Taking A Narrow View Of A Lopsided Galaxy

The starburst galaxy NGC 1313, as imaged by the Gemini South 8-meter telescope in Chile using narrow-band filters in the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph. The image is comprised of three color layers: red (ionized hydrogen at 656.3 nanometers), green (ionized oxygen at 500.7 nanometers), and blue (ionized helium at 468.6 nanometers). The field-of-view is about 5.5 x 8.2 arcminutes; each filter was integrated for a total of 600 seconds, and the seeing was about 0.5 arcsecond. The image is rotated counter-clockwise 59 degrees from north up and east left and was produced by Travis Rector, University of Alaska, Anchorage.

by Staff Writers
Hilo HI (SPX) May 26, 2010
The starburst galaxy NGC 1313 is a stellar incubator delivering stars on a scale rarely seen in a single galaxy of its size. Now a striking new Gemini Observatory image reveals the multitudes of glowing gas clouds in this galaxy's arms. These colorful clouds are the tell-tale sign of star-formation in this prolific star factory.

Because the clouds of gas in stellar nurseries emit light from ionized gas they shine brightly in very specific colors (or wavelengths) so narrow-band filters were used on the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope in Chile to capture the colorful galactic lightscape. The unprecedented detail and clarity of the image reveals myriad bubbles, shock fronts, star clusters, and sites where massive stars are being born.

Located some 15 million light-years away, NGC 1313 is a late-type barred spiral galaxy. It's a relatively close galactic neighbor to the Milky Way and has a mysterious past. Generally, starburst galaxies show some signs of interaction with another galaxy, and a close galactic encounter is usually responsible for sparking increased levels of star-birth activity. However, NGC 1313 is a neighborless "drifter," far away from any other packs of galaxies. The cause of its deformed shape and high rate of star formation is not obvious.

In radio studies of the underlying gas distribution aimed at solving the mystery of this galaxy's active star formation rate it appears that the edge of an expanding "superbubble" is causing gas to pile up and spur the formation of stars.

Dr. Stuart Ryder, Australian Gemini Scientist at the Anglo-Australian Observatory who has studied this galaxy extensively explains, "What triggered the superbubble is still a mystery. It would have required about a thousand supernovae to go off in the space of just a few million years, or else something punched its way through the disk and set it off like ripples in a pond."

Astronomers also speculate that nearby gas clouds may be falling into (or orbiting) the galaxy and this could be prompting localized starbursts. The bottom line is that this galaxy still has a lot of questions for astronomers to answer.

Despite its mysteries, even a casual glance at NGC 1313's morphology reveals a well-defined bar with twisted, asymmetric spiral arms. While pronounced star formation appears along the outer reaches of both arms, it's much stronger to the northeast (left on the new Gemini image). Other regions of star formation are nearby, especially to the southwest (right) where they appear disconnected due to the action of the superbubble. Very deep exposures also show extensive turmoil in the outer regions of the galaxy (http://www.aao.gov.au/images/deep_html/n1313_d.html). Despite the apparent visual chaos, NGC 1313 has a uniformly rotating disk inclined at 48 degrees to our line of sight.

In addition, the galaxy hosts several sources of energetic X-rays from what are called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). It is thought that most ULXs are powered by intermediate-mass black holes formed during the demise of large binary star systems. One of them, known as NGC 1313 X-2, appears to be a massive black hole of up to several hundred solar masses.

It draws matter from a 12-15 solar mass main-sequence star. Another one, called NGC 1313 X-1, may harbor a black hole twice as massive. The final X-ray source is produced by shock emission from Supernova 1978K.

In the new Gemini image, three narrow-band filters isolate the various features of ionized hydrogen (red), helium (blue), and oxygen (green). These specific colors dominate star-forming regions where hot gas glows brightly and paints the complex network of clouds spanning thousands of light-years.

The galaxy itself extends across about 50,000 light-years (about half the extent of the Milky Way) and is located in the direction of the far southern constellation Reticulum.

www.spacedaily.com

AeroVironment's Global Observer UAS Completes Key Ground Tests

Each aircraft in a Global Observer system is designed to fly at an altitude of between 55,000 and 65,000 feet for 5 to 7 days. In addition to flying above weather and above other conventional airplanes, operation in this altitude range means that sensor payloads on the aircraft will be able to view a circular area on the surface of the earth up to 600 miles in diameter, equivalent to more than 280,000 square miles of coverage.

by Staff Writers
Monrovia CA (SPX) May 26, 2010
AeroVironment has announced that the first aircraft developed under the Global Observer Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program has successfully completed key ground tests in preparation for flight testing.

The joint Department of Defense, NASA and AV team successfully performed ground vibration, structural and taxi tests at Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB) in California. AV developed and fabricated Aircraft 1 in its dedicated manufacturing facility located in Southern California and shipped it to EAFB in December 2009.

AV is developing the Global Observer unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to be the first to provide robust, cost-effective and persistent communications and surveillance over any location. Six U.S. government agencies have provided more than $120 million in funding for the JCTD program.

"Global Observer is designed to perform above and beyond the capabilities of any other existing aircraft. The unique benefit of this truly unblinking eye will be its ability to watch, listen and relay communications signals flexibly, affordably and without interruption," said Tim Conver, AV's chairman and chief executive officer.

