Gizmorama - July 24, 2013
Good Morning, Renewable energy is the way of the future in America. A report says that more Americans are turning to renewable sources for their electricity needs, using solar panels and wind turbines instead of coal to generate it.
Well, were going to have to do that if the government keeps closing all of the coal burning plants. Right?
Learn about this and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
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Visit and Enjoy: EVTV1.com****-- Senate Dems favor allowing NASA to go ahead with asteroid capture plan --*WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Democrats say a new bill would allow NASA to go ahead with its plan to lasso an asteroid as part of a future mission to send astronauts to Mars. The bill, introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a former astronaut, contains authorizing language that would grant NASA more flexibility to consider various approaches to the Mars effort and the proposed asteroid mission, The Hill reported Thursday. NASA's proposed asteroid "snatch" involves capturing an asteroid and dragging it into the moon's orbit where astronauts could explore it. Nelson's $18.1 billion blueprint, which has the backing of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, is in line with spending levels proposed for NASA in an appropriations bill currently being debated in the Senate. "While our spending plan this year is not as much we'd like NASA to have, it should provide the agency with the resources it needs to continue its mission to deep space and eventually Mars," Nelson said. NASA has said it considers a successful asteroid mission as a major step toward President Obama's goal of putting men on Mars by the mid-2030s. "This mission to identify, capture, redirect and sample a small asteroid would mark an unprecedented technological feat that will raise the bar of what humans can do in space," NASA said in its 2014 budget request.
*-- 'Snow line' in distant solar system could be possible planet source --*ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A snow line -- not on a mountain range but in a distant solar system -- has been directly imaged for the first time, U.S. astronomers say. A snow line in a solar system is the point where falling temperatures freeze and clump together water or other chemical compounds that would otherwise be vapor, they said, and it's believed snow lines in space serve a vital role in forming planets because frozen moisture can help dust grains stick together. Using the new Atacama Larger Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope in Chile, scientists have captured radio-wavelength images of the carbon monoxide snow line around TW Hydrae, a young star 175 light-years away from Earth. TW Hydrae is believed to be the closest infant, developing solar system to Earth. "We've had evidence of snow lines in our own solar system, but now we're able to see one with our own eyes," University of Michigan astronomer Edwin Bergin said in a release Wednesday. Different chemical compounds freeze at different distances from a central star; in our own solar system, water freezes in space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Different chemical compounds' snow lines may be linked to the formation of specific kinds of planets, the astronomers said; the carbon monoxide line in our system corresponds to the orbit of Neptune, where smaller icy bodies like comets and dwarf planets like Pluto would form. "ALMA has given us the first real picture of a snow line around a young star, which is extremely exciting because of what it tells us about the very early period in the history of our own solar system," said study co-author Chunhua "Charlie" Qi, a researcher with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "We can now see previously hidden details about the frozen outer reaches of another solar system, one that has much in common with our own when it was less than 10 million years old."
*-- Figures show Americans turning to renewables for energy needs --*LIVERMORE, Calif. - Americans are turning to renewable sources for their electricity needs, using solar panels and wind turbines instead of coal to generate it, a report says. Energy flow charts that track the nation's consumption of energy resources, released annually by the Laurence Livermore National Laboratory in California, show Americans used more natural gas, solar panels and wind turbines and less coal to generate electricity in 2012. Sustained low natural gas prices have prompted a shift from coal to gas in the electricity generating sector, A.J. Simon, an LLNL energy systems analyst, said in a release from the lab Thursday. The rise in renewables is tied to both prices, with the cost of solar panels and wind turbines going down, and policy, including government incentives to installers of equipment or renewable energy targets in various states, Simon said. Wind power saw the largest increase in 2012, with new wind farms coming online equipped with bigger, more-efficient turbines developed in response to government-sponsored incentives to invest in renewable energy, he said. The majority of energy use in 2012 was for electricity generation, followed by transportation, industrial and residential consumption, the lab said.
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