Hasta La Gadget!

NASA’s Hubble space telescope has caught a glimpse of a fast moving comet, one of the brightest examples in decades, as it prepares to skim the surface of the sun later this year. Comet (C/2012 S1) ISON was first identified in September last year, with later observations leading astronomers to predict that the hurtling chunk of rock and ice could be the brightest sighted in fifty years. Now, a new photograph shows the comet already active.

When the photo was captured, on April 10, ISON was still 386m miles from the sun (and slightly further away than that from Earth). However, the comet was already active, NASA’s scientists say, with the top layer of frozen volatiles warming up and releasing strong, jet-blasting dust particles.

With some false color added – NASA has put in the blue hue artificially, though the photo was captured using visible light – the effect is already clear. That has scientists impressed, too, since the core nucleus of the comet is believed to be relatively small for the amount of activity it’s showing, around 3-4 miles in diameter. However, the dusty coma – the smudge at the head – is already around 3,1000 miles across.

Both dwindle in comparison to the dust tail left behind, however. NASA says that extends in excess of 57,000 miles, and is in fact so long that Hubble’s frame of view can’t encompass it all. ISON is expected to skim an astronomically-tiny 700,000 miles above the sun’s surface on November 28 2013, though scientists are still crunching data from observations like these to figure out what the effect will be.

Whatever’s left will then continue on, coming within 39.9m miles of Earth before the year is out.

NASA snaps ISON comet as it hurtles super-bright to the sun is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you weren’t already aware, you should know that there are up to and including three HTC Nexus One smartphones floating above your head right this minute in part of a NASA mission to prove (or disprove) the viability of low-cost space exploration “PhoneSats”. Each of these low-cost satellites was aboard the first flight of Orbital Science Corporation’s Antares rocket, launched after this rocket took off from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia just two days ago.

Each of these PhoneSats is set to remain in orbit around our planet Earth for a period of up to two weeks. All three of the units have had transmissions received by multiple ground stations thus far, this ringing up as great news for those running the mission from Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

“It’s always great to see a space technology mission make it to orbit — the high frontier is the ultimate testing ground for new and innovative space technologies of the future. Smartphones offer a wealth of potential capabilities for flying small, low-cost, powerful satellites for atmospheric or Earth science, communications, or other space-born applications. They also may open space to a whole new generation of commercial, academic and citizen-space users.” – NASA associate administrator for space technology in Washington, Michael Gazarik

Each of the structures that make up a PhoneSat includes a standard cubical structure approximately 4-inches square, an HTC Nexus One smartphone, and s set of sensors. Each setup also includes a lithium-ion battery that’s significantly larger than that of the original HTC Nexus One as well as a radio with significantly more power than the original smartphone provided so that messages can be sent from high distances above the Earth.

The video above shows an early test launch of an HTC Nexus One launched with a balloon back in 2012 – you’re seeing this video from the perspective of the phone, mind you.

The original HTC Nexus One provides many of the features needed to create the NASA PhoneSat “off the shelf” unit. Each PhoneSat employs a series of miniature sensors, relatively high-resolution cameras, GPS receivers, and more – and whatever else the mission requires that the HTC Nexus One doesn’t provide.

Each of the units launched in this mission cost NASA engineers between $3,500 and $7,000 USD – significantly less expensive compared to essentially any other type of satellite. These costs are relatively low due to NASA engineers’ use of mass-produced commercial hardware such as – you guessed it – the HTC Nexus One.

We’ll continue watching for this set of three Android-toting amigos as they make their trip through our atmosphere and back towards the planet over the next few days and – hopefully – weeks as well.

[via Cellular News]

NASA’s trio of Android “PhoneSats” all operational: orbit tests under way is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

At the time this article is posted, a live video chat is taking place between actors Will Smith, Jaden Smith, and digital citizens of Google’s social network. Also invited to this conversation were Google’s director of engineering Ray Kurzweil, Elon Musk, Alexandra Cousteau, and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams. This conversation took place the day after Earth Day, this allowing the conversation to be cleverly titled “The After Earth Day Google+ Hangout”, with topics ranging from the conservation of our collective environment to the action-adventure genre in which the film “After Earth” is set.

