The Sky Tonight

July 18, 2016

Solar Probe Plus Mission Moves into Advanced Development
Laurel MD (SPX) Jul 17, 2016
NASA's first mission to "touch" the Sun has passed a critical development milestone that keeps it well on track toward its scheduled summer 2018 launch. Following a successful NASA management review on July 7, the Solar Probe Plus mission - which will send a spacecraft on several daring data-collecting runs through the Sun's atmosphere - is moving into the system assembly, integration, test and launch stage of the project. NASA terms this period as Phase D, during which the mission team will ... read more

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Dark Energy Measured with Map of over 1 Million Galaxies A team of hundreds of physicists and astronomers have announced results from the largest-ever, three-dimensional map of distant galaxies. The team constructed this map to make one of the most precis ... more		Slow Appearance of Sunspots Challenges Theory Solar active regions consist of strongly magnetic sunspots and surrounding regions of more diffuse magnetic field. These regions are the origin of solar activity which controls space weather and cau ... more		Surface Composition Determines Planet's Temperature and Habitability In the quest for habitable planets outside our solar system - also known as exoplanets - astronomers are currently focusing on rocky planets that don't look like Earth. These planets orbit so-called ... more
				Warm Jupiters Not as Lonely as Expected After analyzing four years of Kepler space telescope observations, astronomers from the University of Toronto have given us our clearest understanding yet of a class of exoplanets called "warm Jupit ... more		Massive 3D map of faraway galaxies to aid search for dark energy Dark energy - the mysterious force responsible for the expansion of the universe - remains elusive, but researchers hope a new 3D map of distant galaxies will help them finally measure it. ... more

Transition from Operations to Decommissioning by Preparing a Safe, Cost-Effective Shut Down and Waste Management Strategy

Setting a satellite to catch a satellite The target is set: a large derelict satellite currently silently tumbling its way through low orbit. If all goes to plan, in 2023 it will vanish - and efforts against space debris will have made a g ... more		If life can make it here, it can make it anywhere If the origin of life is common on other worlds, the universe should be a cosmic zoo full of complex multicellular organisms. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University astrobiologist, uses ... more		'The war of tomorrow will begin in space': Macron UN watchdog calls on Iran to urgently allow 'long overdue' uranium stockpile verification How drones are altering contemporary warfare		Behind the scenes of protostellar disk formation For a long time the formation of protostellar disks - a prerequisite to the formation of planetary system around stars - has defied theoretical astrophysicists: In a dense, collapsing cloud of gas a ... more
				Surprise: Small elliptical galaxy actually a giant disk Astronomers have believed since the 1960s that a galaxy dubbed UGC 1382 was a relatively boring, small elliptical galaxy. Ellipticals are the most common type of galaxy and lack the spiral structure ... more		Hordes of Low-Mass Objects in the Orion Nebula ESO's HAWK-I infrared instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile has been used to peer deeper into the heart of Orion Nebula than ever before. The spectacular picture reveals about ten ti ... more

2nd Integrated Air and Missile Defense - Securing the Complex Air Domain: Requirements for Sustainable, Global, and Reliable Solutions to Next Generation Air & Missile Threats - 28-30 September, 2016 | Washington D.C.

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 7-9 - Las Vegas

NASA camera catches moon 'photobombing' Earth For only the second time in a year, a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth. "For the ... more		Researcher Calls for New Tools in Search for Extraterrestrials The SETI Institute's Director of Research proposed a broader, multidisciplinary approach to the SETI search, beyond radio and optical modalities, in an article published in the journal Astrobiology. ... more		Largest modern crater identified in Chinas Holocene geology Inner core of Earth found to exist in dynamic superionic phase Carbon-rich waters are becoming even more acidic as atmospheric CO2 levels rise		Supercomputers fire lasers to shoot gamma ray beam Ever play with a magnifying lens as a kid? Imagine a lens as big as the Earth. Now focus sunlight down to a pencil tip. That still wouldn't be good enough for what some Texas scientists have in mind ... more
Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View The JunoCam camera aboard NASA's Juno mission is operational and sending down data after the spacecraft's July 4 arrival at Jupiter. Juno's visible-light camera was turned on six days after Juno fir ... more		Team Begins Powering up Science Instruments The engineers and scientists working on NASA's Juno mission have been busying themselves, getting their newly arrived Jupiter orbiter ready for operations around the largest planetary inhabitant in ... more		Dawn Maps Ceres Craters Where Ice Can Accumulate Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission have identified permanently shadowed regions on the dwarf planet Ceres. Most of these areas likely have been cold enough to trap water ice for a billion years, su ... more		Physicists discover family of tetraquarks Physicists in the Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences have made science history by confirming the existence of a rare four-quark particle and discovering evidence of three other "exotic ... more

	Physicists collide ultracold atoms to observe key quantum principle Physicists from New Zealand's University of Otago have used steerable 'optical tweezers' to split minute clouds of ultracold atoms and slowly smash them together to directly observe a key theoretica ... more		Alma finds a swirling, cool jet that reveals a growing, supermassive black hole A Chalmers-led team of astronomers have used the Alma telescope to make the surprising discovery of a jet of cool, dense gas in the centre of a galaxy located 70 million light years from Earth. The ... more

Rise of the robots: the promise of physical AI

Amazon robotics lead casts doubt on eye-catching humanoids

'Western tech dominance fading' at Lisbon's Web Summit

Lush Venus? Searing Earth? It could have happened		Graduate researchers lead exoplanet discoveries		New Kind of Black Hole Now Firmly Within Observers' Sight		Accelerating research into dark energy		Space Debris Solutions - Revisited
Study Explains Why Galaxies Stop Creating Stars		A new look at the galaxy-shaping power of black holes		Chemical trail on Titan may be key to prebiotic conditions		Hitomi Finds Quiet Space in the Heart of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster		Exploring a Frozen Extrasolar World

Zooming In on Why Some Quasars Turn Down the Radio

Teenagers at Keele University Discover Possible New Exoplanet

A surprising planet with three suns

Hubble reveals stellar fireworks in 'skyrocket' galaxy

Discovery of Gravitational Waves - What Comes Next

Researchers Help Explain How Stars Are Born, Cosmic Structures Evolve

Chemical Trail Could Lead To Clues About Life On Titan

Accelerating Research into Dark Energy

Aftermath of Star Being Swallowed by Supermassive Black Hole

ORNL scientists isolate, culture elusive Yellowstone microbe

OrbitOutlook integrates diverse network to help avoid collisions in space

The energy spectrum of particles will help make out black holes

Chance Microlensing Events Probe Galaxy Cores

Elite Team to Consider New Approaches to Asteroid Danger

Rosetta Finale Set for 30 September

Jupiter on a bench

Researchers find human development's first gear

Large Hadron Collider finds three new particles, confirms fourth

The switch that could double USB memory

Triple external quantum efficiencies - a new material TADF was developed

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