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February 07, 2014

Astrobotic Begins Testing at Masten Space Systems
Pittsburgh PA (SPX) Feb 07, 2014
When Astrobotic's Griffin lander descends to the lunar surface, it will precisely target a small landing ellipse (a small area where it might land) and autonomously maneuver to avoid hazards such as rocks bigger than 25cm and slopes greater than 15 . In last month's blog post, we introduced the landing sensor package and the concept of map registration - a technique that matches ("registers") a location in an in-flight image to the same location on a map. This week, an Astrobotic team led by Kevin ... read more

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Astronomers discover new brown dwarf -- except this one is red Astronomers in Britain report they've discovered a peculiar example of a celestial body known as a brown dwarf, one with unusually red skies. ... more		Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet Imagine living on a planet with seasons so erratic you would hardly know whether to wear Bermuda shorts or a heavy overcoat. That is the situation on a weird, wobbly world found by NASA's planet-hun ... more		Quarks in the looking glass From matching wings on butterflies to the repeating six-point pattern of snowflakes, symmetries echo through nature, even down to the smallest building blocks of matter. Since the discovery of quark ... more
				The Anatomy of an Asteroid ESO's New Technology Telescope (NTT) has been used to find the first evidence that asteroids can have a highly varied internal structure. By making exquisitely precise measurements astronomers have ... more		Heavy Metal in the Early Cosmos Ab initio: "From the beginning." It's a term used in science to describe calculations that rely on established mathematical laws of nature, or "first principles," without additional assumptions or s ... more

Developing the Next-Generation Military Radar while Maintaining Current Systems; IDGA�s Military Radar Summit - April 2014

NASA Extends Moon Exploring Satellite Mission NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, observatory has been approved for a 28-day mission extension. The spacecraft is now expected to impact the lunar surface on or around ... more		Study Finds Early Universe "Warmed Up" Later Than Previously Theorized A new study from Tel Aviv University reveals that black holes, formed from the first stars in our universe, heated the gas throughout space later than previously thought. They also imprinted a clear ... more		Northrop Grumman Hypersonic Navigation System Exceeds Rocket Test Milestones We can build fighter jet without Germany: France's Dassault Moldova backs EU in elections marred by Russian interference		One planet, two stars: new research shows how circumbinary planets form Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine would have formed far from its current location in the Star Wars universe, a new University of Bristol study into its real world counterparts, observed by the K ... more
				Storage system for 'big data' dramatically speeds access to information As computers enter ever more areas of our daily lives, the amount of data they produce has grown enormously. But for this "big data" to be useful it must first be analyzed, meaning it needs to be st ... more		Solving a physics mystery: Those 'solitons' are really vortex rings The same physics that gives tornadoes their ferocious stability lies at the heart of new University of Washington research, and could lead to a better understanding of nuclear dynamics in studying f ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

International Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures From Space Environment

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Researchers Find Unambiguous Evidence for Coherent Phonons in Superlattices We all learn in high school science about the dual nature of light - that it exists as both waves and quantum particles called photons. It is this duality of light that enables the coherent transpor ... more		Google mystery barge may be homeless A mystery barge being built by Google on a pier at a former Navy base in the San Francisco Bay may be told to cast off. ... 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		A Proposal For The Space Debris Society Almost every constituency of the space community has a society representing the interests of that group. However, there is no such organization for those of us who are interested in space debris. If ... more
				Rice lab clocks 'hot' electrons Plasmonic nanoparticles developed at Rice University are becoming known for their ability to turn light into heat, but how to use them to generate electricity is not nearly as well understood. Scien ... more		Getting ready for asteroids With a mandate from the UN, ESA and other space agencies from around the world are about to establish a high-level group to help coordinate global response should a threatening asteroid ever be foun ... more

Countdown to Pluto

A Busy Year Begins for New Horizons

The Sounds of New Horizons

New Technique Could Be Used to Search Space Dust for Life's Ingredients

Planetary Protection: Preventing Microbes Hitchhiking to Space

Sun's closest neighbor could harbor 'superhabitable' world

Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet

One planet, two stars: new research shows how circumbinary planets form

First Weather Map of Brown Dwarf

Russia proposes water-hunting instrument for future Mars rover

NASA Mars Orbiter Examines Dramatic New Crater

MAVEN on Track to Carry Out its Science Mission

	New Technique Could Be Used to Search Space Dust for Life's Ingredients While the origin of life remains mysterious, scientists are finding more and more evidence that material created in space and delivered to Earth by comet and meteor impacts could have given a boost ... more		Riding a blue-green wake of xenon to Ceres Dawn is continuing its trek through the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Leaving behind a blue-green wake of xenon from its ion propulsion system, its sights are set on dwarf planet Cere ... more		NASA Posts Final Asteroid Workshop Report In 2013, NASA kicked off the Asteroid Redirect Mission and the Asteroid Grand Challenge, collectively known as the Asteroid Initiative. On June 18, we issued a Request for Information to seek innova ... more		Russia, US to join forces against space threats Russia and the United States will pool efforts in the creation of asteroid diversion techniques. Russian Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov said in a video link with the administrator of ... 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

First Weather Map of Brown Dwarf		Planetary Protection: Preventing Microbes Hitchhiking to Space		Rogue asteroids may be the norm		NASA to study almost absolute zero matter at ISS		Where the Wild Stars Are
Universe's early galaxies grew massive through collisions		NASA's LRO Snaps a Picture of NASA's LADEE Spacecraft		NASA and ESA Space Telescopes Help Solve Mystery of Burned-Out Galaxies		Sun's closest neighbor could harbor 'superhabitable' world		Cassini's View of Weird and Wonderful Saturn

Sole camera from NASA moon missions to be auctioned

Asteroid Diversity Points to a "Snow Globe" Solar System

Rosetta wide awake as check-up continues

NASA-Sponsored 'Disk Detective' Lets Public Search for New Planetary Nurseries

Solving a 30-year-old problem in massive star formation

UCSC Scientists Capture First Cosmic Web Filaments at Keck Observatory

River of Hydrogen Flowing through Space Seen with Green Bank Telescope

Scientists probe mystery of early 'dead' galaxies in the universe

Fujitsu returns to profit with healthy sales

Astronomers create first map of weather on nearby brown dwarf star

Astronomers say 'rogue' asteroids often found where they don't belong

From one cell to many: How did multicellularity evolve?

New results on the geologic characteristics of the Chang'e-3 exploration region

Milky Way shaken... and stirred

Rare Brown Dwarf Discovery Provides Benchmark for Future Exoplanet Research

NASA Spacecraft Take Aim At Nearby Supernova

Hubble, Hubble, Seeing Double

Black Hole Powers 'Cosmic Flashlight' Illuminating the Cosmic Web

NASA Instruments on European Comet Spacecraft Begin Countdown

Looking for a superhabitable world then try Alpha Centauri B

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