"The need for affordable and seamless persistence is great, and we look forward to demonstrating this important capability during the final phase of the Global Observer JCTD program."

Each aircraft in a Global Observer system is designed to fly at an altitude of between 55,000 and 65,000 feet for 5 to 7 days. In addition to flying above weather and above other conventional airplanes, operation in this altitude range means that sensor payloads on the aircraft will be able to view a circular area on the surface of the earth up to 600 miles in diameter, equivalent to more than 280,000 square miles of coverage.

Equipped with payloads that are readily available today, two Global Observer aircraft would alternate coverage over any location on the globe every 5 to 7 days, making this the first solution to provide customers with practical, seamless coverage, wherever and whenever required.

The joint Department of Defense, NASA and AV team based at EAFB completed aircraft weight and balance measurements and conducted a series of Ground Vibration and Structural Modes Interaction Tests in February. During March and April the team performed aircraft system tests to validate the aircraft hardware and software readiness, and to support ground and flight crew training in preparation for the initial flight series.

Most recently, taxi tests were conducted to confirm autonomous propulsion, data link operation, steering and braking. A final Flight Readiness Review will be conducted to formally review and approve the initiation of flight testing. Initial flight testing will consist of low-altitude battery-powered flights at EAFB to evaluate the aircraft's airworthiness and handling qualities.

Communications relay and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) payloads are being prepared for installation into the aircraft. Once development flight tests have been completed, payloads will be installed and joint operational utility flight demonstrations will be performed at EAFB.

Global Observer is designed to address an urgent national security need for a persistent stratospheric platform and to offer a means to satisfy numerous high value civil and commercial applications.

The system is intended to provide mission capabilities that include robust observation over areas with little or no existing coverage, persistent communications relay, the ability to relocate the system as required by theater commanders, dedicated communications support to other UAS and tactical on-station weather monitoring and data support.

Final assembly of Aircraft 2 is proceeding at the AV Global Observer manufacturing facility.

/www.spacedaily.com

Walker's World: Euro's crisis deepens

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

by Martin Walker
Milan, Italy (UPI) May 24, 2010
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke the obvious when she declared last week that "If the euro fails, Europe fails." The trouble is that not one of the available ways to fix the euro problem yet appears to be politically possible.

Merkel knows this, which is why she went on to say, "The current crisis facing the euro is the biggest test Europe has faced for decades, even since the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957."

There are three essential problems here. The first is that the euro mixes together apples and oranges. It combines efficient and disciplined economies like Germany, whose workers and labor unions held down wages for 10 years to make their exports competitive once more, with profligates like Greece, Italy and Spain who ducked such discipline and spent like the feckless grasshopper in Aesop's fable. By contrast, the Germans worked and saved like Aesop's ants. As a result, the Germans built up massive trade surpluses while the southern Europeans accumulated debts.

The second problem is that those debts are now too high to be paid back so long as the southern Europeans remain in the euro, with their interest and exchange rates locked into those of Germany. If they could devalue their currencies, as they used to do on a regular basis before joining the euro, they could adjust. Since they cannot devalue, they must grind down wages and raise productivity to become competitive, even as their governments slash spending and raise taxes to balance their budgets and pay off debt. If they stay in the euro, they will have to endure this kind of austerity for many years. The voters are unlikely to accept such a fate.

The third problem is political. Germany is the backbone of the euro. If other countries want to remain part of Germany's financial empire, they will have to work and pay taxes like Germans and abide by the fiscal rules that Germany sets. This means that the eurozone itself will have to become a political entity that can plan, enact and enforce a common economic policy.

But even if that were to happen, there is still a catch. The Germans will have to pay for it, at least during the hard times of readjustment and austerity that lie ahead. The Germans will have to behave like the citizens of New York, who pay more into the federal government of the United States than they receive in return. This is how federal states, and monetary unions, have to work, balancing out the wealth between the wealthy and poor regions. And everything that we have seen in the German political discourse and in the media and in the recent regional elections suggest that the German voters are unlikely to finance such generosity.

This should come as no surprise. Successive studies of the implications of European Monetary Union that were published before the euro was launched warned firmly that this would be the case.

In 1989, Jacques Delores was president of the European commission, and he set up a committee which he led, with 12 heads of European central banks and the managing director of the Bank of International Settlements. Their report made two pivotal points.

The first was, "The permanent fixture of exchange rates would deprive individual countries of an important instrument for the correction of imbalances." In other words, if countries like Greece cannot devalue their currency, they will have to correct their consequent trade deficits in other ways, like lower wages and higher taxes.

The second was, "If sufficient consideration were not given to regional imbalances, the economic union would be faced with grave economic and political risks." In other words, if the southern Europeans cannot work and save like Germans, or if the Germans cannot even out regional imbalances by paying more of their money to beef up the southerners, there will be very serious trouble - which is what the euro countries now have.

