Gizmorama - September 5th, 2012
Good Morning,Technology is helping U.S. astronomers search the universe for planets without having to leave the surface of Earth. Plus, advanced computer models can show us just how planets are born. Just Amazing!
Learn about this and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
ErinQuestions? Comments?
Email me****-- Computer models birth of planets --*AUSTIN, Texas - U.S. astronomers searching for planets outside our solar system say they have a new tool helping the quest, advanced computer models of how planets are born. Most planets form when a molecular cloud collapses into a young star with a leftover disk of gas and dust around it containing particulates that collide and coalesce over millions of years, forming larger and larger objects until a planet eventually takes shape. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed computer models to simulate these protostellar disks and the turbulence and temperatures within them that affect how and where planets form. Sally Dodson Robinson and her team at the university's Texas Advanced Computing Center say they've found if a disk is too turbulent, the particles move too fast and bounce off each other while less turbulence means a greater chance for them to collide and stick together. With almost 2,400 candidate exoplanets awaiting confirmation, understanding the conditions that are most favorable for planet formation will aid researchers in discovering more of them and will also provide greater understanding of the evolution of Earth and our own solar system, a university release said Tuesday.
*-- Antenna system helps wireless data load --*HOUSTON - As data-hungry mobile devices put increasing stress on networks, U.S. researchers say a multi-antenna technology can help keep pace with voracious user demand. Scientists at Rice University in Houston said network capacity can be dramatically increased by allowing cell towers to simultaneously beam signals to more than a dozen customers on the same frequency. Working with colleagues at Bell Labs and Yale University, Rice engineers built a prototype, dubbed Argos, that uses 64 antennas to allow a single wireless base station to communicate directly to 15 users simultaneously with narrowly focused directional beams. "The technical term for this is multi-user beamforming," said Argos project co-leader Lin Zhong, professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science. "The key is to have many antennas, because the more antennas you have, the more users you can serve." "There are all kinds of technical challenges related to synchronization, computational requirements, scaling up and wireless standards," he said. "People have really questioned whether this is practical, so it's significant that we've been able to create a prototype that actually demonstrates that this works." The technology could allow carriers to increase network capacity without building more base stations or having to acquire more frequency spectrum, a Rice release said Thursday.
*-- Students to get chance to name asteroid --*GREENBELT, Md. - NASA says students around the world will have a chance to name an asteroid that is the target of its future mission to return samples from it to Earth. The OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft, set to launch in 2016, will bring back samples from the primitive surface of the near-Earth asteroid currently called (101955) 1999 RQ36 in hopes of discovering clues to the origin of the solar system and organic molecules that may have seeded life on Earth, the space agency said Tuesday. The competition to name the asteroid is open to students under 18 years of age. They can submit one name, up to 16 characters long. Entries must include a short explanation and rationale for the name and must be made by an adult on behalf of the student before Dec. 2, NASA said. "Because the samples returned by the mission will be available for study for future generations, it is possible the person who names the asteroid will grow up to study the regolith we return to Earth," said Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-Rex project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. A panel will review proposed names, and first prize will be awarded to the student whose entry is approved by the International Astronomical Union Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature. "Our mission will be focused on this asteroid for more than a decade," said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for the mission at the University of Arizona. "We look forward to having a name that is easier to say than (101955) 1999 RQ36."
*-- Cloud seeding seen as hurricane control --*HOBOKEN, N.J. - Cloud control could tame hurricanes, say British researchers who've proposed using cloud seeding to decrease sea surface temperatures where hurricanes form. Writing in the U.S. journal Atmospheric Science Letters, they said rather than seeding storm clouds or hurricanes directly they propose targeting marine stratocumulus clouds that cover an estimated quarter of the world's oceans, to prevent hurricanes forming. "Hurricanes derive their energy from the heat contained in the surface waters of the ocean," Alan Gadian from the University of Leeds said. "If we are able to increase the amount of sunlight reflected by clouds above the hurricane development region then there will be less energy to feed the hurricanes." The study authors propose the use of a technique known as Marine Cloud Brightening, in which unmanned vehicles would spray tiny seawater droplets into the clouds, increasing their reflectivity and duration. The increased reflectivity would mean more sunlight is bounced back into space, thereby reducing sea surface temperature, they said. "Data shows that over the last three decades hurricane intensity has increased in the Northern Atlantic, the Indian and southwest Pacific oceans," Gadian said. "We simulated the impact of seeding on these three areas, with particular focus on the Atlantic hurricane months of August, September and October." The researchers said computer models suggest the technology could reduce an average sea surface temperature by up to a few degrees, greatly decreasing the amount of energy available to hurricane formation and possibly reducing the power of developing hurricanes by one strength category.
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