Aduro - Science News

Venus Express Detects hydroxyl

admin — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:32:39 +0000

Venus is still a mystery despite it being Earth’s neighbour. Its thick atmosphere prevents good readings. Esa’s Venus Express (launched in 2005) has been on a mission to find out more about the planet. It has recently detected (for the first time ever on another planet) the molecule hydroxyl. Hydroxyl is made up of an oxygen and hydrogen atom. It was detected 100 km above Venus’ surface, in its upper atmospheric region.

The molecule is an important “cleaner”, on Earth it removes pollutants from the atmosphere, on Mars it most likely kills off certain microbial life on the surface. The discovery makes Venus more Earth-like than previusly thought.

Venus Express has detected the molecule hydroxyl on another planet for the first time. This detection gives scientists an important new tool to unlock the workings of Venus’s dense atmosphere.

Hydroxyl, an important but difficult-to-detect molecule, is made up of a hydrogen and oxygen atom each. It has been found in the upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere, some 100 km above the surface, by Venus Express’s Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, VIRTIS.

Click here to go to source.

For more information about the European Space Agency’s Venus Express Mission - click here.

Some more details about the hydroxyl molecule can be found here.

String Theory

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:22:34 +0000

By now you have probably heard of String Theory. Though do you really understand what it is about? And will it eventually be able to explain many of physics great mysteries? If you think the mathematical structure of Quantum Mechanics is complex, wait till you see the mathematics involved in String Theory. It’s so complex that only a tiny group of scientists can fully understand the mathematics. String Theory has changed into a mainstream subject in a relatively short period of time. That, however, has not made it less controversial. Many questions remain, and as time passes will String Theory really be the answer?

Make sure you read the featured COSMOS magazine article by Peter Woit - it’s definitely worth 10 minutes of your time!

The Standard Model is a quantum theory of fields – of which the electromagnetic field was just one variety – and much of our time as students was spent trying to master the complex mathematical techniques needed to understand these quantum field theories. According to the Standard Model, there are three fundamental forces: electromagnetic, weak and strong. There are also a small number of fundamental particles carrying specified charges that determine which forces they experienced, such as photons for the electromagnetic force, and gluons for the strong nuclear force.

The mathematics of the theory is deep and highly sophisticated; the fields responsible for the forces are basic geometrical quantities that mathematicians call ‘connections’. The excitations and interactions of these fields were also responsible for the fundamental particles. The whole thing satisfied a beautiful equation as presented to the world by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928.

Read more here..

Space Elevator

admin — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:56:46 +0000

Like the elevator in your apartment building but going slightly higher. NASA is providing 1 million dollars in prize money to anyone who can build a prototype space elevator. Yet for the third year in a row no individual or company has claimed the money. Can it not be build? According to NASA it can, and other proponents are certain technologies are under development right now. The elevator would transport supplies from Earth to space without needing expensive fuel or batteries of any kind. Currently supplies have to be loaded onto space shuttles or Soyuz transport vehicles and then launched using very expensive, and dated, technology. NASA remains hopeful that in the near future they can pay out the prize money.

For the third time in three years, no team has claimed the prize money in two NASA- sponsored technology challenges to build a robotic climber and a vertical tether that could one day comprise a workable space elevator. In theory, that elevator would transport supplies from the ground to space without expensive fuel or batteries.

Despite the letdown, proponents of the technology were hopeful, and the roughly $1 million in prize money will roll over to next year’s events.

“The good news is that technologies to build a space elevator are possible and are being developed now,” said Ted Semon, spokesman for the Spaceward Foundation, which hosted NASA challenges at The Spaceward Games 2007, which began Oct. 17 and ended Monday in Salt Lake City.

The first contest, called the Space Elevator challenge, required teams to build a robotic climber that could scale a tether 100 meters tall in less than a minute. The chief requirement also was that the climber received energy from a ground source, rather than fuel or batteries. The second challenge, the Strong Tether Challenge, called on teams to build a robust tether of materials that could one day be the conveyer belt into space. MIT, for example, built a tether of carbon nanotubes, a strong new material, but the university team still didn’t win.

READ the entire article by clicking here.

Huge Hole Found In The Universe

admin — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:05:02 +0000

Huge and mostly devoid of stars, normal matter and even dark matter, this enormous hole is located between 6 and 10 billion light-years away from Earth. Estimates put the size of this unknown spot in the Universe at almost 1 billion light-years across. It’s bigger than anything we’ve discovered so far. Voids are not uncommon, but the size of this hole is mind-boggling. It shows again how much there is yet to be discovered out there. The discovery still requires independent confirmation, and will be detailed in the Astrophysical Journal.