Donald MacDougall, a distinguished Oxford professor and senior economic adviser to the British government, looked at this problem for the European Commission in 1978 and published a report in which he said that all other monetary unions in history had need to control something like 20-25 percent of the union's gross domestic product in order to make the transfer payments from rich (or hard-working) countries to poor (or feckless) ones that could fix such imbalances. Europe itself might get away with rather less, perhaps 10 percent if it were lucky, but certainly sums that were orders of magnitude higher than the 1.2 percent of Europe's GDP that the EU currently commands.

In fact, such transfers were made from Germany and France to the southern countries, but they were made by banks and investors who thought they were investing in reliable euro bonds that happened to be issued by Greece and Spain. The banks have now discovered that they not buying euros that we as safe as German D-marks, but euros that were really as unsound as Italian lire and Greek drachma.

In should therefore come as no surprise that Europe's trillion-dollar Band-Aid isn't working. The wound goes much too deep. Either the eurozone now integrates and becomes a federal state like the United States and under German economic management, or it collapses, and the Greeks and other profligate countries devalue and the banks (German, French, British and American) lose hundreds of billions. This will trigger the second global wave of economic crisis, just as the financial crash of 1929 gave way to the government insolvency crash of 1931.

www.terradaily.com

Mars Rovers Set Surface Longevity Record

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera for this northward view of tracks the rover left on a drive from one energy-favorable position on the northern end of a sand ripple to another. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. For a larger version of this image please go here.

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 20, 2010
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project will pass a historic Martian longevity record on Thursday, May 20. The Opportunity rover will surpass the duration record set by NASA's Viking 1 Lander of six years and 116 days operating on the surface of Mars. The effects of favorable weather on the red planet could also help the rovers generate more power.

Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit, began working on Mars three weeks before Opportunity. However, Spirit has been out of communication since March 22. If it awakens from hibernation and resumes communication, that rover will attain the Martian surface longevity record.

Spirit's hibernation was anticipated, based on energy forecasts, as the amount of sunshine hitting the robot's solar panels declined during autumn on Mars' southern hemisphere. Unfortunately, mobility problems prevented rover operators from positioning Spirit with a favorable tilt toward the north, as during the first three winters it experienced. The rovers' fourth winter solstice, the day of the Martian year with the least sunshine at their locations, was Wednesday, May 12.

"Opportunity, and likely Spirit, surpassing the Viking Lander 1 longevity record is truly remarkable, considering these rovers were designed for only a 90-day mission on the surface of Mars," Callas said. "Passing the solstice means we're over the hump for the cold, dark, winter season."

Unless dust interferes, which is unlikely in the coming months, the solar panels on both rovers should gradually generate more electricity. Operators hope that Spirit will recharge its batteries enough to awaken from hibernation, start communicating and resume science tasks.

Unlike recent operations, Opportunity will not have to rest to regain energy between driving days. The gradual increase in available sunshine will eventually improve the rate of Opportunity's progress across a vast plain toward its long-term destination, the Endeavour Crater.

This month, some of Opportunity's drives have been planned to end at an energy-favorable tilt on the northern face of small Martian plain surface ripples. The positioning sacrifices some distance to regain energy sooner for the next drive. Opportunity's cameras can see a portion of the rim of Endeavour on the horizon, approximately eight miles away, across the plain's ripples of windblown sand.

"The ripples look like waves on the ocean, like we're out in the middle of the ocean with land on the horizon, our destination," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is the principal investigator for Opportunity and Spirit. "Even though we know we might never get there, Endeavour is the goal that drives our exploration."

The team chose Endeavour as a destination in mid-2008, after Opportunity finished two years examining the smaller Victoria Crater. Since then, the goal became even more alluring when orbital observations found clay minerals exposed at Endeavour. Clay minerals have been found extensively on Mars from orbit, but have not been examined on the surface.

"Those minerals form under wet conditions more neutral than the wet, acidic environment that formed the sulfates we've found with Opportunity," said Squyres.

"The clay minerals at Endeavour speak to a time when the chemistry was much friendlier to life than the environments that formed the minerals Opportunity has seen so far. We want to get there to learn their context. Was there flowing water? Were there steam vents? Hot springs? We want to find out."

Launched in 1975, Project Viking consisted of two orbiters, each carrying a stationary lander. Viking Lander 1 was the first successful mission to the surface of Mars, touching down on July 20, 1976. It operated until Nov. 13, 1982, more than two years longer than its twin lander or either of the Viking orbiters.

The record for longest working lifetime by a spacecraft at Mars belongs to a later orbiter: NASA's Mars Global Surveyor operated for more than 9 years after arriving in 1997.

NASA's Mars Odyssey, in orbit since in 2001, has been working at Mars longer than any other current mission and is on track to take the Mars longevity record late this year. Science discoveries by the Mars Exploration Rover have included Opportunity finding the first mineralogical evidence that Mars had liquid water and Spirit finding evidence for hot springs or steam vents and a past environment of explosive volcanism.

www.marsdaily.com

Six radioactive 'hotspots' detected in Delhi: Greenpeace

by Staff Writers
New Delhi (AFP) May 14, 2010
Greenpeace said Friday it had detected dangerously high levels of radioactivity near a New Delhi salvage yard where radiation poisoning last month killed a worker and left seven more in hospital.

The environmental group said its experts picked up radiation 5,000 times above normal background levels at the privately owned salvage facility in the city's congested Mayapuri district and its surrounding areas.

