Small Satellites

Small satellites also called  smallsats are going to expand in next decade or so . The interest has grown tremendously for the satellites under 500KG.

The smallsats are defined in terms  of units (1U cubes) of 10x10x10 centimetres and 1kg weight. CubeSats grow in size by  these units – 1.5U, 2U, 3U, 6U and so on.

 

The Smallsats are classified  in the less than 500 Kg category ,they range from Picosatellite to smallsatellite.

 

PicoSatellite .1- 1KG 

NanoSatellite 1-30KG

Microsatellite 30-300KG

SmallSatellite 100-500KG

The big advantage being their cost and can be used for weather and climate on Earth, space weather and cosmic rays. They can also act as pathfinders for bigger and more expensive satellite missions that will address these questions.

 

From super-secret agencies and the U.S. military to academia and private firms, as well as world space agencies and NASA, ultra-small satellites are the big thing.

European analyst Euroconsult projects more than 500 smallsats being launched in the years 2015–2019 with a market value estimated at US$7.4 billion.

Neutron Star

When big stars collapse and in the process the outer layers of the star are blown off in a supernova, nature's most spectacular explosion. The remnant core, roughly twenty kilometers wide and densely packed with neutrons, is called a neutron star. The protons and electrons are crushed  to form neutrons and that results in birth of a neutron star.

Another important characteristic of neutron stars is the presence of very strong magnetic fields, upward of  1 Trillion gauss (Earth’s magnetic field is 0.5 gauss). However, the axis of the magnetic field is not aligned with the neutron star's rotation axis. The combination of this strong magnetic field and the rapid rotation of the neutron star produces extremely powerful electric fields, with electric potential in excess of 1 trillion volts.  

The pulses of high-energy radiation we see from a pulsar are due to a misalignment of the neutron star's rotation axis and its magnetic axis.

pulsar is a neutron star that emits beams of radiation that sweep through Earth's line of sight. Like a black hole, it is an endpoint to stellar evolution. So pulsars are rotating neutron star.

When a pulsar first forms, it has the most energy and fastest rotational speed. As it releases electromagnetic power through its beams, it gradually slows down. Within 10 to 100 million years, it slows to the point that its beams shut off and the pulsar becomes quiet.

Although all pulsars are neutron stars, not all neutron stars are pulsars, and not all pulsars shine in the same

CEPI Officially Launched At World Economic Forum Davos

CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, was founded August 31 2016 in London, at the headquarters of the Wellcome Trust, a medical charity. It is the joint brainchild of the Wellcome Trust , the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, and the government of Norway, and its purpose is precisely to forearm the world against future outbreaks of disease.

 

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was officially launched at World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos after it received $460-million to develop vaccines against 3 emerging highly-contagious and fatal diseases. These three diseases are Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-coronavirus, Lassa fever, and Nipah virus.  CEPI will use this fund to contain outbreaks these 3 diseases before they become global health emergencies.

CEPI headquarters at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, in Oslo. India becomes the member of CEPI.

 

NASA Mission to Explore Iron-Rich Asteroid 16 Psyche

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has approved a mission to explore 16 Psyche, an iron-rich asteroid. As part of the mission, NASA craft will be launched in 2023, and will arrive at Psyche in 2030. The mineral contents on the asteroids are worth over 100-thousand times the value of the entire world economy.

 

Psyche asteroid has diameter in excess of 125 miles and is almost entirely composed of iron and nickel.

 Astronomers also believe Psyche to contain water, making it a possible candidate for a stellar fuel station, as water can be used to sustain life and synthesize rocket fuel.
 

Japan To Use Robots At The Airports And Hospitals

When you visit a Japanese airport or hotel this month don't be surprised if some staff are little plastic robots eager to help. Panasonic Corporation is currently conducting tests of its HOSPI(R) Autonomous Delivery Robot by giving it temporary jobs at the Narita International Airport and the ANA Crowne Plaza Narita. It isn't so much because the robots need pocket money as Panasonic wants to demonstrate how HOSPI(R) can function in various roles.

 

HOSPI(R) was introduced in 2013 as a way of taking the pressure off of hospital staff by taking over the routine job of delivering medication and other items. HOSPI(R) has a preprogramed map, sensors, and an advanced collision-avoidance algorithm to get around human environments autonomously without bumping into people along the way.

According to Panasonic, HOSPI(R) is already used in four hospitals in Japan and since it's quick and cheap to install, the company wants to see if the robot can help alleviate the problem of the country's shrinking and aging work force in other areas.