The universe has a huge hole in it that dwarfs anything else of its kind. The discovery caught astronomers by surprise.

The hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it’s also strangely empty of the mysterious “dark matter” that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale.

Astronomers don’t know why the hole is there.

READ the entire article by clicking here.

Ionic PC Cooler

admin — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:15:13 +0000

People who run CPU and graphic intensive applications on their computers know how hot it can get inside their systems. Computer hardware produces a large amount of heat that builds up inside your computer case, and potentially causing damage to your system. Most computer users use air cooling to keep their stuff from melting. The problem with conventional air cooling is that, although it removes some heat, air molecules stick to the surface of your computer chips. Researchers developed a new technology that produces ions to disperse the air molecules efficiently.

Researchers at Purdue University have demonstrated an ionic wind engine that promises to reduce the heat generated by semiconductors at a substantially faster rate than is possible with traditional cooling technologies.

The experimental cooling device consists of an anode, a wire with a positive charge, positioned 10 millimeters above an array of cathodes, which are negatively charged. As current runs through the device, the cathodes discharge electrons towards the anode. When these electrons collide with molecules in the air, they produce ions with a positive charge that are drawn back to the cathodes, creating an ionic wind that increases airflow on the surface of a mock chip.

CLICK HERE to read the full article.

Largest Exoplanet So Far Discovered

admin — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:01:29 +0000

A team made up of international astronomers have discovered the biggest exoplanet so far. I would have included a fancy picture of the planet, but.. there isn’t one. Sorry. The planet is big, 70% larger than our own big brother Jupiter. One of the main differences between the two though is that their masses are not similar at all. The newly discovered planet’s density is a low 0.2 grams per cubic centimeter, and is presumed by scientists to be a gas planet. The star it’s circling around, GSC02620-00648 (you are not going to remember this name in 10 seconds!) is located 1435 light years from our own planet. And it’s hot on there, an estimated 1327 Celsius or 2300 Fahrenheit. Read the BBC article below to find out how scientists discovered this exoplanet.

An international team of astronomers has discovered the largest known planet orbiting another star.

The “transiting” planet - meaning one that passes in front of its parent star as seen from Earth - is about 70% larger than Jupiter.

But the presumed “gas giant” has a much lower mass than Jupiter - the biggest planet in our Solar System - making it of extremely low density.

CLICK HERE to load the full article at the BBC.

Another space probe heads for Mars

admin — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:18:43 +0000

Mars remains a popular destination for space probes. The landers and probes currently on and around Mars will get company from the Phoenix Mars Lander. The lander is a joint effort between the Canadian Space Agency and NASA. The Phoenix Mars Lander was launched on Saturday (4 august) and is scheduled to arrive in 9 months. On board is a weather station that will monitor Mars’ atmosphere, and might help in finding out whether Mars could support life. The lander will spend between 3 and 6 months on the Martian surface collecting ice and soil samples.

The robotic Phoenix Mars Lander, a joint product of the Canadian Space Agency and NASA, began its nine-month journey to Mars Saturday to determine if the red planet can support life.

Strapped aboard an unmanned Delta rocket, the dirt and ice digger made a pre-dawn launch at Cape Canaveral, Fla. armed with a Canadian meteorological package.

Canadian researchers, engineers and scientists from across the country developed the weather station, which is designed to analyze the planet’s atmosphere to help determine if Mars can sustain life.

CLICK HERE to load the full article.

Holophonics and Binaural Audio

admin — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:31:39 +0000

In case you haven’t heard of holophonics yet, and/or you missed the sound samples below, take a look. Holophonics is a form of binaural sound recording. Binaural basically refers to our two ears, and let’s humans and animals localize the source of sounds. When listening to the samples below your brain does most of the work. You will need some half-decent headphones and sound card to really get the best out of them. Put the volume up a bit to hear all the nuances. Closing your eyes will help make the experience even more realistic.

Click links below to start sound playback:

Matches
Sensual female voice
Virtual Barber Shop

And several general binaural sound samples:

The Binaural Source

Welcome to Aduro!

admin — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:52:55 +0000

Aduro provides you with the latest news from the world of astronomy, physics, and technology!