"We picked up six hotspots between 20 and 50 metres (65 and 165 feet) from the scrapyard, which means radiation has spread into the streets, which is very dangerous," said Greenpeace radiation expert Van Vande Putte.

"Decontamination has to happen. It is urgent," Belgium-based Putte told a news conference in the Indian capital.

He said the tests were conducted earlier Friday at the salvage yard, where valuable metals are extracted from abandoned machinery and sold in India's flourishing recycling market.

The announcement came after India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) watchdog earlier in the month certified the dump and surrounding area as safe.

The AERB said all radioactive materials had been recovered from the improper scrapping of a machine from Delhi University that contained a radioactive metal used for radiotherapy in hospitals.

The AERB could not be immediately reached for comment.

Rajendra Yadav, a 35-year-old worker at the salvage yard, died due to multiple organ failure on April 26. Seven others were hospitalised.

Putte said workers without protective gear in the yard where the machine ended up are receiving in just two hours radiation equal to the annual individual amount permitted by Indian laws.

The claim puts another question mark on growing concerns over toxic waste disposal methods and safety regulations in India, which plans to gradually switch to nuclear energy from coal- and oil-fired power stations.

Yadav had been given a "shiny piece of a white metal" from the machine as a sample to scout for a buyer and had carried it around in his leather wallet, showing it to potential customers.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was the worst radiation incident worldwide in four years.

Greenpeace attacked the AERB for declaring the zone safe.

"It was a case of oversight, negligence and the AERB should have done a better job," Greenpeace activist Karuna Raina told the news conference.

Radiation expert Putte said the toxic radioactive particles were too small to be seen with the naked eye, but that did not mean they were not lethal.

"It may not immediately cause loss of hair or deaths but the risk here is more of developing cancer over tens of years after contamination," the expert warned.

/www.nuclearpowerdaily.com

E-readers, tablet computers set to take off: BCG survey

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) May 17, 2010
Consumers worlwide are very interested in tablet computers like Apple's iPad and electronic readers such as Amazon's Kindle, and sales of the devices could take off when prices drop, according to a new survey.

"I think we're already at the starting point of mass adoption," said John Rose of The Boston Consulting Group, which conducted the survey of nearly 13,000 consumers in 14 countries.

"A million iPads in a month is a lot," Rose told AFP on Monday, refering to Apple's first month sales figures for the touchscreen device. Other companies such as Sony, Samsung and Google were expected to come out with similar products, he added.

Fifty-one percent of consumers surveyed who were familar with e-readers or tablet computers said they planned to purchase one within a year and 73 percent said they planned to buy one within three years.

"The survey suggests that e-readers and tablets are not a niche product for early adopters but could become the MP3 players of this decade," Rose said separately in a press release. "Grandmothers will soon be carrying them around."

The survey revealed prices will have to drop before e-readers and tablets become established consumer products alongside television sets, personal computers and mobile phones.

"As with other major mass market consumer devices the prices will come down," Rose told AFP. "They always do.

"I expect you'll see the prices come down in the next 12 to 18 months," he said. "The first iPod was a 400-dollar device so there's no reason why we won't see the same cycle."

US consumers said they were prepared to pay between 100 and 150 dollars for a single-usage device like the Kindle or 130 to 200 dollars for a multi-purpose device like the iPad, which can serve as an e-reader but also browse the Web or play video.

The Kindle, which was launched in 2007, costs 259 dollars while the iPad, which came out in the United States last month, costs between 499 dollars and 829 dollars.

The survey found most consumers would prefer a multi-purpose device. Sixty-six percent said they preferred a multi-purpose device while 24 percent said they wanted a single-purpose device for reading electronic books. The remainder were undecided.

"Consumers want to use these devices for a broad range of things, including Web surfing and email," Rose said. "These are easy and portable devices that'll make it easy to do such things."

In the United States, consumers are willing to pay between five and 10 dollars for digital books, five to 10 dollars for a monthly newspaper subscription and between two and four dollars for a single issue of an online magazine.

The BCG survey was conducted in March of 12,717 consumers in Australia, Austria, Britain, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Spain and the United States.

