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William Robinson writes:
The spacecraft called Mangalyaan (“Mar’s craft”) which was launched in November last year, slowed down just enough to touch the orbit early Wednesday (Indian Time), securing India a place in the elite global space club of Martian explorers. More than half of the 51 Mars missions launched globally have failed. India’s Mars entry is the fourth, after the United States, Europe and Russia. But India’s mission cost a fraction of NASA’s $670 million Maven which entered Mars on Sunday. The Curiosity Rover, which touched down on Mars in 2012, cost nearly $2 billion. By comparison, India’s $72 million Mars orbiter is the cheapest inter-planetary mission in the world.
64727599
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William Robinson writes:
Before the spacecraft is scheduled to enter Mars orbit, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) scientists reignited the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft's main engine for four seconds as a trial. The liquid apogee motor (LAM) engine has been idle for about 300 days since the spacecraft left the Earth's orbit on a Martian trajectory on December 1, 2013. The short-duration test was to ensure that the engine is in good shape for the 24-minute crucial manoeuvre on Wednesday.
63845133
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William Robinson writes:
India's Mars Orbiter Mission, known as Mangalyaan is now at a distance of just nine million kilometres from the red planet, and is scheduled to enter the orbit of Mars at 7.30 am on September 24. Mangalyaan was launched on 5th November 2013 by ISRO, presently busy planning to reduce the speed of the spacecraft through the process of firing the LAM engine and bring it to 1.6 km/sec, before it is captured by the planet's gravity.
62737809
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William Robinson writes:
Scientists from Temple University School of Medicine have achieved a way to snip out the integrated HIV-1 genes for the very first time. They created molecular tools to delete the HIV-1 proviral DNA. When deployed, a combination of a DNA-snipping enzyme called a nuclease and a targeting strand of RNA called a guide RNA (gRNA) hunt down the viral genome and excise the HIV-1 DNA. From there, the cell's gene repair machinery takes over, soldering the loose ends of the genome back together – resulting in virus-free cells.
61577247
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William Robinson writes:
Astronomers from Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, have discovered three closely orbiting supermassive black holes in a galaxy more than 4 billion light-years away. This is the tightest trio of black holes known to date. Researchers say the discovery will help astronomers hunt gravitational waves, the ripples in the curvature of spacetime that propagate as a wave, travelling away from the source.
59998583
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William Robinson writes:
A team of NASA scientists has successfully replicated the process of formation of interstellar dust occurring in the atmosphere of a dying star in a specialized facility called the Cosmic Simulation Chamber (COSmiC). Scientists believe that dust grains are the building blocks of universe, enveloping dying stars and then getting eventually ejected into "interstellar medium lead" to be part of the formation of planet. During the COSmiC experiments, they could simulate gas-phase with high radiation environment by using cold argon gas filled with hydrocarbons sprayed into a vacuum, similar to the cosmic space that has average temperatures of less than negative 270 degrees Fahrenheit or about 100 degrees in Kelvin. The researchers formed and detected nanoparticles on the order of 10nm size grains varying from 100-500 nanometers and combined grains up to 1.5 micrometers in diameter
59570455
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William Robinson writes:
According to these reports, A globular cluster of several thousand stars, compressed into a space just a few dozen light years apart, is thrown out of galaxy M87. The cluster, named as HVGC-1, is traveling at a rate of 2 million miles per hour. The discovery was made by Nelson Caldwell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his team while studying the space around the supergiant elliptical galaxy M87. Caldwell and colleagues think M87 might have two supermassive black holes at its center. The star cluster wandered too close to the pair, which picked off many of the cluster’s outer stars while the inner core remained intact. The black holes then acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away at a tremendous speed.
59236775
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William Robinson writes:
The Astronomers at XMM-Newton have detected a pair of supermassive black holes at the center of an inactive galaxy. Most massive galaxies in the Universe are thought to harbor at least one supermassive black hole at their center. And a pair of black holes is indication of strong possibility that the galaxies have merged. Finding black holes in quiescent galaxies is difficult because there are no gas clouds feeding the black holes, so the cores of these galaxies are truly dark. It can be only detected by this ‘tidal disruption event’,.
59013733
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William Robinson writes:
A new study from researchers at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has proposed the "water world" theory as the answer to our evolution, which describes how electrical energy naturally produced at the sea floor might have given rise to life. While the scientists had already proposed this hypothesis called "submarine alkaline hydrothermal emergence of life" the new report assembles decades of field, laboratory and theoretical research into a grand, unified picture.
58559369
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William Robinson writes:
Curiosity has sent photographs of Mars showing mysterious light source on Mars. Nasa has yet to addresses the anomaly but astronomers have not wasted any time in sharing their take on the phenomenon with many claiming that this prooves that life exists on Mars. Pretty exciting for UFO enthusiasts.
47375663
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William Robinson writes:
Astronomers have discovered 26 new likely black holes in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy — the largest haul of black hole candidates ever found in a galaxy apart from our own. The central region of the Andromeda galaxy is chock-full of black holes, according to extensive observations with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. 26 new stellar-mass black hole candidates have been identified, adding to nine previously known and bringing the grand total to 35. Scientists believe it may be 'tip of the iceberg'
39871757
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William Robinson writes:
Scientists have found way to use X-Ray Laser for creating supercharged particles. The specific tuning of the laser's properties can cause atoms and molecules to resonate. The resonance excites the atoms and causes them to shake off electrons at a rate that otherwise would require higher energies. This could be used to create highly charged plasma.
39026663
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William Robinson writes:
There are iteresting stories about which tech companies are supporting Obama and which tech companies are supporting Romney. According the article, Obama's biggest donators features the likes of Microsoft, Google, IBM and Comcast whereas the only tech name on Romney's list is EMC. The tech community are choosing Obama because they see him as man with a similar vision
36276731
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William Robinson writes:
Having lot of interest in renewabe energy, I came across solar Stirling Machines, which could have become very popular in remote areas where electricity is scarce. Countries like Indonesia, India, and middle east has abundant solar power, still I do not see Stirling Machines anywhere except couple of experimental setup. I wanted to ask the experts here, what could be the reason? Delayed start is not an issue and hundreds of applications can live with delayed start including waste heat recovery mechanisms. I am planning to build one for the third world countries. Do you see any reason why this may not fly?
11174390
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William Robinson writes:
The New York Times is reporting that 'Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, and have been observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defense Ministry, including documents on several Indian missile systems. Though the Indian government was the primary target of the attacks, one chink in computer security can leave many nations exposed. The researchers said that the spy operation appears to be different from the Internet intruders identified by Google and from a surveillance ring known as Ghostnet, also believed to be operating from China, which the Canadian researchers identified in March of last year. Ghostnet used computer servers based largely on the island of Hainan to steal documents from the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and governments and corporations in more than 103 countries.'
