Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 219

Aug 19, 2022

Surprising attractiveness of hurdle to developing safe, clean and carbon-free energy

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, space

Scientists have discovered the remarkable impact of reversing a standard method for combatting a key obstacle to producing fusion energy on Earth. Theorists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have proposed doing precisely the opposite of the prescribed procedure to sharply improve future results.

Tearing holes in plasma

The problem, called “locked tearing modes,” occurs in all today’s tokamaks, doughnut-shaped magnetic facilities designed to create and control the virtually unlimited fusion power that drives the sun and stars. The instability-caused modes rotate with the hot, charged — the fourth state of matter composed of free electrons and that fuels —and tear holes called islands in the magnetic field that confines the gas, allowing the leakage of key heat.

Aug 19, 2022

Artemis 1 virtual reality experience aims to bring epic NASA moon launch to you

Posted by in categories: space, virtual reality

An immersive, virtual reality experience will put viewers next to the launch pad as Artemis 1 lifts off for the moon. The mission is scheduled for Aug. 29.

Aug 19, 2022

8.5km-Wide Impact Crater Found at the Bottom of the Atlantic Ocean

Posted by in category: space

The impact crater which measures 8.5km in width, is believed to have been caused by a massive asteroid measuring around 400 meters in width.

Aug 19, 2022

NASA finds a new MOON orbiting an asteroid 480m miles from Earth

Posted by in category: space

The newly-found, three-mile-wide natural satellite orbits the 17-mile-wide asteroid Polymele, which is about 480 million miles from Earth.

Aug 19, 2022

Voyager, NASA’s Longest-Lived Mission, Logs 45 Years in Space

Posted by in category: space

Launched in 1977, the twin Voyager probes are NASA’s longest-operating mission and the only spacecraft ever to explore interstellar space.

Aug 19, 2022

Could CERN open a portal to… somewhere? (anywhere?)

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

For general readers:

Is it possible that the particle physicists hard at work near Geneva, Switzerland, at the laboratory known as CERN that hosts the Large Hadron Collider, have opened a doorway or a tunnel, to, say, another dimension? Could they be accessing a far-off planet orbiting two stars in a distant galaxy populated by Jedi knights? Perhaps they have opened the doors of Europe to a fiery domain full of demons, or worse still, to central Texas in summer?

Mortals and Portals.

Aug 18, 2022

Can we breathe on Mars? Is Europa habitable? What NASA’s work reveals about humanity’s future

Posted by in categories: futurism, space

Aug 18, 2022

Schrödinger Was Wrong: New Research Overturns 100-Year-Old Understanding of Color Perception

Posted by in categories: computing, mathematics, space

A paradigm shift away from the 3D mathematical description developed by Schrödinger and others to describe how we see color could result in more vibrant computer displays, TVs, textiles, printed materials, and more.

New research corrects a significant error in the 3D mathematical space developed by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger and others to describe how your eye distinguishes one color from another. This incorrect model has been used by scientists and industry for more than 100 years. The study has the potential to boost scientific data visualizations, improve televisions, and recalibrate the textile and paint industries.

Continue reading “Schrödinger Was Wrong: New Research Overturns 100-Year-Old Understanding of Color Perception” »

Aug 17, 2022

A strong geomagnetic storm is heading toward Earth, space forecasters say

Posted by in category: space

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a geomagnetic storm watch triggered by “coronal mass ejections” that may briefly disrupt satellite communications — and create a stunning aurora display — this week.

Aug 17, 2022

Wireless tech measures soil moisture at multiple depths in real time

Posted by in categories: energy, food, space

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a wireless system that uses radio transmitters and receivers to estimate soil moisture in agricultural fields at multiple depths in real time, improving on existing technologies that can be used to inform irrigation practices that both improve crop yield and reduce water consumption.

“Estimating is important because it can be used by growers to irrigate their fields more efficiently—only irrigating fields when and where the water is needed,” says Usman Mahmood Khan, first author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at NC State. “This both conserves and supports things like smart agriculture technologies, such as automated irrigation systems. What’s more, conserving water resources can also help reduce , because less energy is used to pump water through the irrigation system.”

The new technology, called Contactless Moisture Estimation (CoMEt), does not require any in-ground sensors. Instead, CoMEt assesses soil moisture using something called “phase,” which is a characteristic of radio waves that is affected by both the wavelength of the radio waves and the distance between the radio wave’s transmitter and the wave’s receiver.