www.spacedaily.com

Making light work: The 50-year odyssey of the laser

Laser: A timeline Paris (AFP) May 12, 2010 - Following is a timeline of the laser, which was born 50 years ago on May 16: - 1917: Einstein proposes the theory of "stimulated emission," by which a photon, or light particle, induces an atom to emit an identical photon. - 1953: American physicist Charles Townes builds forerunner of the laser, a "maser," for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. - 1957: Gordon Gould, a doctoral student under Townes, coins the term "laser," theorising that light could be used to excite atoms into making a coherent beam of light. Later files a patent; legal dispute lasts nearly three decades. - 1960: First laser, built by Theodore Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories in California, becomes operational. - 1961: Laser used for first time in surgery, to destroy retinal tumour. - 1962: Invention of the semi-conducting diode laser, the mainstay of small commercial lasers today. - 1969: Laser's use in telemetry makes headlines. A beam bounced back by a mirror deployed by the Apollo 11 crew measures the distance between Earth and the Moon to within a few metres (yards). - 1971: Lasers enter the arts, with light shows and the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Dennis Gabor, a British-Hungarian, for holography. - 1974: First supermarket bar-code scanner. - 1975: IBM introduces first commercial laser printer. - 1978: First laser disc player, made by Philips, but high cost is a barrier to success. - 1982: First Compact Disc player. First CD to be pressed is "52nd Street" by Billy Joel. - 1983: President Ronald Reagan makes "Star Wars" speech, sketching vision of space-based laser weapons. - 1988: North America and Europe are linked by first fibre-optic cable, which uses laser pulses to transport data. - 1990s: Lasers become established in manufacturing processes, including integrated circuits and car manufacturing. - 1991: First laser surgery to correct short-sightedness. Gulf War sees first use of laser-guided munitions. - 1996: Toshiba sells first digital versatile disc (DVD) player. - 2008: French neurosurgeons use fibre-optic laser and keyhole surgery to destroy brain cancer. - 2010: US National Nuclear Security Administration says quest for nuclear fusion clears a key hurdle, with the use of 192 laser beams to compress tiny balls of fuel made from deuterium and tritium.

by Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) May 12, 2010
Fifty years ago next Sunday, a 32-year-old engineer called Theodore Maiman switched on a gadget at Hughes Research Laboratories in California, and watched as pulses of light sprang from a pink ruby crystal.

It was a geek eureka: the moment when the laser was born. And the world would change forever. But not just yet.

When Maiman's great invention was announced, the response was essentially "Doh?" as people tried to figure out what it was and what use could be made of it.

That was swiftly followed by an "Eek!" when the press came up with some scary headlines.

"LA Man Discovers Science-Fiction Death Ray," said one, reflecting the zeitgeist of 1960, when the Cold War mixed promiscuously with B-movies about aliens.

Since then, the laser has revolutionised life. It brings, sends and stores data in vast batches at light speed, measures material and cuts it with sub-millimetric precision.

It can be found in things as everyday as supermarket bar-code scanners -- the first scanned object was a packet of Wrigley's chewing gum in 1974 -- just as it can be found in hi-tech self-targeting bombs, sniper's sights, adaptive optics in astronomical telescopes and research into nuclear fusion, the ultimate in clean energy.

Lasers drive your CD and DVD player. They make holograms and light shows. They probably marked, cut and welded the frame of your car. They will smooth your wrinkles, zap your cancer, correct your short-sightedness.

And if you are reading this story online, think of the lasers that got it to you -- more than million lasers power the Internet, shuttling terabytes of data through optical fibre.

"The story of the laser is incredible," Tim Holt, head of the Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, said in an interview.

"Along with the integrated circuit, the laser has been the most revolutionary technology of the last 50 years."

The conceptual pathway that leads to the bog-standard laser pointer starts with the brain of Albert Einstein.

In 1917, Einstein put forward the theory of stimulated emission, in which a photon, or light particle, causes an excited atom to emit an identical photon.

It was 1953 before the US physicist Charles Townes put the phenomenon to the test, with a "maser" -- Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation -- in which microwaves were used as the atom-exciter.

Townes and a colleague, Arthur Schawlow, then had the idea of using visible light rather than microwave, although it was Maiman who made the concept work. "Light" replaced "Microwave" in the acronym, and the word Laser entered the vocabulary.

The first laser beam was light amplified by a solid ruby rod, but within months this was followed by a helium neon laser, devised at the rival Bell Laboratories, also in 1960.

In 1962 came the first big practical breakthrough, a laser made of a diode of gallium arsenide, whose principle provides the backbone of small commercial laser devices today.

More than 10 Nobel prizes have been awarded for laser research, both in conceptual work but also in the practicalities of using laser pulses for storing and moving data.

Today, the top end of research is "femtosecond" lasers, in which ultra-fast lasers alter the "spin" of electrons in individual atoms to provide a more compact, denser storage on hard drives.

A prototype femtosecond laser tested by French physicists last year is able to retrieve data with a burst of just a millionth of a billionth of a second, a performance that notionally could accelerate the performance of present hard discs by up to 100,000 times.

"Lasers have given us a step in capability that is truly mind-boggling," said David Hanna, a professor in opto-electronics at the University of Southampton, England.

"Their possibilities will not be fully digested or exhausted for a very long time to come."

/www.spacedaily.com

X-ray Discovery Points To Location Of Missing Matter

X-ray Discovery Points To Location Of Missing Matter

This missing matter - which is different from dark matter - is composed of baryons, the particles, such as protons and electrons, that are found on the Earth, in stars, gas, galaxies, and so on.

by Staff Writers
Boston MA (SPX) May 12, 2010
Using observations with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton, astronomers have announced a robust detection of a vast reservoir of intergalactic gas about 400 million light years from Earth. This discovery is the strongest evidence yet that the "missing matter" in the nearby Universe is located in an enormous web of hot, diffuse gas.

This missing matter - which is different from dark matter - is composed of baryons, the particles, such as protons and electrons, that are found on the Earth, in stars, gas, galaxies, and so on. A variety of measurements of distant gas clouds and galaxies have provided a good estimate of the amount of this "normal matter" present when the universe was only a few billion years old.

