These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show the central part of the 4000-kilometre long Valles Marineris canyon on Mars.
The HRSC obtained these images during during orbits 334 and 360 with a resolution of approximately 21 metres per pixel for the earlier orbit and 30 metres per pixel for the latter.
The scenes show an area of approximately 300 by 600 kilometres and are taken from an image mosaic that was
CSIRO’s radio telescopes and others in Australia, China, Japan and the USA have revealed how the wind speeds on Saturn’s moon Titan vary with altitude-and have turned a disappointment into a triumph.
As the Huygens probe plummeted through Titan’s atmosphere on 14 January it transmitted a stream of data to its parent Cassini spacecraft. The ground-based radio telescopes ’eavesdropped’ on the probe’s signal. As the probe was buffeted by Titan’s w
Scientists have produced an audio soundbite that captures what the Cassini orbiter heard from Huygens as the probe descended on Titan on Jan. 14.
The sounds may not be music to everyone’s ears, but they’re beautiful, interesting and important to investigators who are reconstructing the probe’s exact position and orientation throughout its parachute dive to Titan’s surface. “The minute-long sound file covers about four hours of real time, from when the Huygen
Find provides evidence of earliest known use of diamond and sapphire by prehistoric people
Researchers have uncovered strong evidence that the ancient Chinese used diamonds to grind and polish ceremonial stone burial axes as long as 6,000 years ago -– and incredibly, did so with a level of skill difficult to achieve even with modern polishing techniques. The finding, reported in the February issue of the journal Archaeometry, places this earliest known use of diamond worldwide
The Novosibirsk researchers have developed a device capable of producing mist with support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises (FASIE). The precise name of the device is “field device for measuring liquid and gas velocities”. It helps to perform prompt, precise and, most importantly, simultaneous measuring of the velocity at any point of the fluid and gas flow.
“Field device for measuring liquid and gas ve
Nanotubes are ubiquitous in the world of science. Although several methods for making them exist, little is known about how these techniques physically produce the hollow fibers of carbon molecules known as nanotubes, that is until now. A multinational team of scientists has discovered that multi-walled carbon nanotubes made by the pure carbon arc method are, in fact, carbon crystals that form inside drops of glass-coated liquid carbon. The research appears in the 11 February 2005, issue of the
A new measurement by a student and professor at the University of Rochester has shed new light on the limits of scientists’ standard model of physics. Doctoral student Ben Kilminster and Kevin McFarland, professor of physics, used the particle accelerator at Fermilab to conduct the first measurement ever done with enough precision to discern certain characteristics of how the top quark, the heaviest particle in known physics, decays. The work is reported in today’s issue of Physical Re
Nanoscientists dream of developing a quantum computer, a device the size of a grain of sand that could be faster and more powerful than today’s PCs. They’ve identified tiny artificial atoms – called “quantum dots” – as the most likely materials to build these machines, but have been puzzled by the dots’ unpredictable behavior at the nanoscale.
Now a team of Ohio University physicists thinks it’s found the problem – and has proposed a blueprint for building
A sensing device tailored for mass production of highly sensitive and stable nerve-gas detectors has been developed by a research group led by a mechanical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin.
The new sensor technology, which was more sensitive and much more stable than its predecessors, was featured on this week’s cover of Applied Physics Letters. The researchers’ highlighted study demonstrated the sensor’s potential ability to detect a single molecule of the nerve ga
Contrary to conventional wisdom, technology’s advance into the vanishingly small realm of molecules and atoms may not be out of sight for the venerable optical microscope, after all. In fact, research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that a hybrid version of the optical microscope might be able to image and measure features smaller than 10 nanometers–a tiny fraction of the wavelength of visible light.
In a preliminary test of the embryo
Two top research teams at the University of Southampton have this week secured a funding boost worth over £11 million between them. The two research groups, working in NanoPhotonics and Photonics, were among six groups nationwide to receive long-term funding support under the Portfolio Partnerships initiative launched by Lord Sainsbury.
Southampton is the only university to receive two of the new batch of Portfolio Partnerships, securing over half the £22 million funding awarded
BU team’s nanomechanical device bridges classic and quantum physics
Nanotechnology leapt into the realm of quantum mechanics this past winter when an antenna-like sliver of silicon one-tenth the width of a human hair oscillated in a lab in a Boston University basement. With two sets of protrusions, much like the teeth from a two-sided comb or the paddles from a rowing shell, the antenna not only exhibits the first quantum nanomechanical motion but is also the world’s fastest mov
Using a global network of radio telescopes, scientists have measured the speed of the winds faced by Huygens during its descent through the atmosphere of Titan.
This measurement could not be done from space because of a configuration problem with one of Cassini’s receivers. The winds are weak near the surface and increase slowly with altitude up to about 60 km, becoming much rougher higher up where significant vertical wind shear may be present.
Preliminary estimates
Chips based on Seignette-electrics (ferroelectrics) will retain recorded information for centuries, this being done without any power replenishment. Devices based on these wonderful materials’ thin films will help to track the route of an animal or a bird during its overall life span, to control the valuable freight travel and to find the lost or stolen stuff, even if more than a year elapsed since the time of a loss. The information on the St. Petersburg researchers’ development is available in
Penn State’s Alex Wolszczan, the discoverer in 1992 of the first planets ever found outside our solar system, now has discovered with Caltech’s Maciej Konacki the smallest planet yet detected,in that same far-away planetary system. Immersed in an extended cloud of ionized gas, the new planet orbits a rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar. The discovery, to be announced during a press conference at a meeting concerning planetary formation and detection in Aspen, Colorado, on 7 F
An international team of physicists that includes a Texas A&M University professor has announced discovery of a new spintronic effect in semiconductor chips, the intrinsic spin Hall effect, which puts a new twist on future technology and the possibility for novel circuits with low energy consumption.
The team is formed by physicists Dr. Jörg Wunderlich and Dr. Bernd Kaestner from the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, U.K.; Prof. Tomás Jungwirth from the Institute of Physics of the Aca
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