The Sky Tonight

August 12, 2014

NASA's 3-D Study of Comets Reveals Chemical Factory at Work
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Aug 12, 2014
A NASA-led team of scientists has created detailed 3-D maps of the atmospheres surrounding comets, identifying several gases and mapping their spread at the highest resolution ever achieved. "We achieved truly first-of-a-kind mapping of important molecules that help us understand the nature of comets," said Martin Cordiner, a researcher working in the Goddard Center for Astrobiology at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Cordiner led the international team of researchers. ... read more

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Red Dwarf Stars Might Be Best Places to Discover Alien Life Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the universe, and nearly every one of these stars may have a planet located in its habitable zone where life has the best chance of existing, a new stu ... more		China to test recoverable moon orbiter China is preparing for the launch of an experimental recoverable moon orbiter, said the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence on Sunday. The orbiter arr ... more		Association of satellite operators joins program for space safety An international association of satellite operators has joined a U.S. Department of Defense program for data sharing for situational awareness and space safety. ... more
				China to send orbiter to moon and back China will launch its first recoverable moon orbiter later this year, the government announced Sunday, in the latest step in its ambitious space programme. ... more		Step closer to birth of the sun Researchers are a step closer to understanding the birth of the sun. Published in Science, the team led by Dr Maria Lugaro and Professor Alexander Heger, from Monash University, have investigated th ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

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

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Rotation of Planets Influences Habitability There are currently almost 2,000 extrasolar planets known to us, but most are inhospitable gas giants. Thanks to NASA's Kepler mission, a handful of smaller, rockier planets have been discovered wit ... more		Watching Schrodinger's cat die (or come to life) One of the famous examples of the weirdness of quantum mechanics is the paradox of Schrodinger's cat. If you put a cat inside an opaque box and make his life dependent on a random event, when does t ... more		Sierra Space clears design milestone for missile tracking satellites in SDA Tranche 2 Top diplomats of North Korea, China agree to oppose 'hegemonism' Elbit secures 120 million order for Hermes 900 maritime surveillance UAS		Spin Diagnostics Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is the medical application of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, is a powerful diagnostic tool. MRI works by resonantly exciting hydrogen atoms and meas ... more
				Finding quantum lines of desire Groundskeepers and landscapers hate them, but there is no fighting them. Called desire paths, social trails or goat tracks, they are the unofficial shortcuts people create between two locations when ... more		August supermoon will be brightest this year A supermoon is the term for a full moon that rises during the portion of the moon's orbit when it comes closest to Earth - the moon's perigee. ... more

Coronal Heating Theory Tested In NASA Sounding Rocket Mission Scientists have recently gathered some of the strongest evidence to date to explain what makes the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than its surface. The new observations of the small-scale ext ... more		BIOMEX: Exploring Mars in Low Earth Orbit In their quest to understand life's potential beyond Earth, astrobiologists study how organisms might survive in numerous environments, from the surface of Mars to the ice-covered oceans of Jupiter' ... more		The first animals on Earth may have been sea sponges, study suggests Small Satellite Contracted to Probe Climate Effects of Space Radiation Fengyun satellite strengthens China global weather forecasting capacity		Electrons moving in a magnetic field exhibit strange quantum behavior The dynamic behavior of electrons in magnetic fields is crucial for understanding physical processes, such as the quantum Hall effect, which are important in many areas of solid state physics, inclu ... more
IT outsourcing boom boosts struggling Bulgaria Excellent IT and language skills have helped Bulgaria's outsourcing sector boom, raising hopes that it could prop up the badly stagnating economy of the EU's poorest country. ... more		Dawn navigates mini-asteroid belt Patient and persistent, silent and alone, Dawn is continuing its extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition. Flying through the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the spacecraft is using it ... more		Probe makes space history with rendezvous with comet The space probe Rosetta made a historic rendezvous with a comet on Wednesday, climaxing a 10-year, six-billion-kilometre (3.7-billion-mile) chase through the Solar System, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. ... more		Rosetta and Philae: Profile of comet-chasing team Following is a profile of the Rosetta spacecraft, its payload Philae and the instruments they carry: ... more

	Rosetta Arrives At Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko After a decade-long journey chasing its target, ESA's Rosetta has today become the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet, opening a new chapter in Solar System exploration. Comet 67P/Chu ... more		Rosetta's Comet: Imaging the Coma Less than a week before Rosetta's rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, images obtained by OSIRIS, the spacecraft's onboard scientific imaging system, show clear signs of a coma surroundi ... more

Worlds most powerful centrifuge begins operations in China

Breakthrough in UAV swarm intelligence as SRI redefines topology mapping

China factory activity shrinks in September for sixth straight month

Scientist underlines threat of inevitable "solar super-storms"		MESSENGER Team Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Launch		Orbiter Completes Maneuver to Prepare for Comet Flyby		Planet-like object may have spent its youth as hot as a star		Baby universe picture brought closer to theory
NASA's Fermi Space Telescope Reveals New Source of Gamma Rays		A Hellacious Two Weeks on Jupiter's Moon Io		Extreme Volcanism On Io		Rosetta Takes Comet's Temperature		Center for Orbital Debris Education and Research Recruits Industrial Affiliates

Comet-chaser nears prey after crossing billions of miles

Manned Moon Mission to Cost Russia $2.8 Bln

Companion planets can increase old worlds' chance at life

Hubble Shows Farthest Lensing Galaxy Yields Clues to Early Universe

How Rosetta arrives at a comet

Perseid Meteors vs. the Supermoon

Young binary star system may form planets with weird and wild orbits

Tidal forces gave moon its shape

Mercury's magnetic field tells scientists how its interior is different from Earth's

MESSENGER Gets Closer to Mercury than Ever Before

New NASA Research Shows Giant Asteroids Battered Early Earth

Solar Probe Plus, Highest Energy Mission Ever

ALMA Finds Double Star with Weird and Wild Planet-forming Discs

NASA's IBEX and Voyager spacecraft drive advances in outer heliosphere research

Jupiter's moon Io may feature more volcanoes than previously thought

Our galaxy is way smaller than previous estimates

Astronomers measure weight of galaxies, expansion of universe

Mapping the optimal route between 2 quantum states

Scientists separate a particle from its properties

Riddle of bulging Moon solved at last

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