March 24, 2006, 0:09 AM CT

European Robotics Under The Spotlight

The European Robotic Arm (ERA) will be delivered to Russia this summer in preparation for a launch to the ISS in 2007. ESA and Dutch Space have organised the European Robotics Media Day for 5 April to provide the media with the opportunity to become acquainted with ERA and the engineers behind this ambitious project.

After its launch in November 2007, the 11-metre long robotic arm will perform a variety of tasks outside the ISS. With the ability to move up to 8 tonnes of equipment, ERA will play a key role in the continued construction of the ISS and will be used to move experimental equipment to different external locations. In addition, ERA will be used to move astronauts and cosmonauts around during spacewalks and use its video cameras to carry out inspections of external space station surfaces. ERA therefore has an important role to play in the maintenance and scientific utilisation of the ISS.

These uses of ERA highlight the impact that robotics has on human spaceflight missions. Robotic equipment can be used to undertake certain work in the harsh environment of space that is not suitable or possible to be carried out by astronauts, and also assists astronauts in a range of tasks to help reduce the amount of time needed for spacewalk activities.

Along with the European Columbus laboratory and the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), ERA is one of ESA's main contributions to the ISS. With its seven joints and an impressive concentration of tools and electronics, the robotic arm has the flexibility to move hand-over- hand between fixed base points around the Russian segment of the International Space Station in order to perform its tasks. This flexibility is added to by the fact that ERA can be operated from inside or outside the ISS and can be controlled either in real-time or pre-programmed.........

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March 24, 2006, 0:02 AM CT

New Test Of General Relativity?

Researchers funded by the European Space Agency have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Under certain special conditions the effect is much larger than expected from general relativity and could help physicists to make a significant step towards the long-sought-after quantum theory of gravity.

Just as a moving electrical charge creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. As per Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the effect is virtually negligible. However, Martin Tajmar, ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Austria; Clovis de Matos, ESA-HQ, Paris; and his colleagues have measured the effect in a laboratory.

Their experiment involves a ring of superconducting material rotating up to 6 500 times a minute. Superconductors are special materials that lose all electrical resistance at a certain temperature. Spinning superconductors produce a weak magnetic field, the so-called London moment. The new experiment tests a conjecture by Tajmar and de Matos that explains the difference between high-precision mass measurements of Cooper-pairs (the current carriers in superconductors) and their prediction via quantum theory. They have discovered that this anomaly could be explained by the appearance of a gravitomagnetic field in the spinning superconductor (This effect has been named the Gravitomagnetic London Moment by analogy with its magnetic counterpart).........

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March 23, 2006, 11:57 PM CT

Chandra Finds Evidence For Quasar Ignition

New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory may provide clues to how quasars "turn on." Since the discovery of quasars over 40 years ago, astronomers have been trying to understand the conditions surrounding the birth of these immensely powerful objects.

Hot, X-ray producing regions around two distant quasars observed by Chandra are thought to have formed during their activation. These features are located tens of thousands of light years from the central supermassive black holes thought to power the quasars.

"The X-ray features are likely shock waves that could be a direct result of the turning on of the quasar about 4 billion years ago," said Alan Stockton of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and lead author of a report on this work published recently in The Astrophysical Journal.

The quasars, 4C37.43 and 3C249.1, showed no evidence for the existence of a much larger envelope of hot gas around the features, nor were the observed X-ray regions associated with radio waves from the quasars. These factors rule out possible explanations for the X-ray emitting clouds, such as the cooling of hot intergalactic gas, or heating by high-energy jets from the quasars.

The best explanation for our observations is that a burst of star formation, or the activation of the quasar itself, is driving an enormous amount of gas away from the quasar's host galaxy at extremely high speeds," said Hai Fu, a coauthor of the study who is also from the University of Hawaii.........

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March 23, 2006, 11:30 PM CT

New Map Of Milky Way

A team of astronomers from Boston University's Institute for Astrophysical Research has produced the clearest map to-date of the giant gas clouds in the Milky Way that serve as the birthplaces of stars. Using a powerful telescope, the astronomers tracked emissions of a rare form of carbon monoxide called 13CO to chart a portion of our home galaxy and its star-forming molecular clouds.

