Huge Astronomical Image of ’Empty Space’ Obtained with ESO Telescope
An image made of about 300 million pixels is being released by ESO, based on more than 64 hours of observations with the Wide-Field Camera on the 2.2m telescope at La Silla (Chile). The image covers an ’empty’ region of the sky five times the size of the full moon, opening an exceptionally clear view towards the most distant part of our universe. It reveals objects that are 100 million time
The research group GMBM (Biomimetic and multifunctional materials) of the University of Seville is working on the creation of fuel batteries with protonic conductor membranes. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is funding this line of research.
The director of GMBM, Julián Martínez Fernández, has been collaborating with the NASA-Glenn Research Center (in Cleveland, Ohio) for thirteen years. The University of Seville’s project, funded with 200,000 €Euros, consi
Yesterday, at the end of a 153-day and 400-million km cruise into the inner Solar System beginning with its launch on 9 November 2005, ESA’s Venus Express space probe fired its main engine at 09:17 CEST for a 50-minute burn, which brought it into orbit around Venus.
With this firing, the probe reduced its relative velocity toward the planet from 29,000 to about 25,000 km/h and was captured by its gravity field. This orbit insertion manoeuvre was a complete success.
Du
Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today (April 11, 2006) the precision measurement of extremely rapid transitions between matter and antimatter. As amazing as it may seem, it has been known for 50 years that very special species of subatomic particles can make spontaneous transitions between matter and antimatter. In this exciting new result, CDF physicists measured the rate of the matter-antimatter transitions f
Timeline of events during the Venus Orbit Insertion (VOI) manoeuvre, marking arrival of ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft at its destination on 11 April.
VOI is a series of telecommands, engine burns and manoeuvres designed to slow the spacecraft from a velocity of 29 000 kilometres per hour relative to Venus to an entry velocity some 15 percent slower, allowing it to be captured into orbit around the planet.
Time (CEST) Event
09:17 VEX main engine burn starts
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show the Galle Crater, an impact crater located on the eastern rim of the Argyre Planitia impact basin on Mars.
The HRSC obtained these images during orbits 445, 2383, 2438, 2460 and 2493 with a ground resolution ranging between 10-20 metres per pixel, depending on location within the image strip.
The images show Crater Galle lying to the east of the Argyre Planitia impact basi
VLT FORS Image of the Inner Parts of the Tarantula Nebula
Hanging above the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) – one of our closest galaxies – in what some describe as a frightening sight, the Tarantula nebula is worth looking at in detail. Also designated 30 Doradus or NGC 2070, the nebula owes its name to the arrangement of its brightest patches of nebulosity that somewhat resemble the legs of a spider. This name, of the biggest spiders on the Earth, is also very fitting in view of the
An international team of astronomers today is reporting on a discovery of a star exploding inside another star. The discovery is helping astronomers learn more about the structure of a red giant star, how shock waves move through a star and revealing how one type of binary star system goes through the end stages of its life, the astronomers report.
Speaking at the National Astronomy Meeting in Leicester, U.K., the international team of 14 astronomers described what they saw
A pair of supermassive black holes in the distant universe are intertwined and spiraling toward a merger that will create a single super-supermassive black hole capable of swallowing billions of stars, according to a new study by astronomers at the University of Virginia, Bonn University and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
The study appears in the April 6, 2006 issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Black holes are among the oldest regions of the univer
The transistor laser, invented by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been full of surprises. Researchers recently coaxed the device to reveal fundamental properties of the transistor, and of the transistor laser, moving it a step closer to commercialization.
As reported in the April 3 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, Nick Holonyak Jr., Milton Feng, and colleagues at the U. of I. explored the current-voltage relationship in a transist
A team led by physicists at the University of California, San Diego has shown the feasibility of a fast, inexpensive technique to sequence DNA as it passes through tiny pores. The advance brings personalized, genome-based medicine closer to reality.
The paper, published in the April issue of the journal Nano Letters, describes a method to sequence a human genome in a matter of hours at a potentially low cost, by measuring the electrical perturbations generated by a single stran
Isolated vibrations within a three-dimensional solid have been observed for the first time by researchers in the U.S. and Germany. The work could help explain how metals such as uranium behave when bent, compressed or heated.
Normally, atoms in a crystal will pass their vibrational energy to their neighbors. But under some circumstances, theory predicts that a small patch of atoms could vibrate in place. This is the first time that these “lattice solitons” have been detected in a
On 12 February 2006, amateur astronomers reported that a faint star in the constellation of Ophiuchus had suddenly become clearly visible in the night sky without the aid of a telescope.
Records show that this so-called recurrent nova, RS Ophiuchi (RS Oph), has previously reached this level of brightness five times in the last 108 years, most recently in 1985. The latest explosion has been observed in unprecedented detail by an armada of space and ground-based telescopes.
Small satellites are now ready to open up new avenues in astronomy, according to a presentation on Friday 7th April at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Leicester. Rapid advances in the capabilities of satellites smaller than a domestic washing-machine mean that they now have the pointing stability and accurate positioning needed to carry astronomical instruments, such as ultraviolet telescopes.
Stuart Eves of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) said, “We see small satellites as the
This animation, made from images taken by the Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows a feature characterized by bright albedo, and called Reiner Gamma Formation.
The Reiner Gamma Formation, a totally flat area consisting of much brighter material than the surrounding dark ’mare’, is centred on an area located at 57.8° West, 8.1° North, in the Oceanus Procellarum on the near (visible) side of the Moon, and has an extension of appro
ESA has taken a further step in preparing for participation in Mars Sample Return (MSR), the landmark mission to return samples from the Red Planet, with the announcement of the next phase of industrial activity.
The Phase A2 activity will address many critical issues and identify key areas in which Europe can participate in this flagship of the Aurora Programme.
The search for evidence of life outside the Earth is one of the fundamental goals of space exploration, and has been
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