However, an inventory of the much older, nearby universe has turned up only about half as much normal matter, an embarrassingly large shortfall.

The mystery then is where does this missing matter reside in the nearby universe? This latest work supports predictions that it is mostly found in a web of hot, diffuse gas known as the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM). Scientists think the WHIM is material left over after the formation of galaxies, which was later enriched by elements blown out of galaxies.

"Evidence for the WHIM is really difficult to find because this stuff is so diffuse and easy to see right through," said Taotao Fang of the University of California at Irvine and lead author of the latest study. "This differs from many areas of astronomy where we struggle to see through obscuring material."

To look for the WHIM, the researchers examined X-ray observations of a rapidly growing supermassive black hole known as an active galactic nucleus, or AGN. This AGN, which is about two billion light years away, generates immense amounts of X-ray light as it pulls matter inwards.

Lying along the line of sight to this AGN, at a distance of about 400 million light years, is the so-called Sculptor Wall. This "wall", which is a large diffuse structure stretching across tens of millions of light years, contains thousands of galaxies and potentially a significant reservoir of the WHIM if the theoretical simulations are correct. The WHIM in the wall should absorb some of the X-rays from the AGN as they make their journey across intergalactic space to Earth.

Using new data from Chandra and previous observations with both Chandra and XMM-Newton, absorption of X-rays by oxygen atoms in the WHIM has clearly been detected by Fang and his colleagues. The characteristics of the absorption are consistent with the distance of the Sculptor Wall as well as the predicted temperature and density of the WHIM.

This result gives scientists confidence that the WHIM will also be found in other large-scale structures.

Several previous claimed detections of the hot component of the WHIM have been controversial because the detections had been made with only one X-ray telescope and the statistical significance of many of the results had been questioned.

"Having good detections of the WHIM with two different telescopes is really a big deal," said co-author David Buote, also from the University of California at Irvine. "This gives us a lot of confidence that we have truly found this missing matter."

In addition to having corroborating data from both Chandra and XMM- Newton, the new study also removes another uncertainty from previous claims. Because the distance of the Sculptor Wall is already known, the statistical significance of the absorption detection is greatly enhanced over previous "blind" searches.

These earlier searches attempted to find the WHIM by observing bright AGN at random directions on the sky, in the hope that their line of sight intersects a previously undiscovered large-scale structure.

Confirmed detections of the WHIM have been made difficult because of its extremely low density. Using observations and simulations, scientists calculate the WHIM has a density equivalent to only 6 protons per cubic meter. For comparison, the interstellar medium - the very diffuse gas in between stars in our galaxy - typically has about a million hydrogen atoms per cubic meter.

"Evidence for the WHIM has even been much harder to find than evidence for dark matter, which is invisible but can be detected because of its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies," said Fang.

There have been important detections of possible WHIM in the nearby Universe with relatively low temperatures of about 100,000 degrees using ultraviolet observations and relatively high temperature WHIM of about 10 million degrees using observations of X-ray emission in galaxy clusters.

However, these are expected to account for only a relatively small fraction of the WHIM. The X-ray absorption studies reported here probe temperatures of about a million degrees where most of the WHIM is predicted to be found.

These results appear in the May 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

www.spacedaily.com

Mars500 European Crew Selected And Ready To Go

Mars500 experiment facility in Moscow. Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

by Staff Writers
Paris, France (ESA) May 11, 2010
The simulated flight to Mars is almost ready to depart! Selection of the full crew is still under way, but the Europeans have now been chosen: Romain Charles and Diego Urbina.

Two Europeans, three Russians and one Chinese will close the hatch of the Mars500 isolation modules in early June and start their record-breaking mission.

The full crew will be announced later in May, but the European members have already been selected in order to allow them to visit family and friends before they are faced with a 'space mission' that is in many ways even more challenging than launching for real into orbit.

Diego Urbina, 26, has Italian-Colombian nationality and a wide experience in the space field. Romain Charles, 31, from France, is a quality manager at Sotira, a company producing composite panels.

"I'm really excited and happy having this possibility," says Diego Urbina with a big smile. "But of course I also have mixed feelings and I'm slightly worried about the unexpected things, mainly psychological, that may happen during the isolation. But these are the issues we're most interested in!"

During the mission, Diego will keep us posted on the web: "I'm looking forward to having a lot of feedback!"

"I am proud of these young men, who are not only brave enough to take part in this history-making experiment, but also who are willingly giving so much their time for the benefit of spaceflight and future generations," said Simonetta Di Pippo, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight.

"Mars remains as a goal of the global human exploration programme and Mars500 will provide extremely interesting information about the human side of the future manned missions to our planetary neighbour."

Ultimate experiment
Mars500 is a 520-day simulated mission to Mars. The sealed mockup includes an interplanetary spaceship, a Mars lander and a martian landscape. Housed in Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow, the modules provide 550 m³ of living space.

The crew will have in the chamber food that shall last for the full duration, and the crew has to manage their consumption accordingly. Communication is only via e-mail and the connection will occasionally be disrupted. It will include also a maximum of 40-minute delay, as on a real Mars mission. They will be monitored and their psychological and physiological parameters recorded throughout the mission.

