Emirates Mars Mission

Posted on August 13, 2016 by

The Hope spacecraft orbiter is a planned 2020 unmanned mission to Mars by the United Arab Emirates to study the Martian atmosphere and climate. The robotic space probe is expected to be launched in the summer of 2020 and to take seven to nine months to arrive at Mars. In designing the orbiter, the Emirates Mars Mission deputy project manager and science lead, Sarah Amiri, is expected to collaborate with the University of Colorado, the University of California, Berkeley and the Arizona State Univ...

NASA’s Clean Energy Focus

Posted on August 8, 2016 by

Clean Energy Researchers at NASA Ames are conducting cutting-edge research in the development of clean energy technologies for NASA mission needs in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate and the Science Mission Directorate. Our renewable energy focus is on advancing biofuels, solar, and wind technologies that also help reduce our nation’s dependence on petroleum-based fuels. By advancing clean energy technologies, NASA Ames hopes to help our nation reduce its generation of greenhouse ga...

NASA : Heat Wave and La Niña

Posted on August 2, 2016August 2, 2016 by

Record high temperatures along the United State's east coast are being linked to La Niña by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. During La Niña unusually cold water pools along the tropical Pacific Ocean. This sea surface temperature anomaly causes strange summer weather around the world, such as drought in the Mid-Atlantic states, cool temperatures in California, and rain in Indonesia. The above image shows the La Niña as seen by TOPE...

Monkeys’ Use of Stone Tools Dates Back Hundreds of Years

Posted on July 13, 2016 by

A team from Oxford and the University of São Paulo in Brazil, found the earliest archaeological examples of monkey tool use outside of Africa. The research raises questions as to the origins and spread of tool use in New World monkeys and whether early human behaviour was influenced by observing monkeys using stones as tools. The researchers observed groups of modern capuchins at Serra da Capivara National Park in northeast Brazil, and combined this with archaeological...

NASA Is Testing Next-Generation Fire Shelters

Posted on June 19, 2016June 19, 2016 by

NASA reached an agreement with the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to test prototype fire shelters made from the space agency's next-generation thermal protection systems (TPM) materials—intended, initially, to protect future spacecraft upon re-entry (in fact, a first generation of the material has already been tested on the agency's third Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment vehicle, IRVE-3). Not unlike a spacecraft tearing through the atmosphere, NASA’s hope is that its mater...

Biomimetics -learning from nature

Posted on June 15, 2016 by

Biomimetics or biomimicry is the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems.[1] The terms "biomimetics" and "biomimicry" derive from Ancient Greek: βίος (bios), life, and μίμησις (mīmēsis), imitation, from μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeisthai), to imitate, from μῖμος (mimos), actor. A closely related field is bionics.[2] Living organisms have evolved well-adapted structures and materials over geological time through natural selection. Biomimeti...

International satellite to collect next generation of data on global precipitation

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by

NASA's GPM mission is the first to coordinate a network of international satellites (current and planned) to produce the next generation of data on global precipitation. The star of the mission is the GPM Core Observatory, launched in February of 2014. It carries an advanced radar/radiometer system and serves as a reference standard that will unify precipitation measurements from the constellation. To do this, technology had to be developed that could link the data from the GPM Core Observatory ...

NASA Tsunami Research Makes Waves in Science Community

Posted on May 29, 2016May 29, 2016 by

PASADENA, Calif. – A wave of new NASA research on tsunamis has yielded an innovative method to improve existing tsunami warning systems, and a potentially groundbreaking new theory on the source of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In one study, published last fall in Geophysical Research Letters, researcher Y. Tony Song of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., demonstrated that real-time data from NASA's network of global positioning system (GPS) stations can detect groun...

Neutrinos

Posted on May 27, 2016 by

Neutrinos are similar to the more familiar electron, with one crucial difference: neutrinos do not carry electric charge. Because neutrinos are electrically neutral, they are not affected by the electromagnetic forces which act on electrons. Neutrinos are affected only by a "weak" sub-atomic force of much shorter range than electromagnetism, and are therefore able to pass through great distances in matter without being affected by it. If neutrinos have mass, they also interact gravitat...

NASA, University Study Shows Rising Seas Slowed by Increasing Water on Land

Posted on May 5, 2016 by

New measurements from a NASA satellite have allowed researchers to identify and quantify, for the first time, how climate-driven increases of liquid water storage on land have affected the rate of sea level rise. A new study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine, shows that while ice sheets and glaciers continue to melt, changes in weather and climate over the past decade have caused Earth’s continents to soak...

