EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science
Sun Apr 24 04:23:17 EDT 2011
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GOES-13 sees an extraordinarily early Atlantic low in the tropics - (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Hurricane season doesn't start in the Northern Atlantic Ocean until June 1, but a low pressure system in doesn't seem to want to follow the calendar. There's a low pressure area with a small chance for development north-northeast of Puerto Rico, and the GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of the storm.

Primordial weirdness: Did the early universe have 1 dimension? - (University at Buffalo) Did the early universe have just one spatial dimension? That's the mind-boggling concept at the heart of a theory that University at Buffalo physicist Dejan Stojkovic and colleagues proposed in 2010.

RF MEMS switch wins at Research Expo 2011 at UC San Diego - (University of California - San Diego) New RF MEMS metal-contact switches developed at the University of California, San Diego, could make their way into MRIs and other medical equipment, satellites, and electronic instrumentation such as spectrum analyzers and signal sources. For his work on RF MEMS metal-contact switches, electrical engineering Ph.D. student Chirag Patel won the top prize at Research Expo 2011 at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

Drifting on alien winds - (Springer) Most people are familiar with the seasonal weather patterns on Planet Earth. Weather is omnipresent and has far-reaching impact, from the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina to the unusually heavy blizzards in the Northeast this past winter.

A galactic rose highlights Hubble's 21st anniversary - (ESA/Hubble Information Centre) In celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment into space, astronomers pointed Hubble at an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273.

Beams of electrons link Saturn with its moon Enceladus - (University College London) Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed that Enceladus, one of Saturn's diminutive moons, is linked to Saturn by powerful electrical currents -- beams of electrons that flow back and forth between the planet and moon. The finding is part of a paper published in Nature today.

Singapore's first locally made satellite launched into space - (Nanyang Technological University) Singapore's first indigenous micro-satellite, X-SAT, lifted off on board India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C16 at 10.12am Indian Standard Time (12.42pm, Singapore time) on April 20, 2011. The X-SAT, developed and built by Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), in collaboration with DSO National Laboratories, was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, India.

A disturbed galactic duo - (ESO) The galaxies in this pairing, captured by the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope in Chile, display some curious features, demonstrating that each member of the duo is close enough to feel the distorting gravitational influence of the other. The gravitational tug of war has warped the spiral shape of one galaxy, NGC 3169, and fragmented the dust lanes in its companion NGC 3166. Meanwhile, a third galaxy, NGC 3165, has a front-row seat to the gravitational twisting and pulling.

WHRC debuts detailed maps of forest canopy height and carbon stock for the conterminous US - (Woods Hole Research Center) The Woods Hole Research Center has released the first hectare-scale maps of canopy height, aboveground biomass, and associated carbon stock for the forests and woodlands of the conterminous United States. The multi-year project, referred to as the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset, produced maps of these key forest attributes at an unprecedented spatial resolution of 30 meters.

Carnegie's Paul Butler Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences - (Carnegie Institution) Paul Butler of Carnegie's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his discovery of more than half of the known planets orbiting nearby stars.

Clouds, clouds, burning bright - (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) High up in the sky near the poles some 50 miles above the ground, silvery blue clouds sometimes appear, shining brightly in the night. These are noctilucent or "night shining" clouds. Since 2007, a NASA mission called Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) has shown that the cloud formation is changing year to year, a process they believe is intimately tied to the weather and climate of the whole globe.

GOES-13 satellite animation shows US severe storms and tornado outbreak - (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) The GOES-13 satellite captured images of the powerful weather system that triggered severe weather in the southern US this weekend, and NASA created an animation to show its progression. GOES-13 satellite data showed the strong cold front as it moved eastward from Saturday through Monday and generated tornadoes before moving off-shore into the Atlantic Ocean.

NASA's Aqua satellite sees weaker Tropical Depression Errol crossing West Timor - (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Depression Errol's warming cloud temperatures as it was crossing the southern tip of West Timor today.

Zoom-up star photos poke holes in century-old astronomical theory - (University of Michigan) The hottest stars in the universe spin so fast that they get a bit squished at their poles and dimmer around their middle. The 90-year-old theory that predicts the extent of this "gravity darkening" phenomenon has major flaws, according to a new study led by University of Michigan astronomers.

South African Minister launches the IAU Global Office of Astronomy for Development - (International Astronomical Union) The South African Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, launched the IAU Global Office of Astronomy for Development at the headquarters of the South African Astronomical Observatory.

NASA sees Australian newborn Tropical Storm Errol's strongest T-storms off-shore - (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) The low pressure area formerly known as System 92S has strengthened overnight and developed into Tropical Storm Errol today, April 15. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed strong thunderstorms near Errol's center, but they remained off-shore from Western Australia's northern coast.

The watched pot and fast CMEs - (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) If you've ever stood in front of a hot stove, watching a pot of water and waiting impatiently for it to boil, you know what it feels like to be a solar physicist. News flash: The pot is starting to boil. As 2011 unfolds, sunspots have returned and they are crackling with activity. On February 15 and again on March 9, Earth orbiting satellites detected a pair of "X-class" solar flares -- the most powerful kind of X-ray flare.

Search for dark matters moves one step closer to detecting elusive particle - (University of California - Los Angeles) The international XENON collaboration reports the best constraints to date on the properties of dark matter, the mysterious particles that may account for nearly 83 percent of all mass in the universe. The results represent the highest sensitivity dark matter search yet with background noise 100 times lower than competing efforts.

New data from XENON100 narrows the possible range for dark matter - (Weizmann Institute of Science) Weizmann Institute scientists participate in the most sensitive search yet for dark matter candidates called WIMPs.

LOFAR takes the pulse of the radio sky - (University of Manchester) A powerful new telescope is allowing an international team led by University of Manchester scientists to have their "best-ever look" at pulsars -- rapidly rotating neutron stars created when massive stars die.

AGU journal highlights -- April 13, 2011 - (American Geophysical Union) Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Little Ice Age resulted from more than just solar calm," "Glacial dust carries iron to the Gulf of Alaska," "Model suggests how to end Haitian cholera epidemic," "Deadly 2010 Russian heat wave: Not from climate change," and "Cause of 2010 Russian heat wave was largely predictable."

Herschel links star formation to sonic booms - (European Space Agency) ESA's Herschel space observatory has revealed that nearby interstellar clouds contain networks of tangled gaseous filaments. Intriguingly, each filament is approximately the same width, hinting that they may result from interstellar sonic booms throughout our Galaxy.

Celestial fireworks from dying stars - (ESO) This image of the nebula NGC 3582, which was captured at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows giant loops of gas bearing a striking resemblance to solar prominences. These loops are thought to have been ejected by dying stars, but new stars are also being born within this stellar nursery. These energetic youngsters emit intense ultraviolet radiation that makes the gas in the nebula glow, producing the fiery display shown here.

Report provides NASA with direction for next 10 years of space research - (University of Missouri-Columbia) A group of prominent researchers from across the country published a report through the National Academy of Sciences that is intended as a guide as NASA plans the next 10 years of research in space. Rob Duncan, the University of Missouri Vice Chancellor for Research, led the team that developed a blueprint for fundamental physics research in space for the next 10 years.

Aviation safety: New computer tool forecasts icing hazards - (National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Aircraft safety is getting a boost from a new computer-generated forecast that provides pilots with critical weather information on the likelihood of encountering dangerous in-flight icing conditions.