The Sky Tonight

May 15, 2015

Ether Compounds Could Work like DNA On Oily Worlds
Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 15, 2015
In the search for life beyond Earth, scientists have justifiably focused on water because all biology as we know it requires this fluid. A wild card, however, is whether alternative liquids can also suffice as life-enablers. For example, Saturn's frigid moon Titan is awash in inky seas of the hydrocarbon methane. Here on warm, watery Earth, the molecules DNA and RNA serve as the blueprints of life, containing creatures' genetic instruction manuals. An immense family of proteins carries out these i ... read more

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The weakest magnetic field in the solar system Magnetic fields easily penetrate matter. Creating a space practically devoid of magnetic fields thus presents a great challenge. An international team of physicists has now developed a shielding tha ... more		Comet Wild 2: A window into the birth of the solar system Our solar system, and other planetary systems, started as a disk of microscopic dust, gas, and ice around the young Sun. The amazing diversity of objects in the solar system today - the planets, moo ... more		Asteroid Distant 'Flyby' Thursday An asteroid, designated 1999 FN53, will safely pass more than 26 times the distance of Earth to the moon on May 14. To put it another way, at its closest point, the asteroid will get no closer than ... more
				Mercury's core dynamo present early in planet's history The Messenger spacecraft, which crash-landed into Mercury just a few days ago, found traces of magnetization in Mercury's crust, a new study reports. The presence of residual magnetization pro ... more		Probing the secrets of the universe inside a metal box The Standard Model of particle physics, sometimes called "The Theory of Almost Everything," is the best set of equations to date that describes the universe's fundamental particles and how they inte ... more

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Long Beach CA - May 19-21, 2015

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 9 - Las Vegas

Next Generation Integrated ISR 2015 - Washington DC - July 27-29

Telescope-Laser Cannons to Clean Up Dangerous Space Junk The low Earth orbit is filled with what amounts to an outer space junk yard, left behind by decades of discarded satellites, collisions, and debris. And now Operation Orbital Clean House is aiming t ... more		Delta Cephei's hidden companion To measure distances in the Universe, astronomers use Cepheids, a family of variable stars whose luminosity varies with time. Their role as distance calibrators has brought them attention from resea ... more		EU states to hold talks on 'drone wall' to protect bloc Denmark military intel fails to identify source of drone flights Lithuania eases rules on shooting down drones		NASA Awards Study Contract To Deep Space Industries NASA has selected Deep Space Industries (DSI) for two contracts devoted to developing critical technologies for utilizing asteroid resources. One will support the development of asteroid regolith si ... more
				Europa's Mystery Dark Material Could Be Sea Salt NASA laboratory experiments suggest the dark material coating some geological features of Jupiter's moon Europa is likely sea salt from a subsurface ocean, discolored by exposure to radiation. The p ... more		MESSENGER reveals Mercury's magnetic field secrets New data from MESSENGER, the spacecraft that orbited Mercury for four years before crashing into the planet a week ago, reveals Mercury's magnetic field is almost four billion years old. The discove ... more

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

Weather forecasts for planets beyond our solar system "Cloudy for the morning, turning to clear with scorching heat in the afternoon." While this might describe a typical late-summer day in many places on Earth, it may also apply to planets outside our ... more		Measurement of a single nuclear spin in biological samples Physicists of the University of Basel and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute were able to show for the first time that the nuclear spins of single molecules can be detected with the help of magnetic pa ... more		NASA ISRO radar satellite beams first Earth images from space Morocco High Atlas whistle language strives for survival China warns Papua New Guinea over Australian defence deal		NSF and CERN sign new partnership for finding particles A new agreement between the United States and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) will pave the way for renewed collaboration in particle physics, promising to yield new insights i ... more
Quantum-mechanical monopoles discovered Researchers at Aalto University (Finland) and Amherst College (USA) have observed a point-like monopole in a quantum field itself for the first time. This discovery connects to important characteris ... more		Milky Way may have four spiral arms Evidence suggests the Milky Way galaxy has an additional two spiral arms. That makes four. ... more		DARPA developing zoom lens to spot distant space objects more clearly Imaging of Earth from satellites in space has vastly improved in recent years. But the opposite challenge-using Earth-based systems to find, track and provide detailed characterization of satellites ... more		Galactic Gold Rush: Asteroid Mining to Start This Summer Asteroid mining may not be the stuff of sci-fi flicks for long, as one company prepares to launch its first exploratory satellite from the International Space Station in July. Planetary Resources is ... more

	Ceres Animation Showcases Bright Spots The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are better resolved in a new sequence of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 3 and 4, 2015. The images were taken from a distance of 8 ... more		Getting Down to Science at Ceres Dawn's assignment when it embarked on its extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition in 2007 can be described quite simply: explore the two most massive uncharted worlds in the inner solar system. It ... more

JUNO begins decade-long mission to probe neutrino mysteries

SFL Missions to Deliver Spacecraft Buses for HawkEye 360 RF Signal Detection Expansion

Voyager debuts first space based multi cloud region to advance orbital data processing

Space debris from satellite explosion increases collision risk for space craft		Zooming in on an individual orbiting electron		AKARI far-infrared all-sky data released		Bringing high-energy particle detection in from the cold		Attosecond physics: A new gateway to the microcosmos
Quantum mechanical helium trio		NASA's LRO Moves Closer to the Lunar Surface		New bid to contact Europe's comet probe		Meteors from Halley's Comet		Astronomers detect drastic atmospheric change in super Earth

Saturn Moon's Activity Could Be 'Curtain Eruptions'

Astrophysicists offer proof that famous image shows forming planets

Star Explosion is Lopsided, Finds NASA's NuSTAR

A hot start to the origin of life

Astronomers unveil the farthest galaxy

Geochemical process on Saturn's moon linked to life's origin

European Space Agency Director Wants to Set Up a Moon Base

Hubble finds massive halo around the Andromeda Galaxy

Ancient Star Raises Prospects of Intelligent Life

Astrobiology Students Use Art to Develop Critical Thinking Skills

Proto super star cluster - a cosmic 'dinosaur egg' about to hatch

Sounding rocket unveils makeup of a supernova remnant

Dark-Matter Labs Become Subterranean Centers for Science

Eta Aquarid meteor shower to hit its peak, debris from Halley's Comet viewable worldwide

Game theory elucidates the collective behavior of bosons

PSI Researchers Look Back at Mercury MESSENGER Accomplishments

Cyclotron radiation from single electrons measured directly for first time

Towards the realization of a global neutrino infrastructure

The Dark Matter 'conspiracy'

NASA's Chandra Suggests Black Holes Gorging at Excessive Rates

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