The experiment, as long as a real journey to Mars, will test technologies for extremely long flights, but it is also unique as a test of human endurance.

Like a real spaceflight
The crew will live and work like astronauts on the International Space Station, and their life will resemble that of Station astronauts: maintenance, scientific experiments and daily exercise. They will follow a seven-day week, with two days off, except when special and emergency situations are simulated.

During the 'surface operations' after 250 days, the crew will be divided, with three moving to the martian 'surface', while the other three remain in the orbiting 'spacecraft' for a month. The landing crew will venture out on the 'Martian' surface wearing modified Russian Orlan spacesuits.

/www.marsdaily.com

Locals leave area after fresh Iceland volcano eruption

by Staff Writers
Reykjavik (AFP) May 8, 2010
Sixty inhabitants of the zone around Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano have left the area voluntarily following fresh eruptions, a civil protection agency official said Saturday.

"There is a lot of ash falling and the community is affected", Gudrun Johannesdottir told AFP, adding that while authorities were monitoring the situation closely, no evacuation had been ordered.

"The Red Cross opened centres for people needing assistance. Those leaving (the area) have to report to the Red Cross," she said.

Sixty people told the Red Cross Saturday morning that they were leaving the area where the ash was falling, to the east of volcano, which is located in the south of the island.

The Eyjafjoell volcano began fresh and intensive ash eruptions overnight Thursday and caused Ireland, the Faroe Islands and Danish territory in the North Atlantic to temporarily shut airspace.

On Saturday Spain closed 15 airports and more than 100 flights were cancelled in Portugal.

Bjoern Oddsson, a geologist at the University of Iceland, said the smoke plume over the volcano had risen to seven kilometres (4.5 miles) Saturday and was bearing southeast.

"The volcanic activity is similiar to what it was yesterday and hasn't increased, even though it might seem like that to the people living in the area affected by ash fall," he said.

"In fact, it looks as if the explosive activity has decreased a little bit since yesterday."

The volcano began erupting on April 14 and caused travel chaos, with airspaces closed over several European nations for a week.

It was the biggest aerial shutdown in Europe since World War II, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled and eight million passengers affected. The airline industry said it lost some 2.5 billion euros.

www.terradaily.com

23 dead, more than 160 injured in China tornado: state media

by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) May 6, 2010
At least 23 people were killed and more than 160 injured when a tornado struck China's southwestern mega-city of Chongqing Thursday, smashing homes and destroying crops, state media reported.

The tornado hit two rural counties in the giant municipality at around 2:00 am (1800 GMT Wednesday), Xinhua news agency said, adding that the number of dead and injured were still being tallied.

/www.terradaily.com

Low-Maintenance Strawberry May Be Good Crop To Grow In Space

Purdue's Gioia Massa, from left, Cary Mitchell and Judith Santini found that a particular type of strawberry seems to meet NASA guidelines for foods that could be grown in space. (Purdue Agricultural Communication photo/Tom Campbell)

by Staff Writers
West Lafayette IN (SPX) May 05, 2010
Astronauts could one day tend their own crops on long space missions, and Purdue University researchers have found a healthy candidate to help satisfy a sweet tooth - a strawberry that requires little maintenance and energy.

Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture, and Gioia Massa, a horticulture research scientist, tested several cultivars of strawberries and found one variety, named Seascape, which seems to meet the requirements for becoming a space crop.

"What we're trying to do is grow our plants and minimize all of our inputs," Massa said. "We can grow these strawberries under shorter photoperiods than we thought and still get pretty much the same amount of yield."

Seascape strawberries are day-neutral, meaning they aren't sensitive to the length of available daylight to flower. Seascape was tested with as much as 20 hours of daylight and as little as 10 hours. While there were fewer strawberries with less light, each berry was larger and the volume of the yields was statistically the same.

"I was astounded that even with a day-neutral cultivar we were able to get basically the same amount of fruit with half the light," Mitchell said.

The findings, which were reported online early in the journal Advances in Space Research, showed that the Seascape strawberry cultivar is a good candidate for a space crop because it meets several guidelines set by NASA. Strawberry plants are relatively small, meeting mass and volume restrictions.

Since Seascape provides fewer, but larger, berries under short days, there is less labor required of crew members who would have to pollinate and harvest the plants by hand. Needing less light cuts down energy requirements not only for lamps, but also for systems that would have to remove heat created by those lights.

"We're trying to think of the whole system - growing food, preparing it and getting rid of the waste," Massa said. "Strawberries are easy to prepare and there's little waste."

Seascape also had less cycling, meaning it steadily supplied fruit throughout the test period. Massa said the plants kept producing fruit for about six months after starting to flower.

Mitchell said the earliest space crops will likely be part of a "salad machine," a small growth unit that will provide fresh produce that can supplement traditional space meals. Crops being considered include lettuces, radishes and tomatoes. Strawberries may be the only sweet fruit being considered, he said.

"The idea is to supplement the human diet with something people can look forward to," Mitchell said. "Fresh berries can certainly do that."

Judith Santini, a research statistical analyst in Purdue's Department of Agronomy, was responsible for data analysis from the tests.

