Tag Archives: Space

Research resolves a debate over ‘killer electrons’ in space

Findings by UCLA-led team hold promise for new ways to protect telecommunication and navigation satellites

New findings by a UCLA-led international team of researchers answer a fundamental question about our space environment and will help scientists develop methods to protect valuable telecommunication and navigation satellites. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications. (more…)

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Scientists’ discovery of zebra stripes in space resolves a half-century mystery

Study by UCLA researchers and others could explain mysterious plasma waves in space

In the 1960s, NASA launched six satellites to study the Earth’s atmosphere, magnetosphere and the space between Earth and the moon. Using observations from those satellites, Christopher Russell, a UCLA graduate student at the time, detected mysterious plasma waves in the Van Allen radiation belts, the donut-shaped rings surrounding the Earth that contain high-energy particles trapped by the planet’s magnetic field. (more…)

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Blasenfrei zapfen im Weltraum

Viertes CCF-Experiment auf der ISS erfolgreich abgeschlossen

Blasenfrei Treibstoff zapfen: Das ist kein Problem an der Tankstelle um die Ecke – sehr wohl aber im Weltraum, wo es keine Schwerkraft gibt. Heute ging die vierte und letzte Experimentserie des Strömungsexperimentes Capillary Channel Flow (CCF) auf der Internationalen Raumstation ISS zu Ende, die am 5. August 2014 begonnen hatte. In dem Kooperationsprojekt der US-amerikanischen Luft- und Raumfahrtbehörde NASA und des Raumfahrtmanagements des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) haben Wissenschaftler das Strömungsverhalten von Flüssigkeiten unter Schwerelosigkeit erforscht, um wichtige Erkenntnisse für die Raumfahrttechnologie, aber auch für Anwendungen auf der Erde – etwa in der Biomedizin – zu gewinnen. (more…)

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NASA Space Assets Detect Ocean inside Saturn Moon

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and Deep Space Network have uncovered evidence Saturn’s moon Enceladus harbors a large underground ocean of liquid water, furthering scientific interest in the moon as a potential home to extraterrestrial microbes.

Researchers theorized the presence of an interior reservoir of water in 2005 when Cassini discovered water vapor and ice spewing from vents near the moon’s south pole. The new data provide the first geophysical measurements of the internal structure of Enceladus, consistent with the existence of a hidden ocean inside the moon. Findings from the gravity measurements are in the Friday, April 4 edition of the journal Science. (more…)

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From Mercury to Morocco, and onward to Yale: a meteorite’s tale

Talk about a precious stone — the largest piece of the only known meteorite from the planet Mercury has found its way to Yale, where it is now on display at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Known as NWA 7325, the fist-size, greenish space rock is a rarity among rarities:  there just aren’t many verified planetary meteorites. Scientists know of about 70 from Mars and, until now, none from any of the other planets in Earth’s solar system. There are about 180 known meteorites from the moon. NWA 7325 is the first believed to be from Mercury. (more…)

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UCLA scientists explain the formation of unusual ring of radiation in space

Since the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts in 1958, space scientists have believed these belts encircling the Earth consist of two doughnut-shaped rings of highly charged particles — an inner ring of high-energy electrons and energetic positive ions and an outer ring of high-energy electrons.

In February of this year, a team of scientists reported the surprising discovery of a previously unknown third radiation ring — a narrow one that briefly appeared between the inner and outer rings in September 2012 and persisted for a month. (more…)

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