The researchers hope the new illustration will aid in the identification of additional clouds and study of their internal structure to better understand the origin of stars like the sun, which began its life in such a cloud about 5 billion years ago. The data and images are published in the recent issue of the Astrophysical Journal Supplement.

The eight-year project, called the Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory (FCRAO) Galactic Ring Survey (GRS), was led by a team of astronomers based at BU, the University of Cologne in Germany, and the University of Massachusetts.

To produce the detailed image, the astronomers mapped the location of 13CO in the Milky Way using a large radio telescope operated by the FCRAO of the University of Massachusetts that captures and images radio emissions at a frequency near 100,000 MHz - about 1,000 times higher than FM stations. When viewed in the emission from 13CO, the clouds are far more transparent than the more traditionally studied 12CO which allowed the team to peer more deeply into their interior.........

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March 22, 2006, 11:22 PM CT

Space Tool For Clean Drinking Water

As per the UN, safe drinking water remains inaccessible for about 1.1 billion people in the world. To address this global dilemma, the UN Millennium Development pledged at the World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002 to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.

Meeting this goal will demand reliable, current data and information about how much water is stored in large lakes, rivers and reservoirs around the world - which radar altimetry can provide.

In the past, hydrological information could often be difficult to obtain by ground-based gauge instruments due to the inaccessibility of the region, the sparse distribution of gauge stations or the slow dissemination of data due to national policy.

Radar altimetry can avoid these obstacles because it is located on satellites 800 to 1300 kilometres above the Earth and is able to measure large lakes' surface water height to two centimetres accuracy and rivers to ten centimetres by sending 1800 separate radar pulses over bodies of water per second and recording how long their echoes take to bounce back. In addition, these data are available in near-real time.

Today there are several teams in the world involved in radar altimetry over inland water, using satellite data from ESA, NASA and the French Space Agency (CNES). Hydrologists from each of these research teams met at the '15 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry' symposium, organised by ESA and the French Space Agency (CNES) in Venice Lido, Italy, from 13-18 March 2006, to discuss the abilities of past and current altimeters for monitoring the Earth's changing inland water resources.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

March 22, 2006, 11:14 PM CT

European Space Camp

If you are interested in space and science, aged between 17 and 20 and would enjoy the experience of launching your own rocket, then apply to take part in this summer's European Space Camp, to be held in northern Norway at the Andøya Rocket Range.

Students from all over the world interested in physics, space and electronics can apply to take part in the summer camp which takes place from 28 July to 6 August. The course and accommodation are provided but students have to pay for, and make, their own travel arrangements.

The 25 lucky students selected will spend a week building their own rocket and attending lectures in subjects correlation to rocket science. The summer space camp is organised by the Norwegian Association of Young Researchers and the National Centre for Space Related Education in cooperation with ESA and the Andøya Rocket Range.

During the European Space Camp, participants will work in small groups and be responsible for their own part of the rocket campaign. This will consist of electronics and payload, rocket system design and trajectory calculations, instrument development and telemetry. Guided by professionals, the students will be able to use the advanced equipment at the rocket range.

Well-known scientists and engineers will also give lectures on topics such as rocket aerodynamics and ballistics, the plasma universe, GPS systems, how the Earth is influenced by space and the Grand Unified Theory. During the week ESA staff will also provide information on ESA programmes open to students.........

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March 21, 2006, 10:28 PM CT

Resisting Radiation

In Star Wars and Star Trek movies, people travel between planets and galaxies with ease. But our future in space is far from assured. Issues of hyperdrive and wormholes aside, it doesn't seem possible that the human body could withstand extended exposure to the harsh radiation of outer space.

Radiation comes from a number of sources. Light from the sun produces a range of wavelengths from long-wave infrared to short-wavelength ultraviolet (UV). Background radiation in space is composed of high-energy X-rays, gamma rays and cosmic rays, which all can play havoc with the cells in our bodies. Since such ionizing radiation easily penetrates spacecraft walls and spacesuits, astronauts today must limit their time in space. But being in outer space for even a short time greatly increases their odds of developing cancer, cataracts, and other radiation-related health problems.

To overcome this problem, we may find some useful tips in nature. A number of organisms already have devised effective strategies to protect themselves from radiation.

