The Sky Tonight

March 11, 2014

Plasma plumes help shield Earth from damaging solar storms
Boston MA (SPX) Mar 10, 2014
The Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, stretches from the planet's core out into space, where it meets the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun. For the most part, the magnetosphere acts as a shield to protect the Earth from this high-energy solar activity. But when this field comes into contact with the sun's magnetic field - a process called "magnetic reconnection" - powerful electrical currents from the sun can stream into Earth's atmosphere, whipping up geomagnet ... read more

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Every red dwarf star has at least one planet Three new planets classified as habitable-zone super-Earths are amongst eight new planets discovered orbiting nearby red dwarf stars by an international team of astronomers from the UK and Chile. Th ... more		Galactic gas caused by colliding comets suggests mystery 'shepherd' exoplanet Astronomers exploring the disk of debris around the young star Beta Pictoris have discovered a compact cloud of carbon monoxide located about 8 billion miles (13 billion kilometers) from the star. T ... more		Hubble Telescope Witnesses Asteroid's Mysterious Disintegration NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has recorded the never-before-seen break-up of an asteroid into as many as 10 smaller pieces. Fragile comets, comprised of ice and dust, have been seen falling apart as ... more
				New NASA Van Allen Probes Observations Helping To Improve Space Weather Models When events in the two giant doughnuts of radiation around Earth - called the Van Allen radiation belts - cause the belts to swell and electrons to accelerate to 99 percent the speed of light, near ... more		Australia to prevent 'Gravity' space crash with lasers Australian scientists said Friday they aim to prevent a real-life version of the space disaster scenario portrayed in Oscar-winning film "Gravity" by removing extraterrestrial debris with lasers. ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Russia to launch three lunar rovers from 2016 to 2019 Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, will send three automated rovers to the moon from 2016 to 2019 as part of its plan to eventually send a manned mission to Mars, according to agency head Oleg Ostape ... more		A small step toward discovering habitable earths University of Arizona researchers snapped images of a planet outside our solar system with an Earth-based telescope using essentially the same type of imaging sensor found in digital cameras instead ... 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		Spiral galaxy spills blood and guts This new Hubble image shows spiral galaxy ESO 137-001, framed against a bright background as it moves through the heart of galaxy cluster Abell 3627. This cluster is violently ripping the spiral's e ... more
				Cassini Nears 100th Titan Flyby with a Look Back Ten years ago, we knew Titan as a fuzzy orange ball about the size of Mercury. We knew it had a nitrogen atmosphere - the only known world with a thick nitrogen atmosphere besides Earth. But what m ... more		Direct Measurement of Distant Black Hole's Spin Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's (ESA's) XMM-Newton to show a supermassive black hole six billion light years from Earth is spinning extremely r ... more

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

International Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures From Space Environment

Nuclear Supply Chain Summit - April 28-29 Greenville SC

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Critical mass not needed for supernova explosions Astronomers searching for clues about dark energy, the mysterious force that is speeding up the expansion of the Universe, have uncovered new evidence about the nature of supernovae, finding many ar ... more		Life Is Too Fast, Too Furious for Runaway Galaxy The spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 looks like a dandelion caught in a breeze in this new composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy is zooming tow ... 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		South Africa's nano-satellite encounters space debris South Africa's first nano- satellite experienced two very close encounters with defunct satellites in the past few days after three months in orbit, authorities said on Monday. The nano-satell ... more
				'Dimer molecules' aid study of exoplanet pressure, hunt for life Astronomers at the University of Washington have developed a new method of gauging the atmospheric pressure of exoplanets, or worlds beyond the solar system, by looking for a certain type of molecul ... more		Astronomers spot rare asteroid break-up Astronomers said Thursday they have witnessed the distant break-up of an asteroid, a rare event that was not caused by a violent space collision or a close encounter with the Sun. ... more

WISE Finds Thousands Of New Stars But No Planet X

New Horizons Reaches the Final 4 AU

Thanks America, New Horizons Ahead

Microbes, How Low Can You Go?

Pinwheel 'living' crystals and the origin of life

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

Every red dwarf star has at least one planet

Galactic gas caused by colliding comets suggests mystery 'shepherd' exoplanet

'Dimer molecules' aid study of exoplanet pressure, hunt for life

India's Mars mission to reach Red Planet in 200 days

Opportunity Mars Rover Exploring Murray Ridge Area

Mars Rover Oppportunity Crushing Rocks With Wheels

	Extraordinary momentum and spin discovered in evanescent light waves A team of researchers from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan has identified unexpected dynamic properties of a type of light wave called evanescent waves. These surprising ... more		Crystals ripple in response to light Light can trigger coordinated, wavelike motions of atoms in atom-thin layers of crystal, scientists have shown. The waves, called phonon polaritons, are far shorter than light waves and can be "tune ... more		Up-Converted Radio Ever worry about losing your mobile-phone reception? The problem is a weak microwave signal. The same problem hampers cosmologists looking at the early universe, a glimpse embodied in the cosmic mic ... more		Silently and patiently streaking through the main asteroid belt Continuing its daring mission to explore some of the last uncharted worlds in the inner solar system, Dawn remains on course and on schedule for its rendezvous with dwarf planet Ceres next year. ... 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

Asteroid to make close pass by Earth		Coming Around Again: Giant Sunspot Makes Third Trip Across the Sun		New fast and furious black hole found		India to send mission to probe Sun by 2020		Fat or flat: getting galaxies into shape
Hinode Views Sunspot Activity		NASA Scientists Find Evidence of Water in Meteorite		Super-Earth' may be dead worlds		What Would A Rocky Exoplanet Look Like? Atmosphere Models Seek Clues		NEOWISE Spies Its First Comet

Control circuit malfunction troubles China's Yutu

Kepler Mission Announces a Planet Bonanza, 715 New Worlds

New Record Set for Data-Transfer Speeds

SMA Unveils How Small Cosmic Seeds Grow Into Big Stars

Closest, brightest supernova in decades is also a little weird

Hubble Monitors Supernova In Nearby Galaxy M82

Microbes, How Low Can You Go?

Science publisher fooled by gibberish papers

China's Lunar Lander Still Operational

Russia to Build Equipment for European Jupiter Probe

Probing the edge of chaos

Giant sunspot seen making third trek across surface of the sun

Optimising custody is child's play for physicists

Radar Images of near-Earth Asteroid 2006 DP14

Scientists complete the top quark puzzle

Big Mechanism Seeks the "Whys" Hidden in Big Data

Water is Detected in a Planet Outside Our Solar System

Novel optical fibers transmit high-quality images

NASA cries planetary 'bonanza' with 715 new worlds

Researchers say distant quasars could close a loophole in quantum mechanics

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