New BIC lasers

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have demonstrated the world's first laser based on an unconventional wave physics phenomenon called bound states in the continuum.

 

 BICs are waves that remain perfectly confined, or bound, in an open system. Conventional waves in an open system escape, but BICs defy this norm -- they stay localized and do not escape despite having open pathways to do so.

 

BIC lasers can emit beams of different wavelengths, a useful feature for medical lasers made to precisely target cancer cells without damaging normal tissue. BIC lasers can also be made to emit beams of different shapes like spiral, donut or bell curve called vector beams -- which could enable increasingly powerful computers and optical communication systems that can carry up to 10 times more information than existing ones.

 

 

3D Graphene Material Designed By MIT

MIT designed strongest and lightest 3D material using graphene ,  graphene a single-atomic layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice has  immense array of uncanny properties like extraordinary conductivity, flexibility and transparency.  

 

The 3D material is produced by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene. The new material, a sponge-like configuration with a density of just 5%, can have a strength 10 times that of steel. This work could pose an interesting way of transforming graphene into useful 3D objects and items.

  

The configurations of their objects were made using 3D printers in the lab, and were then mechanically tested in order to establish their compressive and tensile properties. MIT sees the material someday being used in airplanes, cars, and perhaps even water filtration systems.

Researchers from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, developed a new material called Graphene paper (GP), made from Graphite which is lighter, stronger, harder and more flexible than steel. It's also eco-friendly and recyclable.

 

 The new material is thinner than paper and ten times stronger than steel. The researchers say that the new material can be used in the automotive and aviation industries - to create lighter planes and cars which will be require less fuel, and yet be even more safe.

 

 

 

 

New Memory Chips ReRAM Capable Of Computing

Scientists developed new memory chips which are capable of doing computing tasks like processors . The new chips called ReRAM (Redox-based resistive switching random access memory ) developed by SanDisk and Panasonic.

However the new computing circuit was developed by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) in collaboration with Germany's RWTH Aachen University and forschungszentrum Juelich

The prototype ReRAM circuit built by NTU Assistant Professor Chattopadhyay and his collaborators processes data in four states instead of two. For example, it can store and process data as 0, 1, 2, or 3, known as quaternary number system.

Normally data is transferred to the processor for computing but these chips could increase the processing speeds tremendously as the data is processed where it is stored also higher number of states possible with this revolutionary technology because the ReRAM uses different electrical resistance to store information .

Fujitsu Semiconductor launches world's largest density 4 Mbit ReRAM product for mass production.

 

Elastic and Inelastic Scattering

The total kinetic energy in elastic scattering is conserved, meaning that no energy is lost to other processes. The colliding particles remain intact. Rayleigh is elastic scattering .

The blue color of the sky is caused by the scattering of sunlight by the molecules of the atmosphere. This scattering, called Rayleigh scattering, is more effective at short wavelengths since blue colour  has shorter wavelength and that's why the sky is blue.

 The total kinetic energy in inelastic scattering  is not conserved, meaning that energy is taken up by other processes In an inelastic scattering process, some of the energy of the incident particle is lost or increased .  Example Raman scattering.

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Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) was a neutrino observatory located 2100 m underground in INCO's Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The detector was designed to detect solar neutrinos through their interactions with a large tank of heavy water.

 

The detector was turned on in May 1999, and was turned off on 28 November 2006. More than a mile underground in an Ontario mine is the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. The detector is located in the largest man made underground cavity in the world: a barrel 108 feet deep and 72 feet across forming a chamber roughly the size of a 10 story building. The entire chamber is filled with water, and its sole purpose is to detect solar neutrinos.

It is the largest underground laboratory for astroparticle physics in the world and the most advanced in terms of complexity and completeness of its infrastructures. The scientific program at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, LNGS)is mainly focused on astroparticle, particle and nuclear physics. The laboratory presently hosts many experiments as well as R&D activities, including world-leading research in the fields of solar neutrinos, accelerator neutrinos (CNGS neutrino beam from CERN to Gran Sasso), dark matter, neutrinoless double-beta decay and nuclear cross-section of astrophysical interest.

Solar Mobile Charger

Solar wireless mobile charging device is taking shaping and is called

ESL (easel) because it looks like a easel. Invented Magsol Labs, Inc.
The device charged by solar energy and can be used wherever sunlight

is available.