In a spectacular kick-off to its first season of prime ring viewing, which began last month, the Cassini spacecraft has confirmed earlier suspicions of an unseen moon hidden in a gap in Saturn’s outer A ring. A new image and movie show the new moon and the waves it raises in the surrounding ring material.

The moon, provisionally named S/2005 S1, was first seen in a time-lapse sequence of images taken on May 1, 2005, as Cassini began its climb to higher inclinations in orbit ar

Solar physicists have observed the smallest ever coronal mass ejection (CME) – a type of explosion where plasma from the Sun is thrown out into space, sometimes striking the Earth and damaging orbiting satellites. The observation has come as a great surprise to scientists and has turned previous ideas up-side-down.

To date studies of these phenomena have focussed on large explosions which are easier to detect and which have massive footprints on the Sun, sometimes covering thousan

The deployment of the second antenna boom of the Mars Express Sub-Surface Sounding Radar Altimeter (MARSIS) science experiment has been delayed pending investigation of an anomaly found during deployment of the first antenna boom.

The anomaly was discovered on 7 May towards the end of the first deployment operations. Deployment of the first boom started on Wednesday 4 May. The problem with the boom was confirmed by flight control engineers working at ESA’s European Space Operations

A major new tranche of funding is announced today by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). These, the first awards in the Science and Innovation Awards programme will directly build the UK’s research base in diverse areas.

The initial recipients include energy research, physical organic chemistry, statistics and electronics. Future awards will focus on other research areas. In a changing research landscape, as undergraduates choose new options, more tr

These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show the outlet channel of the Uzboi Vallis system into Crater Holden on Mars.

The HRSC obtained these images during orbit 511 with a ground resolution of approximately 45 metres per pixel. The scenes show the region of Noachis Terra, over an area centred at about 26º South and 325º East.

The valley of Uzboi Vallis begins in the region of Argyre Planitia and crosses the southe

When University at Buffalo theorist Surajit Sen published his prediction that solitary waves, tight bundles of energy that travel without dispersing, could break into smaller, “baby” or secondary solitary waves, experts in the field acclaimed it as a fine piece of work. They also felt that these waves might never be seen experimentally.

But in a paper published this week in Physical Review Letters, Sen and his co-authors report that they have done just that. The new results contr

In an experiment originally planned for the International Space Station, physicists at Duke University have devised a controlled, measurable method to make a container of granules — in this case plastic beads — “freeze” into the equivalent of a solid-state crystal, or “melt” into the equivalent of a fluid, by alternating the rates that the beads are stirred or shaken.

Results from these experiments also apply to other types of “granular materials,” a term scientists use to des

Lab to develop more economical and reliable space travel

Images of deep space exploration in old sci-fi movies will take one giant leap toward reality as Battelle scientists manipulate microtechnology to produce rocket propellant in space and breathing oxygen for interplanetary travel, thanks to new funding from NASA.

Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., which is operated by Battelle for the Department of Energy, will launch the devel

An innovative 3D design system using semantic information has proven its ability to overcome many of the drawbacks of existing Computer-Aided Design (CAD) programmes, speeding the work of designers and opening the door to an array of commercial applications in a broad variety of sectors.

The IST programme-funded SpacemantiX project, which ended in April, resulted in a series of pilot tools for use in mechanical and automotive engineering, interior design and architecture, and to

The Internet may be used to power elections in towns, cities, countries, and even across Europe thanks to the work of a recently completed project. It would mean voters could cast their ballots at home, in the street via mobile phones, or even when in another country.

That’s the promise of e-Vote, an IST programme-funded project that drew together experts in systems design and analysis, computer programming and high-grade security.

The project successfully developed

An international team of astronomers reports April 29 the confirmation of the discovery of a giant planet, approximately five times the mass of Jupiter, that is gravitationally bound to a young brown dwarf. This discovery puts an end to a yearlong discussion on the nature of this object, which started with the detection of a red object close to the brown dwarf.

In February and March of this year, the astronomers took new images of the young brown dwarf and its giant planet companion

ESA’s comet chaser mission Rosetta took these infrared and visible images of Earth and the Moon, during the Earth fly-by of 4/5 March 2005 while on its way to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

These images, now processed, are part of the first scientific data obtained by Rosetta. “The Earth fly-by represented the first real chance to calibrate and validate the performance of the Rosetta’s instruments on a real space object, to make sure everything works fine at the final targe

Ever since the internet was created, it has developed and advanced as new services have been introduced that have made it easier to access and send data between remote computers. Electronic mail and the easy-to-use interactive interface known as the World Wide Web are just two of the most important services that have helped to make the internet as popular as it is today. GRID technology, one of the latest systems that has been developed for linking computing resources, connects hundreds of la

Creating, storing and transmitting visual images has become increasingly easy. Yet the same problem always arises – how to categorise or classify visual images automatically without using external metadata or image thumbnails? There now may be an answer.

Researchers in the IST project LAVA have developed a method of automatically categorising the content of digital images, providing an effective means of storing and retrieving digital image content without having to rely

Following green light for the deployment of ESA’s Mars Express radar, given in February this year, the radar booms are now planned to be deployed in the first half of May.

Once the deployment is successful, the Mars Express MARSIS radar will enable the first European spacecraft to orbit Mars to complement its study of the planet’s atmosphere and surface.

MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument) is the first antenna of its kind whic

How can a tin be opened if it contains not tinned goods but explosives? Or a shell or something no less dangerous, for instance, a retired nuclear reactor?

Certainly, metal can be cut up mechanically, but this is very dangerous. Torch flame or laser beam do not suit the purpose even more so. However, a sheet of water released at high pressure, particularly if additionally saturated with a stream of frozen drops, would probably suit. The researchers from the Tula State Universit