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Category: space – Page 937

Bigelow Aerospace — the Las Vegas-based company manufacturing space habitats — is starting a spinoff venture aimed at managing any modules that the company deploys into space. Called Bigelow Space Operations (BSO), the new company will be responsible for selling Bigelow’s habitats to customers, such as NASA, foreign countries, and other private companies. But first, BSO will try to figure out what kind of business exists exactly in lower Earth orbit, the area of space where the ISS currently resides.

Bigelow makes habitats designed to expand. The densely packed modules launch on a rocket and then inflate once in space, providing more overall volume for astronauts to roam around. The company already has one of its prototype habitats in orbit right now: the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, which has been attached to the International Space Station since 2016. The BEAM has proven that Bigelow’s expandable habitat technology not only works, but also holds up well against the space environment.

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How do IBM scientists keep qubits colder than outer space?

IBM quantum physicists Dr. Stefan Filipp and Dr. Andreas Fuhrer (pictured) will be discussing quantum computing live from the IBM Zurich Research Lab, and will demonstrate how they keep qubits so cold, explain why, and take your questions.

Join us on Friday, Feb. 23 at 16:00 Paris time / 10:00 am EST.

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The study of exoplanets has advanced by leaps and bounds in the past few decades. Between ground-based observatories and spacecraft like the Kepler mission, a total of 3,726 exoplanets have been confirmed in 2,792 systems, with 622 systems having more than one planet (as of Jan. 1st, 2018). And in the coming years, scientists expect that many more discoveries will be possible thanks to the deployment of next-generation missions.

These include NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and several next-generation ground based observatories. With their advanced instruments, these and other observatories are not only expected to find many more exoplanets, but to reveal new and fascinating things about them. For instance, a recent study from Columbia University indicated that it will be possible, using the Transit Method, to study surface elevations on exoplanets.

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Last year, Irish astronomy took a leap forward with the construction of the LOFAR radio telescope in Birr, Co. Offaly. Sean Mooney, who was involved in the telescope’s construction, reports on its significance for the future of astronomy.

Last year, Birr was thrust to the forefront of astronomy. What may seem a quaint and unassuming town, Birr, Co. Offaly, is steeped in astronomical history and it has regained its scientific prominence with the construction of a new telescope.

In 1842, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, began construction of a telescope on his estate, Birr Castle demesne, which would colloquially come to be known as The Leviathan. Not only was it the largest telescope in the world, it held this title for a staggering 72 years. This fact can be appreciated most in the current era of rapid technological improvements where the best of anything in the world holds the title for weeks rather than years before a better model comes along.

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This month, the power of artificial intelligence will be coming to more augmented reality developers as a leader in the game and 3D software development space and a major force behind the current school of cloud-based AI have officially announced a new partnership.

In a post on Unity’s website on Tuesday, the company revealed a partnership with computing giant IBM to launch the IBM Watson Unity SDK. This programming interface will open up new cloud-based AI services for developers to use in their applications. And, with AR and AI having become increasingly intertwined technologies, this is only good news for AR developers.

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Ninety-five new exoplanets — planets that orbit around stars other than our sun — can now be added to the long list of planets that have been discovered since the 1990s.

The discovery was made by a Danish Ph.D. student with the help of the once damaged Kepler telescope, reports ScienceNordic.

Andrew Mayo from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space) is behind the discovery, which is described in a new study.

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AUSTIN, Texas — Mining asteroids for water and other resources could someday become a trillion-dollar business, but not without astronomers to point the way.

At least that’s the view of Martin Elvis, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who’s been taking a close look at the science behind asteroid mining.

If the industry ever takes off the way ventures such as Redmond, Wash.-based Planetary Resources and California-based Deep Space Industries hope, “that opens up new employment opportunities for astronomers,” Elvis said today in Austin at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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