Mitchell and Massa said they next plan to test Seascape strawberries using LED lighting, hydroponics and different temperature ranges. NASA funded their work.

www.space-travel.com

'The Oil Catastrophe Will Be BP's Katrina, Not Obama's'

Photo Gallery: 10 Photos

AP

It could turn out to be America's worst ecological disaster yet. Oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico following last month's explosion of a BP oil rig. German commentators on Monday take a look at the political implications for the Obama administration.

The comparison is certainly tempting. As 800,000 liters of oil per day continue gushing into the Gulf of Mexico following the April 20 explosion and subsequent sinking of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, pundits are increasingly comparing the political damage it might do to that suffered by President George W. Bush in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

At stake is not only President Barack Obama's energy strategy, which only recently called for increased oil drilling on America's East Coast and in the Gulf. The president's entire climate plan could be at risk as well.

Indeed, Obama embraced oil drilling as part of an effort to attract the votes he will need from Republican Senators to pass his package of climate laws, aimed at limiting US carbon emissions and ending the country's status as international climate pariah. Now, however, it seems unlikely that he will be able to withstand the increased opposition to drilling from Democrats and from political leaders in coastal states. His grand deal -- oil drilling and nuclear power for the right, renewable energy and climate protection for the left -- is in danger of collapse.

Of more immediate concern, however, is the ongoing inability of British Petroleum, operator of the Deepwater Horizon, to stop the oil from continuing to flow into the Gulf and the advance of the vast oil slick toward environmentally and economically sensitive areas of the Gulf Coast. Visiting the area on Sunday, Obama said "the oil that is still leaking from the well could seriously damage the economy and the environment of our gulf states and it could extend for a long time. It could jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home."

German commentators take a closer look at the political ramifications of the oil spill on Monday.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Without energy, the Western lifestyle would not be possible. Energy for electricity, oil for the car, and gas for the heating… But we overestimate the power of technology and underestimate what we don't know. Each mistake can be fatal for life, limb and the environment. And the bigger the facilities get, the larger the consequences of human or technological failure."

"This inconsistency is clearly seen with the incident of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It symbolizes a technical triumph and an environmental catastrophe at the same time."

"First, (BP) systematically downplayed the possibility of a catastrophic spill to American officials. They said the chances of a large, environmentally-threatening incident was unlikely or nearly impossible. Then, the ventilation system -- which should have closed off the opening at the oil source automatically -- failed."

"Deepwater Horizon teaches us that in the future, our energy supplies must be decentralized, the facilities must be smaller and the industry must be more flexible and more environmentally friendly."

Business daily Handelsblatt writes:

"The horsetrading was well thought out: Barack Obama gives Big Oil and the Republicans the ability to drill off America's shores and in return, they agree to a climate law that the don't want. But with the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, nothing of the deal remains."

"What's more: the disaster has lays bare just how cynical political deals are. For years Republicans and Democrats alike have lauded the safety of deep water oil drilling. Not because they could prove it with facts, but because they didn't want to counter a trend which the oil companies approved of and voters supported. Now, however, all those who were recently cheering 'Drill, baby drill!' have suddenly sunken into silence."

"Obama knows that widening oil drilling techniques are not going to fix the American energy problem. As he said in late March from the Andrews Airforce Base in Maryland, where he lifted the moratorium on off-shore drilling: the US cannot drill its way out of the energy problems."

"So it's time for Obama to tell his fellow citizens that business as usual is not an option for America. The US needs to change its energy policy. And Obama should fight for that, even if it means risking failure. After the success with the health care reform, he doesn't need any lame compromise over climate policy reform."

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"We are watching one of the largest disasters in the history of oil production play out in slow motion. By now, the extent of the oil spill is gigantic, covering 9,000 square kilometers (3,475 square miles) -- or about half the size of the state of Saxony -- and it will continue to grow. Who now remembers the 2008 US presidential campaign, in which the stubborn John McCain traveled the country with the slogan 'Drill here, drill now' and, when oil prices peaked, happily suggested that he would like to drill half of the Arctic. And that will still come! With high oil prices and global rate of production reaching its peak, oil production will become costlier and more dangerous. The gap between simultaneously growing demand and stagnating production will remove any current reservations."

"And so, the images of the disaster have, above all, a function: for the world to once again realize the risks incurred drilling for oil at such great depths under the sea. But aside from heightened security measures on oil rigs, the consequences will be few."

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"The US president's political enemies' mouths are watering. They are predicting that the oil catastrophe on the southern coast of the US will be for Barack Obama what Hurricane Katrina was in 2005 for George W. Bush. They hope oil-contaminated ecosystems, bankrupt fishermen and black-coated beaches will spark anger against a lethargic government."

"But the comparison to the political dimensions of Katrina just won't work, because this catastrophe lacks the same human component. Around 1,800 people fell victim to the hurricane -- the suffering of residents in New Orleans was visible everyday. That is what made Katrina Bush's political Waterloo."

"Obama reacted late, but not too late. And he made a political correction: all oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico will be checked for safety and exploration permits off the Atlantic coast are suspended. Furthermore, Obama's planned expansion of oil drilling is once again up for debate."

"The oil catastrophe will be BP's Katrina, not Obama's."

www.spiegel.de