First time ever 'water-based battery' developed to generate electrical energy

In a first, scientists have developed a long-lasting and more efficient water-based nuclear battery that can be used as a reliable energy source in automobiles and even in complicated applications such as space flight.
From cell phones to cars and flashlights, batteries play an important role in everyday life. Scientists and technology companies constantly are seeking ways to improve battery life and efficiency.

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Enormous Balloon Will Carry Black Hole Hunting Telescope Aloft

New York: A giant balloon fitted with a new NASA telescope to spot black holes is set to take off this month. Scientists at the Washington University in St Louis and NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Texas will launch the balloon, inflated with high pressure helium, that will carry the X-Calibur telescope high into the atmosphere.

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All Set to Fete Rendezvous with the Red Planet

Bangalore: India is all set to reach new zenith in its space mission with country's spacecraft entering the final stage of Mars mission and all set to enter red planet on September 24.

The spacecraft has covered 98 per cent of its 300-day odyssey and the critical manoeuvre would be performed when the scientists restart the onboard liquid engine which is in sleep mode for nearly 10 months.

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NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars Arrives at Mountain Destination

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has finally reached the base of Mt. Sharp, the 3-mile-high mound in the middle of Gale Crater.

The rover reached its destination after wandering in the Martian desert for about 25 months. The arrival of the rover at Mt. Sharp t marks the start of the Mars Science Laboratory rover's original mission: to read the mountain's clay-rich lower layers like pages in a history book. It is expected that the analysis of these layers could expose the presence of life-affable environments on the Red Planet. A project scientist and Caltech geologist John Grotzinger said, "We have finally arrived at the far frontier that we have sought for so long."

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NASA radar system surveys Napa Valley quake area of Northern California

NASA scientists are planning to conduct an airborne survey of earthquake fault displacements in the Napa Valley area of Northern California, using a sophisticated radar system developed by NASA's Jet propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Pending results of a Thursday afternoon instrument checkout flight, a modified C-20A aircraft from NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center carrying JPL's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) was scheduled to fly a five-hour data-collection mission on Friday, Aug. 29 over the area that experienced a major quake during the pre-dawn hours on Sunday, Aug. 24.

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How does solar power work?

The sun—that power plant in the sky—bathes Earth in ample energy to fulfill all the world's power needs many times over. It doesn't give off carbon dioxide emissions. It won't run out. And it's free.
So how on Earth can people turn this bounty of sunbeams into useful electricity?
The sun's light (and all light) contains energy. Usually, when light hits an object the energy turns into heat, like the warmth you feel while sitting in the sun. But when light hits certain materials the energy turns into an electrical current instead, which we can then harness for power.

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NASA's Next Giant Leap

The first humans who will step foot on Mars are walking the Earth today. It was 45 years ago that Neil Armstrong took the small step onto the surface of the moon that changed the course of history. The years that followed saw a Space Age of scientific, technological and human research, on which we have built the modern era. We stand on a new horizon, poised to take the next giant leap—deeper into the solar system. The Apollo missions blazed a path for human exploration to the moon and today we are extending that path to near-Earth asteroids, Mars and beyond.

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Researchers invent 'meta mirror' to help advance nonlinear optical systems

Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have created a new nonlinear metasurface, or meta mirror, that could one day enable the 

miniaturization of laser systems. The invention, called a "nonlinear mirror" by the researchers, could help advance nonlinear laser systems that are used for chemical sensing, explosives detection, biomedical research and potentially many other applications. The researchers' study will be published in the July 3 issue of Nature.

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Newly spotted frozen world orbits in a binary star system

A newly discovered planet in a binary, or twin, star system located 3,000 light-years from Earth is expanding astronomers’ notions of where Earth like and even potentially habitable planets can form, and how to find them.

At twice the mass of Earth, the planet orbits one of the stars in the binary system at almost exactly the same distance at which Earth orbits the sun.  However, because the planet’s host star is much dimmer than the sun, the planet is much colder than Earth -- a little colder, in fact, than Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

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Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 Lifts Off on Carbon-Counting Mission

NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite is now in orbit after launching at 5:56 a.m. EDT (2:56 a.m. PDT) this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Station, California. OCO-2 is

 NASA’s first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth’s climate.

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PSLV-C23 Successfully Launches from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota

PSLV-C23 Successfully Launches French Earth Observation Satellite- SPOT 7 and four other co-passenger satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.

PSLV-C23 will carry a 714 kg French Earth Observation Satellite SPOT-7 as the main payload. Also, the 14 kg AISAT of Germany, NLS7.1 (CAN-X4) & NLS7.2 (CAN-X5) of

Canada each weighing 15 kg, and the 7 kg VELOX-1 of Singapore are being carried as co-passengers. These five satellites are being launched under commercial arrangements that ANTRIX has entered with the respective foreign agencies.

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NASA launching OCO-2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2) 1 July, 2014

Final launch countdown preparations continue on schedule today for the liftoff of the United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket carrying NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2.  At Space Launch Complex 2 this afternoon the RP-1 fuel, a highly refined kerosene, is to be loaded into the launch vehicle’s first stage. Then the mobile service tower, or the gantry, will be

rolled back from around the rocket.  This is targeted for about 4:10 p.m.Pacific time as soon as the launch vehicle preparations are complete. The countdown for launch will begin at 11:56 p.m.  After a weather briefing, cryogenic loading of liquid oxygen into the Delta II first stage will begin at 1:11 a.m.  Liftoff is targeted for the opening of a 30-second launch window that occurs at 2:56:44 a.m. Pacific time, 5:56 a.m. Eastern.

The weather forecast is essentially unchanged and calls for a 100 percent chance of acceptable conditions at launch time. At liftoff time the temperature will be near 52 degrees, winds from the Northwest at 5-8 knots and a visibility of 1 to 2 miles in coastal fog.

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