Category Astronomy/Space

NASA’s GRACE satellites (artist’s concept) measured Atlantic Ocean bottom pressure as an indicator of deep ocean current speed. In 2009, this pattern of above-average (blue) and below-average (red) seafloor pressure revealed a temporary slowing of the deep currents. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A team of NASA and university scientists has developed a new way to use satellite measurements to track changes in Atlantic Ocean currents, which are a driving force in global climate. The finding opens a path to better monitoring and understanding of how ocean circulation is changing and what the changes may mean for future climate.

In the Atlantic, currents at the ocean surface, eg Gulf Stream, carry sun-warmed water from the tropics NE. As the water moves through colder regions, it sheds its heat...

Radar images received by the Green Bank Telescope reveal new details of the surface of asteroid 2015 TB145. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR/NRAO/AUI/NSF

Scientists used the 230-foot DSS-14 antenna at Goldstone, California, to transmit high-power microwaves toward the asteroid. The signal bounced off the asteroid, and its radar echoes were received by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) 100-meter (330-foot) Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The radar images achieve a spatial resolution as fine as 13 ft/ pixel, an amazing feat.

The radar images were taken as the asteroid flew past Earth on October 31 at 1 p.m. EDT at about 1.3 lunar distances (300,000 miles, or 480,000 kilometers) from Earth. Asteroid 2015 TB145 is spherical in shape and approximately 2,000 feet in diameter.

QUT researchers Dr Julia Bally and Professor Peter Waterhouse have discovered a plant with huge genome properties that can have the potential to be the ‘laboratory rat’ of the molecular plant world. This could open the door for such things as space-based food production Credit: Erika Fish

Professor Peter Waterhouse, a plant geneticist at QUT, discovered the gene in the ancient Australian native tobacco plant Nicotiana benthamiana, known as Pitjuri to Aboriginals.

Prof Waterhouse made the discovery while tracing the history of the Pitjuri plant, which for decades has been used by geneticists as a model plant upon which to test viruses and vaccines. “This plant is the ‘laboratory rat’ of the molecular plant world,” he said, “we think of it as a magical plant with amazing properties.

“We now ...

This display shows a neutrino event candidate in the MicroBooNE detector. Credit: MicroBooNE

It detected its first neutrinos on Oct. 15, marking the beginning of detailed studies of these fundamental particles whose properties could be linked to dark matter, matter’s dominance over antimatter in the universe and the evolution of the entire cosmos since the Big Bang.

The MicroBooNE detector – a so-called time projection chamber filled with 170 tons of liquid argon – spotted neutrinos that were generated when proton beams from Fermilab’s accelerator complex slammed into a target a few hundred yards away from the detector.

Researchers from Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are developing tools for the acquisition of the experiment’s data and for the reconstruction of...