The Sky Tonight

November 21, 2013

MicroObservatory Catches Comet ISON
Boston MA (SPX) Nov 20, 2013
Hopes are high for Comet ISON, which has the potential to become the most spectacular comet seen in years. ISON is speeding through the inner solar system at about 120,000 miles per hour, on its way to a close approach to the Sun on November 28th. Assuming it survives its close encounter, it could become easily visible to the unaided eye in dawn skies. Comet ISON recently brightened and is currently visible with telescopes or binoculars in the constellation Virgo. Today the Harvard-Smithsonian Cen ... read more

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Quantum state world record smashed A normally fragile quantum state has been shown to survive at room temperature for a world record 39 minutes, overcoming a key barrier towards building ultrafast quantum computers. The research, pub ... more		Comet ISON: What's Next? Comet ISON is now inside the orbit of Earth as it plunges headlong toward the sun for a fiery close encounter on Nov. 28th. Although the comet is not yet as bright as many forecasters predicted, the ... more		Glassy Coating Keeps Viruses Happy In Harsh Environments What's a virus to do when it finds itself in an inhospitable environment such as hot water? Coating itself in glass seems to not only provide protection, but may also make it easier to jump to a mor ... more
				No peak in sight for evolving bacteria There's no peak in sight - fitness peak, that is - for the bacteria in Richard Lenski's Michigan State University lab. Lenski, MSU Hannah Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Geneti ... more		MESSENGER Detects Comets ISON and Encke, Prepares For Closer Encounters NASA's Mercury-orbiting MESSENGER spacecraft has captured images of two comets - 2P/Encke and C/2012 S1 (ISON) - setting the stage for observations later this month when both comets will be substa ... more

WISE Catalog Just Got Wiser NASA's WISE mission has released a new and improved atlas and catalog brimming with data on three-quarters of a billion objects detected during two full scans of the sky. WISE, which stands fo ... more		Whither the teakettle whistle Despite decades of brewing tea in a whistling kettle, the source and mechanism of this siren sound of comfort has never been fully described scientifically. Acknowledging the vibrations made by the ... more		Denmark closes airspace to civilian drones amid rise in sightings Top diplomats of North Korea, China agree to oppose 'hegemonism' What is the high seas treaty?		Revisiting quantum effects in MEMS Micro- and nano-electromechanical devices, referred to as MEMS and NEMS, are ubiquitous. These nanoscale machines with movable parts are used, for example, to trigger cars' airbags following a shock ... more
				Image of sun shows two areas of sunspots, one arriving and one leaving NASA has released an image of the sun showing two sunspots - one "coming" and one "going" - both the size of Jupiter, astronomers say. ... more		High-energy physicists predict new family of four-quark objects An international team of high-energy physicists says the discovery of an electrically charged subatomic particle called Zc(4020) is a sign that they have begun to unveil a whole new family of four-q ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

International Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures From Space Environment

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

A question for Jupiter Jupiter's Great Red Spot is one of the solar system's most mysterious landmarks. Based on what scientists understand about fluid dynamics, this massive storm - which is big enough to engulf the Eart ... more		Young stars paint spectacular stellar landscape Most stars do not form alone, but with many siblings that are created at about the same time from a single cloud of gas and dust. NGC 3572, in the southern constellation of Carina (The Keel), is one ... more		The first animals on Earth may have been sea sponges, study suggests Wildfire-induced thunderstorms recreated in Earth system models for first time Fengyun satellite strengthens China global weather forecasting capacity		Astronomers reveal contents of mysterious black hole jets An international team of astronomers has answered a long standing question about the enigmatic jets emitted by black holes, in research published in the journal Nature. Jets are narrow beams o ... more
				Surprising Image Provides New Tool for Studying a Galaxy Astronomers studying gas halos around nearby galaxies were surprised when detailed studies with the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) showed that one of their subje ... more		Hubble views an old and mysterious cluster The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best ever image of the globular cluster Messier 15, a gathering of very old stars that orbits the centre of the Milky Way. This glittering cluste ... more

The Sounds of New Horizons

On the Path to Pluto, 5 AU and Closing

SwRI study finds that Pluto satellites' orbital ballet may hint of long-ago collisions

Glassy Coating Keeps Viruses Happy In Harsh Environments

No peak in sight for evolving bacteria

Theory of Earth's special place in the universe proven unfounded

NASA Kepler Results Usher in a New Era of Astronomy

Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets?

One in five Sun-like stars may have Earth-like planets

The Plan for Inspiration Mars

Evidence found for granite on Mars

Lockheed Martin-Built MAVEN Launches To Mars

	New study shows atomic punch from black holes Black holes spit out mighty high-speed jets of matter that include heavy atoms, a study published in Nature said on Wednesday. ... more		Sun's Magnetic Field Poised to Reverse Its Polarity Every 11 years, the sun undergoes a complete makeover when the polarity of its magnetic field - its magnetic north and south - flips. The effects of this large-scale event ripple throughout the sola ... more		Spitzer and ALMA Reveal a Star's Bubbly Birth It's a bouncing baby . . . star! Combined observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the newly completed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed the thro ... more		NASA Cassini Spacecraft Provides New View of Saturn and Earth NASA has released a natural-color image of Saturn from space, the first in which Saturn, its moons and rings, and Earth, Venus and Mars, all are visible. The new panoramic mosaic of the majestic Sat ... more

NASA ISRO radar satellite beams first Earth images from space

India plans mega-dam to counter China water fears

Breakthrough in UAV swarm intelligence as SRI redefines topology mapping

NASA Brings Earth Science 'Big Data' to the Cloud with Amazon Web Services		Study: Solar activity not a significant factor in global warming		Dartmouth researchers shed new light on dark energy, cosmic speed-up		NASA's GRAIL Mission Puts a New Face on the Moon		When is a comet not a comet?
Hubble catches stellar explosions in NGC 6984		'Freakish' asteroid discovered, resembles rotating lawn sprinkler		Solar activity playing a minimal role in global warming		GOCE gives in to gravity		European science satellite to break up late Sunday

Quantum 'sealed envelope' system enables 'perfectly secure' information storage

Highly stable quantum light source for applications in quantum information systems

It's Complicated: Dawn Spurs Rewrite of Vesta's Story

Surprising Recent Discoveries of Three Large Near-Earth Objects

Astronomers Establish the Strength of High-Inclination Asteroids

Comet ISON Roars Through Leo

First study of Russian meteor

Another black hole in a star cluster

BRRISON Lifts Off To Study Comet ISON

Moon mission yields clues to face of 'man in the moon'

From One Collapsing Star, Two Black Holes Form and Fuse

Six-tailed asteroid stuns scientists

Theory of Earth's special place in the universe proven unfounded

NASA Pursues New Geodesy Application for Emerging Atom-Optics Technology

Shanghai-built lunar rover set for lunar landing

NASA Kepler Results Usher in a New Era of Astronomy

Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets?

Chelyabinsk asteroid measured 12,000 tonnes

Global IT spending set to recover in 2014

New material for quantum computing discovered out of the blue

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