The Sky Tonight

July 24, 2016

BepiColombo Mission to Mercury on Track for April 2018 Launch
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jul 22, 2016
Humanity's next visitor to the solar system's innermost planet remains on track for April 2018, according to the project's scientist. The BepiColombo mission, being developed jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is currently ahead of its final acceptance tests that will prepare it for shipment to the launch site. "BepiColombo is on track for launch in 2018. At the moment we are preparing for some final acceptance tests. On our 'Mercury Trans ... read more

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Atmospheric chemistry on paper Normally computers speed up calculations. But with his new pen-and-paper formula Kevin Heng of the University of Bern gets his results thousands of times faster than using conventional computer code ... more		Weird quantum effects stretch across hundreds of miles In the world of quantum, infinitesimally small particles, weird and often logic-defying behaviors abound. Perhaps the strangest of these is the idea of superposition, in which objects can exist simu ... more		A glimpse inside the atom An electron microscope can't just snap a photo like a mobile phone camera can. The ability of an electron microscope to image a structure - and how successful this imaging will be - depends on how w ... more
				Directed Energy invites public to participate in Voices of Humanity For the first time ever, individuals will have the opportunity to send their own personal message and/or data into space via microchip. The project entitled "Voices of Humanity" is the creation of t ... more		X marks the spot at the center of the Milky Way galaxy Two astronomers - with the help of Twitter - have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that an enormous X-shaped structure made of stars lies within the central bulge of the Milky Way Galaxy. ... more

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

Russian and US engineers plan manned moon mission Engineers in Russia and the US are completing a plan for a collaborative space program. The initiative would preserve the multinational alliance developed when the International Space Station (ISS) ... more		Asteroid that formed moon's Imbrium Basin may have been protoplanet-sized Around 3.8 billion years ago, an asteroid more than 150 miles across, roughly equal to the length of New Jersey, slammed into the Moon and created the Imbrium Basin - the right eye of the fabled Man ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		First atmospheric study of Earth-sized exoplanets reveals rocky worlds On May 2, scientists from MIT, the University of Liege, and elsewhere announced they had discovered a planetary system, a mere 40 light years from Earth, that hosts three potentially habitable, Eart ... more
				Feature: ET, when will we see you Are we alone? Scientists say they are on the cusp of answering the age-old question about extraterrestrial (ET) life. "We are lucky to be in a special era, with the next generation of giant te ... more		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

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

Precise 3D Map of Galaxies Supports Standard Cosmological Model A team of researchers from the collaboration Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) have presented this week the latest results obtained from the map obtained by the consortium with data collected ... more		Why Galaxies Stop Creating Stars Astronomers have studied 70,000 galaxies across cosmic time to find out why some cease generating stars. The processes that cause galaxies to "quench," (cease star formation) are not well unde ... more		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		ALMA makes first sighting of water snow line around young star Young stars are often surrounded by dense, rotating discs of gas and dust, known as protoplanetary discs, from which planets are born. The heat from a typical young solar-type star means that the wa ... more
Gravitational vortex provides new way to study matter close to a black hole ESA's orbiting X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, has proved the existence of a 'gravitational vortex' around a black hole. The discovery, aided by NASA's NuSTAR mission, solves a mystery that has elude ... more		NASA's Kepler Confirms 100+ Exoplanets During Its K2 Mission An international team of astronomers has discovered and confirmed a treasure trove of new worlds using NASA's Kepler spacecraft on its K2 mission. Out of 197 initial planet candidates, scientists ha ... more		Gemini Observatory Instrumental in Latest Exoplanet Harvest The Gemini North telescope on Hawaii's Maunakea helped verify many of the over 100 new worlds announced in the initial crop of discoveries from the NASA K2 mission, according to Ian Crossfield of th ... more		SSTL and Goonhilly announce partnership and a call for lunar orbit payloads Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd (GES) have announced a new partnership to go beyond Earth's orbit and provide a new model of low cost, high value, space exploration a ... more

	Unconventional quasiparticles predicted in conventional crystals An international team of researchers has predicted the existence of several previously unknown types of quantum particles in materials. The particles - which belong to the class of particles known a ... more		Quantum drag Friction and drag are commonplace in nature. You experience these phenomena when riding in an airplane, pairing electrical wiring, or rubbing pieces of sandpaper together. Friction and drag al ... more

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

New Yale-developed device lengthens the life of quantum information		Australian physicists revisit spin-bowling puzzle		RMIT researchers make leap in measuring quantum states		The birth of quantum holography		Scientists generate first direct short-wavelength spin waves
World's smallest hard disk stores data atom by atom		Taiwan to make lunar lander for NASA moon-mining mission		NASA's Kepler discovers more than 104 new exoplanets		Solar Probe Plus Mission Moves into Advanced Development		Dark Energy Measured with Map of over 1 Million Galaxies

Slow Appearance of Sunspots Challenges Theory

Surface Composition Determines Planet's Temperature and Habitability

Warm Jupiters Not as Lonely as Expected

Massive 3D map of faraway galaxies to aid search for dark energy

Alma finds a swirling, cool jet that reveals a growing, supermassive black hole

If life can make it here, it can make it anywhere

Behind the scenes of protostellar disk formation

Surprise: Small elliptical galaxy actually a giant disk

Hordes of Low-Mass Objects in the Orion Nebula

NASA camera catches moon 'photobombing' Earth

Lush Venus? Searing Earth? It could have happened

Physicists collide ultracold atoms to observe key quantum principle

Supercomputers fire lasers to shoot gamma ray beam

Graduate researchers lead exoplanet discoveries

Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View

New Kind of Black Hole Now Firmly Within Observers' Sight

Accelerating research into dark energy

Team Begins Powering up Science Instruments

Researcher Calls for New Tools in Search for Extraterrestrials

Dawn Maps Ceres Craters Where Ice Can Accumulate

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