The Sky Tonight

June 23, 2014

NASA considers sending quadcopter drone to look for life on Titan
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Jun 23, 2014
While one NASA probe whizzes by Saturn's moon Titan on Thursday to analyze its atmosphere, the American space agency is also considering a plan to send a quadcopter drone capable of searching for life. The ambitious idea was outlined by Larry Matthies, a research scientist and supervisor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California, and involves a drone that would be capable of flying out of a lander or balloon. The drone would explore the moon's landscape and seas, collect samples, and return to th ... read more

Previous Issues

Jun 21

Jun 20

Jun 19

Jun 18

Jun 17

Astronomers pierce galactic clouds to shine light on black hole development An international team of scientists including a Virginia Tech physicist have discovered that winds blowing from a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy work to obscure observations and x-rays. ... more		Cosmic Impacts May Help Create Suitable Habitat for Life Cosmic impacts are known to trigger mass extinctions on Earth. However, a new study adds to evidence that asteroid and cometary bombardment can also shelter life by generating pores in rocks that sh ... more		Titan Flybys Test the Talents of NASA's Cassini Team As NASA's Cassini spacecraft zooms toward Saturn's smoggy moon Titan for a targeted flyby on June 18, mission scientists are excitedly hoping to repeat a scientific tour de force that will provide v ... more
				Laser Physics upside down At the Vienna University of Technology a system of coupled lasers has been created which exhibits truly paradoxical behaviour: An increase in energy supply switches the lasers off, reducing the ener ... more		Quantum mechanism triggers emission of tunable light at terahertz levels Scientists have found that two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures with asymmetric design enable a new quantum mechanism, triggering the emission of tunable light at terahertz frequencies-with unprecede ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

William Cress Corporation - We Build To Last

UAV Payloads 2014, 24 - 25 June - London, UK

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

With light echoes, the invisible becomes visible Scientists at the University of Bonn and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) have developed a novel camera system which can see around the corner without using a mirror. Using dif ... more		Horizontal levitation: the ultimate solution to particle separation Magnetic separators exploit the difference in magnetic properties between minerals, for example when separating magnetite from quartz. But this exercise becomes considerably more complex when the pa ... more		EU leaders plot defence boost in shadow of Denmark drones Germany wants to allow military to shoot down drones Leaked info: China's Taiwan invasion plans get help from Russia		Big Bang breakthrough team allows they may be wrong American astrophysicists who announced just months ago what they deemed a breakthrough in confirming how the universe was born now admit they may have got it wrong. ... more
				Hubble Finds Dwarf Galaxies Formed Large Share of Universe's Stars They may be little, but they pack a big star-forming punch. New observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show small galaxies, also known as dwarf galaxies, are responsible for forming a large ... more		Swiftly Moving Gas Streamer Eclipses Supermassive Black Hole An international team of astronomers, using data from several NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) space observatories, has discovered unexpected behavior from the supermassive black hole at the hea ... more

Startup in the Land of the Rising Sun; A Japanese Solar Venture - by Bradley L. Bartz

NASA's Swift Satellite Tallies Water Production of Mars-bound Comet In late May, NASA's Swift satellite imaged comet Siding Spring, which will brush astonishingly close to Mars later this year. These optical and ultraviolet observations are the first to reveal how r ... more		Mega-Earth in Draco Smashes Notions of Planetary Formation Worlds like this one aren't supposed to exist. In Draco the Dragon-the 8th largest constellation in our sky-there exists asolid planet weighing close to 17 times as much as Earth. This announcement ... more		Philippines quake kills dozens as injured overwhelm hospitals Typhoon Bualoi inflicts death, lasting floods on Vietnam Moldova backs EU in elections marred by Russian interference		NASA Announces Latest Progress in Hunt for Asteroids NASA is on the hunt for an asteroid to capture with a robotic spacecraft, redirect to a stable orbit around the moon, and send astronauts to study in the 2020s - all on the agency's human Path to M ... more
Hunt for extraterrestrial life gets massive methane boost A powerful new model to detect life on planets outside of our solar system, more accurately than ever before, has been developed by UCL (University College London) researchers. The new model focuses ... more		New molecules around old stars Using ESA's Herschel space observatory, astronomers have discovered that a molecule vital for creating water exists in the burning embers of dying Sun-like stars. When low- to middleweight sta ... more		Trapping light: a long lifetime in a very small place Physicists at the University of Rochester have created a silicon nanocavity that allows light to be trapped longer than in other similarly-sized optical cavities. An innovative design approach, whic ... more		Crowdsourcing the phase problem Compared with humans, computers have the capacity to solve problems at much greater speed. There are many problems, however, where computational speed alone is insufficient to find a correct or opti ... more

	NASA LRO's Moon As Art Collection Is Revealed The Lunar Reconnaissance team has marked the fifth anniversary of the lunar explorer's mission. LRO launched from Florida on June 18, 2009. After a four-day journey, the orbiter successfully entered ... more		Solar photons drive water off the moon Water is thought to be embedded in the moon's rocks or, if cold enough, "stuck" on their surfaces. It's predominantly found at the poles. But scientists probably won't find it intact on the sunlit s ... more

Worlds most powerful centrifuge begins operations in China

Physicists tighten the net on elusive dark matter

SATNUS completes third NGWS flight campaign with autonomous systems integration

Cosmic Collision In The Bullet Group		The Role Of Amateur Astronomers In Rosetta's Mission		Messenger Spots Giant Space Weather Effects at Mercury		Hydrothermal Vents Could Explain Chemical Precursors to Life		SanDisk buys storage rival Fusion-io for $1.6 bn
Experts cast doubt on Big Bang bolstering discovery		Manipulating and Detecting Ultrahigh Frequency Sound Waves		NASA Experiments Recreate Aromatic Flavors of Titan		Active particles may enhance phase separation		Long-range tunneling of quantum particles

Viewing deeper into the quantum world

Radio Signals from Jupiter Could Aid Search for Life

Herschel Sees Budding Stars and a Giant, Strange Ring

Giant Telescopes Pair Up to Image Near-Earth Asteroid

Massive solar flares threaten GPS

Sun shoots off third solar flare in two days

The solar wind breaks through the Earth's magnetic field

Solar Mini-Max

NASA Instruments on Rosetta Start Comet Science

NASA's warp-speed mission leads to Star Trek-like spacecraft concept

Mining Data Archives Yields Haul of Red Nuggets

Arrival and Departure at Phoebe

Nearby satellite galaxies don't fit standard model

Gigantic Explosion Buried in Dust: ALMA Probes Environment around Gamma Ray Bursts

Gigantic explosions buried in dust

Could Exomoons Give False Positives In Search For Life?

Grand Swirls from NASA's Hubble

Mercury Passes in Front of the Sun, as Seen From Mars

55-year old dark side of the moon mystery solved

Kepler space telescope ready to start new hunt for exoplanets

Free Newsletters - Space - Defense - Environment - Energy

Buy Advertising

Media Advertising Kit

Editorial & Other Enquiries

Privacy statement

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.