Nanomaterials entering food chain

Posted on May 2, 2016May 2, 2016 by

In recent years, the use of nanomaterials for water treatment, food packaging, pesticides, cosmetics and other industries has increased. Such particles, like silver nanoparticles deployed as a pesticide, are used to suppress the growth of harmful microorganisms. The increased use has led to concerns that these toxic particles could end up in food designed for human consumption. One study showed that artificial silver nanoparticles from polyethylene films destined for package of such foods as ...

NASA’s Research On Quantum Teleportation

Posted on May 1, 2016May 1, 2016 by

The world at the quantum level, at the scale of particles too small for the eye to see, is very strange. It's possible, for instance, to have two particles that are "entangled" -- that is, they function as if they were connected, even if they are many miles away from each other. New research co-authored by Francesco Marsili, microdevices engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, makes use of this phenomenon in a technological advancement published in the journal ...

NASA’s Lunar Laser communication

Posted on April 28, 2016 by

Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) recently developed and tested optical communication technology using lasers, which transferred data at much higher rates than Radio Frequency (RF) communications systems. SCaN demonstrated the technology with the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) from October 2013 through April 2014 during the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission. The LLCD demonstration consisted...

NASA’s research on farming in Space helping farmers globally

Posted on April 26, 2016 by

From outer space to the wide open spaces of farmland in Crookston, Minn., the benefits originating from International Space Station research and technology stretch far and wide. The space station provides a microgravity environment for researchers to conduct multidisciplinary investigations, for educators to inspire next generation scientists and engineers, and to serve as a stepping stone to future exploration that was not possible just 15 years ago. A few of the many benefits provided by resea...

NASA’s research on deforestation and its impact

Posted on April 25, 2016 by

Up to thirty percent of the rain that falls in tropical forests is water that the rainforest has recycled into the atmosphere. Water evaporates from the soil and vegetation, condenses into clouds, and falls again as rain in a perpetual self-watering cycle. In addition to maintaining tropical rainfall, the evaporation cools the Earth’s surface. In many computer models of future climate, replacing tropical forests with a landscape of pasture and crops creates a drier, hotter climate in the tropics...

NASA’s New Technology Research- High-Power Solar Electric Propulsion

Posted on April 23, 2016April 24, 2016 by

A prototype 13-kilowatt Hall thruster is tested at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. This prototype demonstrated the technology readiness needed for industry to continue the development of high-power solar electric propulsion into a flight-qualified system. On Tuesday, April 19, 2016, NASA awarded a contract to Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc. to design and develop an advanced electric propulsion system that will significantly advance the nation's commercial space capabilities, and enable de...

Reversal of the Sun’s Magnetic Field

Posted on April 11, 2016 by

According to measurements from NASA-supported observatories, the sun's vast magnetic field flips every 11 years. The sun's magnetic field changes polarity approximately every 11 years. It happens at the peak of each solar cycle as the sun's inner magnetic dynamo re-organizes itself. The coming reversal will mark the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24. Half of "solar max" will be behind us, with half yet to come. Hoeksema is the director of Stanford's Wilcox Solar Observatory, one of the few observ...

NASA’s research on rivers over the Greenland Ice sheet

Posted on April 9, 2016 by

On Greenland's ice sheet, a vast icy landscape crisscrossed by turquoise rivers and dotted with meltwater lakes, a small cluster of orange camping tents popped up in late July. The camp, home for a week to a team of researchers, sat by a large, fast-flowing river. Just half a mile (a kilometer) downstream, the river dropped into a seemingly bottomless moulin, or sinkhole in the ice. The low rumble of the waters, the shouted instructions from scientists taking measurements, and the chop of the bl...

NASA Satellite Data to the Aid of Allergy Sufferers

Posted on April 8, 2016 by

When you stroll through your front door in the morning, does the yellow haze coating the porch send you leaping back into the house? Can the mere word "pollen" make you start to sniffle, sneeze and reach for the tissue to blow your nose? If you answered "yes" to these questions, you're probably one of millions of people in the United States suffering from hay fever. Pollen can do more, however, than just make you sneeze. If you have asthma, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonar...

NASA helping students and professionals launch their own mini satellites known as CubeSats

Posted on April 2, 2016 by

NASA’s CubeSat Launch initiative (CSLI) provides opportunities for small satellite payloads to fly on rockets planned for upcoming launches. These CubeSats are flown as auxiliary payloads on previously planned missions. To participate in the CSLI program, CubeSat investigations should address research in science, exploration, technology, or education consistent with NASA's Strategic Plan and the Education Strategic Coordination Framework. CSLI provides educational opportunities that attrac...

