The Sky Tonight

March 25, 2015

NASA plans to bring boulder into moon orbit
Washington (AFP) March 25, 2015
NASA plans to launch a craft to capture a boulder from a nearby asteroid and move it into orbit around the Earth's moon for exploration by astronauts, the space agency said Wednesday. The mission, to be conducted in the mid-2020s, will help hone the capabilities NASA needs to send humans deeper into space, including to Mars, the agency said. "The option to retrieve a boulder from an asteroid will have a direct impact on planning for future human missions to deep space and begin a new era of spac ... read more

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Short circuit delays particle hunter machine restart A short-circuit at the world's largest proton smasher has indefinitely delayed the particle-hunting machine's planned restart, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Wednesday. ... more		Ground broken for Space Fence installation Construction of facilities for the new Space Fence radar system has been started in the Marshall Islands by the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin. ... more		Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life A meteorite may have been responsible for a water plume briefly spotted above Europa two years ago, implying it takes a very rare event to breach the ice on the Jovian moon. Astrobiologists wo ... more
				Comet 67P's Speed of Rotation Shows Signs of Slowing Down Scientists have said that Comet 67P, which is being monitored by Europe's Rosetta satellite, has started to slow down. Comet 67P, which is being monitored by the European Space Agency's Rosetta sate ... more		Surviving in hostile territory Many strange creatures live in the deep sea, but few are odder than archaea, primitive single-celled bacteria-like microorganisms. Archaea go to great lengths - eating methane or breathing sulfur or ... more

Human 2 Mars Conference Mat 5-7 2015 - Washington DC

Nuclear Decommissioning Conference Europe May 2015

Processing Paradigms That Accelerate Computer Simulations Whether designed to predict the spread of an epidemic, understand the potential impacts of climate change, or model the acoustical signature of a newly designed ship hull, computer simulations are a ... more		Want to snag a satellite? Try a net One of humanity's oldest technologies, the humble fishing net, may yet find a new role in space: bringing down dead satellites. The behaviour of nets in orbit was recently checked on an aircraft fly ... more		Muon Space joins SHIELD missile defense effort with next generation space systems role BlackSky expands Gen-3 satellite intelligence contracts worldwide Stratoship alliance charts staged path for smallsat payloads		Our Solar System May Have Once Harbored Super-Earths Long before Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars formed, it seems that the inner solar system may have harbored a number of super-Earths - planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. If so, those ... more
				Search for extraterrestrial intelligence extends to new realms Astronomers have expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence into a new realm with detectors tuned to infrared light. Their new instrument has just begun to scour the sky for messages from ... more		HAWC Observatory to Study Universe's Most Energetic Phenomena Supernovae, neutron star collisions and active galactic nuclei are among the most energetic phenomena in the known universe. These violent explosions produce high-energy gamma rays and cosmic rays, ... more

Black holes and the dark sector explained by quantum gravity Ask any theoretical physicist on what are the most profound mysteries in physics and you will be surprised if she mentions anything other than Quantum Gravity and the Dark Sector. Questions such as ... more		Rosetta makes first detection of molecular nitrogen at a comet ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has made the first measurement of molecular nitrogen at a comet, providing clues about the temperature environment in which Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko formed. Ros ... more		Bats use sound flow to steer through cluttered habitats Sentinel 2A trials reveal unexpected night sensing capability Solar cycles seen in Antarctic fast ice history		Unusual Asteroid Suspected of Spinning to Explosion A team led by astronomers from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, recently used the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to observe and measure a rare class of "active asteroids" that sponta ... more
NASA data reveals mysteries of meteor that struck Chelyabinsk New data from NASA has revealed some information about the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. ... more		The Mystery of Nanoflares When you attach the prefix "nano" to something, it usually means "very small." Solar flares appear to be the exception. Researchers are studying a type of explosion on the sun called a 'nanoflare.' ... more		Astronaut plus Proba minisats snap solar eclipse As last week's partial solar eclipse crossed Europe, it was also visible from space. ESA's Proba-2 captured a near-total eclipse from orbit, at the same time as its sister minisatellite Proba-V peer ... more		Nano piano's lullaby could mean storage breakthrough Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated the first-ever recording of optically encoded audio onto a non-magnetic plasmonic nanostructure, opening the door to ... more

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It started with a cat: How 100 years of quantum weirdness powers today's tech

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ESA's CHEOPS Satellite: The Pharaoh of Exoplanet Hunting		Million stars are forming in a mysterious dusty gas cloud		Time-lapse snapshots of a nova's fading light		Data structures influence speed of quantum search in unexpected ways		New optical materials break digital connectivity barriers
Hubble Source Catalog: One-Stop Shopping For Astronomers		Hover Campaign Promises Bird's-Eye View of Mercury's Surface		Milky Way's center unveils supernova 'dust factory'		Extent of Moon's giant volcanic eruption is revealed		Protecting Earth from space weather

Chilly Philae still slumbering, says comet mission

"Mini Supernova" Explosion Could Have Big Impact

Second natural quasicrystal found in ancient meteorite

NASA's LRO Spacecraft Finds March 17, 2013 Impact Crater and More

Milky Way may host billions of planets in 'habitable' zones: study

Extent of moon's giant volcanic eruption is revealed

Yutu Changes Everything We Thought We Knew About Our Moon

Private companies asked to join moon program

Other Asteroids Contributed Elusive Olivine to Vesta

A new way to control information by mixing light and sound

Colorful life-form catalog will help discern if we're alone

Rosetta: OSIRIS detects hints of ice in the comet's neck

Severe solar storm may disrupt power, satellites

How to watch total solar eclipse on Friday

Moon crater named for aviator Amelia Earhart

Desktop App has potential to increase asteroid detection

Astronomers to shed light on space discoveries to mark solar eclipse

Frozen highly charged ions for highest precision spectroscopy

Iron-oxidizing bacteria found along Mid-Atlantic Ridge

A second minor planet may possess Saturn-like rings

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