The Sky Tonight

July 23, 2015

NASA discovers closest Earth-twin yet
Miami (AFP) July 23, 2015
Astronomers hunting for another Earth have found the closest match yet, a potentially rocky planet circling its star at the same distance as our home orbits the Sun, NASA said Thursday. Named Kepler 452b, the planet is about 60 percent larger than Earth. It could have active volcanoes, oceans, sunshine like ours, twice as much gravity and a year that lasts 385 days, scientists said. "Today we are announcing the discovery of an exoplanet that, as far we can tell, is a pretty good close cousin to ... read more

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New Method Finds Best Candidates for Telescope Time If life exists on planets beyond our Solar System, its presence could be obscured by the haze and clouds in the planet's atmosphere. Even next generation telescopes - such as the James Webb Space Te ... more		Airbus DS to build JUICE, ESA's next life-tracker inside the Solar System The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Airbus Defence and Space as the prime contractor to develop and build the JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) spacecraft. JUICE is the first large mission ... more		Japan space scientists hunting for new asteroid name Japanese space scientists are on the hunt for a new name for an asteroid that may contain the secret of life, with a public competition beginning Wednesday. ... more
				Dawn Maneuvering to Third Science Orbit NASA's Dawn spacecraft is using its ion propulsion system to descend to its third mapping orbit at Ceres, and all systems are operating well. The spiral maneuvering over the next five weeks will tak ... more		After 85-year search, massless particle with promise for next-generation electronics found An international team led by Princeton University scientists has discovered Weyl fermions, an elusive massless particle theorized 85 years ago. The particle could give rise to faster and more effici ... more

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

Nuclear Decommissioning And Used Fuel Market 2015

Solar systems for home and business installations

Bristol researchers revisit two-ball bounce problem As any high-schooler will attest, there is no shortage of ways to demonstrate the frustrating complexities of physics. But one problem stands out as a favorite for showcasing physics' counterintuities - the two-ball bounce problem. ... more		Weyl points: Wanted for 86 years Weyl points, the 3D analogues of the structures that make graphene exceptional, were theoretically predicted in 1929. Today, an international team of Physicists from MIT and Zhejiang University, fou ... 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		Technique may reveal the age of moon rocks during spaceflight Researchers are developing instruments and methods for measuring the ages of rocks encountered during space missions to the Moon or other planets. Many of the techniques used to date rocks on Earth ... more
				Can solar events trigger birth defects on Earth Studies find airplane crews at high altitude are exposed to potentially harmful levels of radiation from cosmic rays. "Neutrons which don't reach the ground do reach airline altitude," said Adrian M ... more		Smithsonian embraces crowdfunding to preserve lunar spacesuit The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum turned to Kickstarter on Monday to raise $500,000 to restore the spacesuit that Neil Armstrong wore when he became the first man to walk on the moon. ... more

Nuclear Operations and Maintenance Efficiency Summit USA 2015

Robot lab Philae 'silent', says concerned ground control Europe's robot lab Philae has fallen "silent" on the surface of a comet zipping towards the Sun, said ground controllers Monday who fear it may have shifted out of radio contact. ... more		The Planetary Sweet Spot Planet Earth is situated in what astronomers call the Goldilocks Zone - a sweet spot in a solar system where a planet's surface temperature is neither too hot nor too cold. An ideal distance from a ... 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		Preparing to build ESA's Jupiter mission Airbus Defence and Space in France has been selected as the prime industrial contractor for ESA's Juice mission to Jupiter and its icy moons. The agency's Industrial Policy Committee approved the aw ... more
Arecibo Observatory Provides The First Detailed Images Of A Rare Asteroid Scientists from the Arecibo Observatory observed asteroid (436724) 2011 UW158 on Tuesday, July 14th, providing the first detailed images of this asteroid from 6.9 million kilometers away (4.3 millio ... more		Green Bank Joins 'Breakthrough Listen' to Accelerate SETI Search The National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) will join in the most powerful, comprehensive, and intensive scientific search ever for signs of intelligent life in the Universe. The in ... more		Berkeley in $100 million search for extraterrestrial intelligence he Breakthrough Prize Foundation and its founder, internet investor Yuri Milner, have signed a contract with UC Berkeley to lead a major escalation in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, o ... more		ARIEL mission to reveal 'Brave New Worlds' among exoplanets An ambitious European mission is being planned to answer fundamental questions about how planetary systems form and evolve. ARIEL will investigate the atmospheres of several hundreds planets orbitin ... more

	NASA Sets Sights on Robot-Built Moon Colony It may not be quite Earth-like enough to be habitable, but the Moon is our closest planetary body, and that proximity would make it ideal for an extraplanetary base of operations. NASA is now seriou ... more		Old astronomic riddle on the way to be solved Scientists at the University of Basel were able to identify for the first time a molecule responsible for the absorption of starlight in space: the positively charged Buckminsterfullerene, or so-cal ... 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

Sun's activity controls Greenland temperatures		Paranal and La Palma sites compete for massive gamma ray telescope array		ISS astronauts dodge flying Russian space debris		Mass map shines light on dark matter		Football Shaped Asteroid Observed by Students at NAIC/NRAO
Jupiter twin discovered around solar twin		Astronomers bring a new hope to find 'Tatooine' planets		Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life		Why we live on Earth and not Venus		Barnacles Explain Life at the Extreme

Finding the origins of life in a drying puddle

Drawing a line between quantum and classical world

CSIRO strikes deal for ET search

Lick Observatory Joins Massive Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe

The quantum physics of artificial light harvesting

Syracuse physicists confirm existence of rare pentaquarks discovery

Law governing anomalous heat conduction revealed

A Dark Matter bridge in our cosmic neighborhood

Summer School radar obs shine new light on near-Earth asteroid

Why do puddles stop spreading?

Revealed: Positronium's behavior in particle billiards

More precise estimate of Avogadro's number to help redefine kilogram

Major development in the understanding of macroscopic quantum behavior

Constant change

An elusive molecule -- finally revealed

Researcher devises method to untangle, analyze 'controlled chaos'

Clay sheets stack to form proton conductors

What happens when cosmic giants meet galactic dwarfs?

New method of quantum entanglement packs vastly more data in a photon

Clues to inner atomic life from subtle light-emission shifts

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