NASA Satellite Maps Show Human Fingerprint on Global Air Quality

Posted on April 1, 2016 by

Using new, high-resolution global satellite maps of air quality indicators, NASA scientists tracked air pollution trends over the last decade in various regions and 195 cities around the globe. The findings were presented Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. "These changes in air quality patterns aren't random," said Bryan Duncan, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Mary...

Surprise findings from NASA’s studies on recent and ancient Nepal quakes

Posted on March 13, 2016March 13, 2016 by

The devastating magnitude 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake in April 2015 triggered far fewer landslides and much less damage to glacial lakes than expected; while in medieval times, large earthquakes in Nepal unleashed massive changes upon the landscape. The findings are reported in two new papers published in the journal Science. Scientists from NASA and three universities detailed the results in a news conference at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The studie...

Cranfield’s Nano Membrane Toilet that generate energy to power homes in villages

Posted on March 12, 2016March 12, 2016 by

Cranfield University is developing the Nano Membrane Toilet which will be able to treat human waste on-site without external energy or water. The toilet is designed for single-household use (equivalent to 10 people) and will accept urine and faeces as a mixture. The toilet flush uses a unique rotating mechanism to transport the mixture into the toilet without demanding water whilst simultaneously blocking odour and the user’s view of the waste. Solids separation (faeces) is principally acc...

NASA’s wind tunnel

Posted on February 29, 2016 by

Wind tunnels are machines for "flying" aircraft on the ground. They are tubelike structures or passages in which wind is produced, usually by a large fan, to flow over objects such as aircraft, engines, wings, rockets or models of these objects. A stationary object is placed in the test section of a tunnel and connected to instruments that measure and record airflow around the object and the aerodynamic forces that act upon it. From information gathered in these observations, engineers can deter...

NASA’s hurricane forecast exploration

Posted on February 25, 2016 by

Hurricanes are the most powerful weather event on Earth. NASA’s expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) use a variety of tools to predict these storms’ paths. These scientists need a wealth of data to accurately forecast hurricanes. NASAsatellites, computer modeling,...

‘Space Junk’ a big growing problem

Posted on February 6, 2016 by

Space/orbital debris/junk/waste is the collection of defunct man-made objects in space – old satellites, spent rocket stages, and fragments from disintegration, erosion, and collisions – including those caused by debris itself. More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. The rising population of space deb...

Underwater Laboratory

Posted on January 26, 2016 by

The Aquarius Reef Base is an underwater habitat located 5.4 miles (9 kilometers) off Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It is deployed on the ocean floor 62 feet (19 meters) below the surface and next to a deep coral reef named Conch Reef. Aquarius is the only undersea laboratory in the world dedicated to science and education. It was owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and operated by the University of North Carolina–Wilmington[1] until 2...

Antarctica ICE

Posted on January 21, 2016 by

An ice sheet is a mass of glacial land ice extending more than 50,000 square kilometers (20,000 square miles). The two ice sheets on Earth today cover most of Greenland and Antarctica. During the last ice age, ice sheets also covered much of North America and Scandinavia. Together, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain more than 99 percent of the freshwater ice on Earth. The Antarctic Ice Sheet extends almost 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), roughly the area o...

International Space Station Experiments

Posted on January 20, 2016January 20, 2016 by

Drosophila Motility, Behaviour and Ageing The main scientific objectives of the experiment are to study in more detail the mechanisms of the abnormal motility response encountered in space by young flies with consequences on the posterior aging response of the flies. For this purpose, three different fly strains with different phenotypes are used, in four configurations. The three strains are a long-lived strain, a short-lived strain and a strain showing an abnormal gravitropic resp...

‘Artificial Leaf’ — a silicon wafer that can create energy from sunlight and water the way real leaves do

Posted on January 5, 2016 by 41629066

Biochemist Daniel Nocera has been working for decades on an "artificial leaf" — a silicon wafer that can create energy from sunlight and water the way real leaves do. HARVARD SCIENTISTS have created a “bionic leaf” that converts solar energy into a liquid fuel. The work—a proof of concept in an exciting new field that might be termed biomanufacturing—is the fruit of a collaboration between the laboratories of Adams professor of biochemistry and systems biology Pamela Silver at Harvard Medical...