologies NASA has explored have found their way onto the market.

    Orbital Technologies (ORBITEC) partnered with Kennedy Space Center to develop the plant growth system: Veggie, that produced this most recent crop of lettuce, as well as its predecessor, Biomass Production System...

    Read More