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December 27, 2012

Russia designs manned lunar spacecraft
Moscow (UPI) Dec 26, 2012
Russian space company Energia has completed the technical design of a manned spacecraft whose flight tests would be initiated in 2017, company officials say. "We have completed the technical design project taking into account the fact that the new spaceship is to fly to the moon, among other places," Energia President Vitaly Lopota said Wednesday. "If we get normal financing, we will start flight tests of the spaceship in 2017," he said. Energia was awarded the spaceship design co ... read more

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Hubble Eyes the Needle Galaxy Like finding a silver needle in the haystack of space, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the spiral galaxy IC 2233, one of the flattest galaxies known. T ... more		All Systems Go for Highest Altitude Supercomputer One of the most powerful supercomputers in the world has now been fully installed and tested at its remote, high altitude site in the Andes of northern Chile. This marks one of the major remaining m ... more		Space Fence program moving forward The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center here recently put out a request for proposal to move the Space Fence program forward. Space Fence will be a system of up to two land-based radars, th ... more
				Christmas Sky Show Just when you thought Christmas was over: At the end of the day on Dec. 25th, a pair of holiday lights will pop out of the deepening twilight. Jupiter and the Moon are having a Christmas conjunction ... more		Quadrantids Create Year's First Meteor Shower A little-known meteor shower named after an extinct constellation, the Quadrantids will present an excellent chance for hardy souls to start the year off with some late-night meteor watching. ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

"All-Clear" Asteroid Will Miss Earth in 2040 Using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have confirmed that the chance of asteroid 2011 AG5 impacti ... more		Closest sun-like star may have planets An international team of scientists, including Carnegie's Paul Butler, has discovered that Tau Ceti, one of the closest and most Sun-like stars, may have five planets. Their work is published by Ast ... more		US Navy And Lockheed Martin Deliver Secure Communications Satellite For Mobile Users Second Generation Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System Intercepts Ballistic Missile Target Northrop Grumman Proves Concept for New B-2 Satellite Communication System Making frequency-hopping radios practical F-35A Completes High Angle Of Attack Testing Carrier-based unmanned jet launch set to open new markets Gunmen kill two NATO drivers in Pakistan: officials		New meteorite suggests that asteroid surfaces more complex than previously thought Meteorites that had fallen from an asteroid impact that lit up the skies over California and Nevada in April are showing scientists just how complex an asteroid surface can be. A new study published ... more
				Spiral Structure of Disk May Reveal Planets An international team of astronomers has used HiCIAO (High Contrast Instrument for the Subaru Next Generation Optics) (Note 1) to observe a disk around the young star SAO 206462. They succeeded in c ... more		NASA's Hubble Provides First Census of Galaxies Near Cosmic Dawn Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a previously unseen population of seven primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was less than ... more

Solar systems for home and business

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Cassini Instrument Learns New Tricks For seven years, a mini-fridge-sized instrument aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft reliably investigated weather patterns swirling around Saturn; the hydrocarbon composition of the surface of Saturn's ... more		How to look young when you're not - Stars reveal the secret of aging well Some people are in great shape at the age of 90, while others are decrepit before they're 50. We know that how fast people age is only loosely linked to how old they actually are - and may have more ... more		Research into carbon storage in Arctic tundra reveals unexpected insight into ecosystem resiliency World's melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise H1N1 discovered in marine mammals TD Alvin Marks Starts Of US Hurricane Season Sea level: One-third of its rise comes from melting mountain glaciers Corals turn to algae for stored food when times get tough Tropical air circulation drives fall warming on Antarctic Peninsula		The paths of photons are random - but coordinated Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have demonstrated that photons (light particles) emitted from light sources embedded in a complex and disordered structure are able to mutually coordinate the ... more
				Meteor shower to peak early Saturday An annual December meteor show known as the Ursid shower will reach its peak in the early morning hours Saturday, astronomers say. ... more		May the force be with the atomic probe Theoretical physicist Elad Eizner from Ben Gurion University, Israel, and colleagues created models to study the attractive forces affecting atoms located at a wide range of distances from a surface ... more

Halfway Between Uranus and Neptune, New Horizons Cruises On

Dwarf planet Makemake lacks atmosphere

Keck Observations Bring Weather Of Uranus Into Sharp Focus

Search for life extends to the stars

Swansong Biospheres: The last refuges for life on the far-future Earth

Origin of life emerged from cell membrane bioenergetics

Spiral Structure of Disk May Reveal Planets

Closest sun-like star may have planets

Nearby star is good candidate for Earth-like planets

Charitum Montes: a cratered winter wonderland

Opportunity Continues Rock Studies

Clays on Mars: More Plentiful Than Expected

	Entering a new phase Condensed matter physics - the branch of physics responsible for discovering and describing most of these phases - has traditionally classified phases by the way their fundamental building blocks - ... more		Science's Breakthrough of the Year: Discovery of the Higgs boson The observation of an elusive sub-atomic particle, known as the Higgs boson, has been heralded by the journal Science as the most important scientific discovery of 2012. This particle, which was fir ... more		Unvieling diffuse x-ray emission from nearby galaxies NASA will launch an astrophysics mission to study the Diffuse X-ray emission from the Local galaxy (DXL) December 9 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The goal of this flight is ... more		Do we live in a computer simulation? UW researchers say idea can be tested A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even incomp ... more

New insights into how materials transfer heat could lead to improved electronics

Groundwater unaffected by shale gas production in Arkansas

Stacking 2-D materials produces surprising results

Artificial Forest for Solar Water-Splitting

Moth-Inspired Nanostructures Take the Color Out of Thin Films

Stanford Engineers' New Metamaterial Doubles Up on Invisibility

NIST demonstrates significant improvement in the performance of solar-powered hydrogen generation

NASA Astrobiology Institute Shows How Wide Binary Stars Form		Nearby star much older than thought		Apollo's Lunar Dust Data Being Restored		Point of Light		Rock Comet Meteor Shower
Search for life extends to the stars		Meteorite triggered scientific gold rush		All Systems Go for Highest Altitude Supercomputer		MIT researchers discover a new kind of magnetism		Origin of life emerged from cell membrane bioenergetics

Swansong Biospheres: The last refuges for life on the far-future Earth

Nearby star is good candidate for Earth-like planets

Shot Away from its Companion, Giant Star Makes Waves

How white dwarfs mimic black holes

Southampton researchers find a glitch' in pulsar 'glitch' theory

Monster Black Holes

Turbulent eddies may warm the solar wind

Astronomers identify the stellar patrons of the Milky Way bar

Venus transit and lunar mirror could help astronomers find worlds around other stars

Experiment Examining a SLICE of the Interstellar Medium

Penn Metamaterials Experts Show a Way to Reduce Electrons' Effective Mass to Nearly Zero

Math formula gives new glimpse into the magical mind of Ramanujan

From Cassini for the Holidays: A Splendor Seldom Seen

BepiColombo Mercury Transfer Module Mass Properties Measurement

UI-led team confirms 'gusty winds' in space turbulence

Exploding star missing from formation of solar system

NASA probes crash into the moon

GRAIL Lunar Impact Site Named for Astronaut Sally Ride

Extending Einstein

Microquasar found in neighbor galaxy, tantalizing scientists

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