Lynn Rothschild of the NASA Ames Research Center says that radiation has always been a danger for life on Earth, and so life had to find ways to cope with it. This was particularly important during the Earth's earliest years, when the ingredients for life were first coming together. Because our planet did not initially have much oxygen in the atmosphere, it also lacked an ozone (O3) layer to block out harmful radiation. This is one reason why a number of believe life originated underwater, since water can filter out the more damaging wavelengths of light.........

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March 21, 2006, 10:08 PM CT

Migration Of Giant Protoplanets

In an article would be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, two British astronomers present new numerical simulations of how planetary systems form. They find that, in the early stages of planetary formation, giant protoplanets migrate inward in lockstep into the central star.

The current picture of how planetary systems form is as follows: i) dust grains coagulate to form planetesimals of up to 1 km in diameter; ii) the runaway growth of planetesimals leads to the formation of ~100 - 1000 km-sized planetary embryos; iii) these embryos grow in an "oligarchic" manner, where a few large bodies dominate the formation process, and accrete the surrounding and much smaller planetesimals. These "oligarchs" form terrestrial planets near the central star and planetary cores of ten terrestrial masses in the giant planet region beyond 3 astronomical units (AU).

However, these theories fail to describe the formation of gas giant planets in a satisfactory way. Gravitational interaction between the gaseous protoplanetary disc and the massive planetary cores causes them to move rapidly inward over about 100,000 years in what we call the "migration" of the planet in the disc. The prediction of this rapid inward migration of giant protoplanets is a major problem, since this timescale is much shorter than the time needed for gas to accrete onto the forming giant planet. Theories predict that the giant protoplanets will merge into the central star before planets have time to form. This makes it very difficult to understand how they can form at all.........

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March 21, 2006, 9:47 PM CT

Polar neutrino observatory

An international team of researchers and engineers has taken a major step toward completion of what will be the world's preeminent cosmic neutrino observatory, harnessing a sophisticated hot-water drill to build an observatory under the South Pole that eventually will encompass a cubic kilometer of ice.

Researchers leading a consortium building the massive neutrino telescope known as IceCube say that this year they have nearly doubled the size of the detector now under construction at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

NSF, through a joint program of its Office of Polar Programs and its Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, is contributing more than $240 million to the international partnership that is building the detector, which will cost $272 million overall.

Eventhough work can only take place from October through February-the fleeting and still frigid summer season at the Pole-the extent and pace of construction this year means that the observatory may soon begin scientific operations. IceCube is scheduled for completion in 2011.

"The news is good all around," says Francis Halzen, the University of Wisconsin-Madison physics professor leading the effort.

Halzen and others leading the effort report that IceCube- which depends on strings of light-sensing modules frozen deep in crystal clear Antarctic ice-has grown this austral summer by 480 basketball-sized optical modules. Deployed on long cables in 1.5-mile deep holes bored by a unique hot-water drill, the modules will be used to detect the fleeting but telltale signatures of high-energy cosmic neutrinos as they flit through the Earth.........

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March 16, 2006, 11:32 PM CT

Universe's First Trillionth Second

Researchers peering back to the oldest light in the universe have new evidence for what happened within its first trillionth of a second, when the universe suddenly grew from submicroscopic to astronomical size in far less than a wink of the eye.

Using new data from a NASA satellite, researchers have the best evidence yet to support this scenario, known as "inflation." The evidence, from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, was gathered during three years of continuous observations of remnant afterglow light -- cosmic background radiation that lingers, much cooled, from the universe's energetic beginnings 13.7 billion years ago.

In 2003, NASA announced that the WMAP satellite had produced a detailed picture of the infant universe by measuring fluctuations in temperature of the afterglow -- answering a number of longstanding questions about the universe's age, composition and development. The WMAP team has built upon those results with a new measurement of the faint glare from the afterglow to obtain clues about the universe's first moments, when the seeds were sown for the formation of the first stars 400 million years later.

"It amazes me that we can say anything about what transpired within the first trillionth of a second of the universe, but we can," said Charles L. Bennett, WMAP principal investigator and a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University. "We have never before been able to understand the infant universe with such precision. It appears that the infant universe had the kind of growth spurt that would alarm any mom or dad."........

Posted by: Brooke      Permalink         Source

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