Of course while Will and Jaden Smith were part of the conversation to speak about the state of the planet, they sat in front of a poster for the film they’ll be starring in soon: After Earth. This movie takes place in a future where the human race has left the planet in an effort to survive the future in which our Earth has become wild with untold masses of beasts and threats to any humanoid who would dare set foot in their domain.

Because the film wrestles a bit with the idea that our planet might one day be relatively uninhabitable by humans, this opportunity was sought by those involved in the chat to expand the public understanding of the threats we’re under here in real life. Will Smith began the chat speaking a bit about the difference between having grown up in real life Philadelphia where concrete is 80% of the environment and the locations they went to film this movie.

Ray Kurzweil spoke of how humans have recently been shown to have changed biologically in the last 1,000 years, but that his interest was in how we’ll be changing technologically in the next 50, 100, or 100,000 years will bring. Will Smith responded to this saying that even in his career in music, the amount of change that’s happened has been “extremely powerful” – his first two albums were only on vinyl record and plastic cassette tape, for example.

This conversation will continue for a short while this afternoon – join in on the fun! A group of 8th grade students and Google+ users have been offered the chance to speak with each of these advanced minds today – don’t skip this rare opportunity to see these folks speak their minds! Let’s chat!

After Earth Day Hangout brings Will Smith and Elon Musk to live chat is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It might sound like a killer drone, but the Microraptor was in fact an airborne terror that could harass fish as much as it did birds and mammals in the Cretaceous period, new dinosaur research has discovered. The flying dinosaur, known to be roughly the size of a hawk, had previously been believed to feed exclusively on what it could seize from the trees, but preserved stomach content examined by a team at the University of Alberta, Science Daily reports, revealed its appetites were far wider ranging.

The fossil was discovered in China, where it had been preserved in volcanic ash. That meant its stomach contents were preserved, which allowed the research team to identify fish remnants and overturn previous assumptions about the Microraptor’s diet, as well as where it lived and hunted.

“Now we know that Microraptor operated in varied terrain and had a varied diet,”Scott Persons, graduate student at the University of Alberta, said of the findings. Earlier evidence had suggested that the flying dinosaur stuck to the birds and squirrel-sized mammals it could find in trees.

“It took advantage of a variety of prey in the wet, forested environment that was China during the early Cretaceous period, 120 million years ago” Persons concluded, pointing out that the dinosaur’s teeth were, in fact, adapted to a mixed diet. Serrations on one side, with a forward-facing angle that allowed it to more quickly swallow fish after having dived down and scooped them out of the water.

The new discovery is notable because it makes Microraptor the first known flying raptor to prey on fish. The species is perhaps best known for featuring in Jurassic Park, though the film took liberties with the dinosaur’s anatomy, making it larger than in reality and missing out the feathers that would have covered a Velociraptor’s body.

Microraptor terrorized land and water new dino research reveals is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Science has a long history of making breakthroughs accidentally. The number of breakthroughs in the scientific world that came about from scientists and researchers trying to accomplish some unrelated task is surprising. A group of Japanese scientists were attempting to scan fruit fly larva using an electron microscope.

The problem with scanning fruit fly larva using an electron microscope is that the larva had to be placed into a space-like vacuum. Once in that vacuum, the fruit fly larvae quickly dehydrated and died within minutes. To be able to study the larva, the scientists had to come up with some way to protect the tiny bugs from the vacuum. The resulting quest led to the scientists developing a type of nano-suit that enveloped the fruit fly larva’s body.

According to the scientists, not only did this incredibly thin nano-suit protect the larva from the vacuum, the suit also withstood physical touches. The researchers say that the nano-suit is only 50 to 100-billionths of a meter thick and was flexible enough to allow the larva to move. While this should allow the larva to move, it was strong enough to keep gasses and liquids from escaping.

This breakthrough has some potential beyond the world of studying insect larva and could in the future lead to incredibly thin spacesuits for astronauts. The nano suit is so thin it’s almost like wearing nothing. The scientists created the artificial nano-suits by dunking mosquito larvae into a pool of water mixed with a chemical called Tween 20. The chemical is non-toxic and is commonly found in detergents, cosmetics, and hard candy. Once dipped in the chemical, the larva were showered with plasma allowing the Tween 20 to polymerize and become a nano-suit. Once enveloped in the nano-suit, the scientists say that the mosquito larvae can withstand vacuum for about 30 min.

[via ScienceMag]

Nano-suit research could lead to spacesuits that are barely there is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.