The U.S. Department of Defense wants to test a directed energy weapon in space, one that it hopes will someday destroy ballistic missiles moments after launch. The weapon, a so-called neutral particle beam, would be boosted into space and tested from orbit in 2023.
Neutral particle beams don’t get as much attention as lasers but are attractive in their own right. The weapons work by accelerating particles without an electric charge—particularly neutrons—to speeds close to the speed of light and directing them against a target. The neutrons knock protons out of the nuclei of other particles they encounter, generating heat on the target object.
Researchers from Utrecht used high-resolution images from orbiters circling the planet and found evidence of a river that continuously shifted. This created created sandbanks like the Rhine.
New research suggests Planet Nine is a mirage and nothing more than ‘collective gravity.’ The team say it is a sprawling disk of icy debris that formed when the solar system was born.
The Hubble telescope is celebrating a milestone birthday this month, but, rather than celebrate alone, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are making this celebration all about you.
On April 24, 1990, NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit, where it has recorded some of the most stunning images of the planets and stars around us, inspiring us all to dream a little bigger.
“Hubble’s seemingly never-ending, breathtaking celestial snapshots provide a visual shorthand for its exemplary scientific achievements,” NASA and the ESA explained in a blog post about the telescope’s birthday. “Unlike any other telescope before it, Hubble has made astronomy relevant, engaging, and accessible for people of all ages. The mission has yielded to date 1.4 million observations and provided data that astronomers around the world have used to write more than 17,000 peer-reviewed scientific publications, making it one of the most prolific space observatories in history. Its rich data archive alone will fuel future astronomy research for generations to come.”
GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Many students celebrate completing their Ph.D. with a party. I, ever the space nerd, climbed into a spacesuit instead.
I spent seven years studying remotely at the University of North Dakota (UND) here, which is home to a variety of space-related facilities. I studied crews at the Inflatable Lunar/Mars Habitat — a facility where groups of three or four people live as astronauts for a week or two, including venturing outside in pressurized spacesuits.
You may have heard of the expression, May the 4th be with you. If you don’t already know, May the 4th is unofficially Star Wars Day. The date was chosen for the play on words on the classic catchphrase from the movies. “May the Force be with you” and “May the Fourth be with you”.
The pop culture fan base for Star Wars embraced the May 4th date and popularized it. Lucasfilm and later Disney could not have a better day to advertise Star Wars stuff. This is a testament to the many Star Wars fans across the world who have chosen to celebrate the holiday. Lucasfilm and parent company Disney now also wisely have embraced the date as an annual celebration of Star Wars.
So you might be a die-hard Star Wars fan, or maybe you enjoy the movie. If you don’t like Star Wars, well, not sure why you are reading. Maybe you have a loved one and you are trying to figure out what to do with them on this very important day to them. So we are going to go on the assumption that you know at least a little something about Star Wars.
Alright, to the Coruscant of the article. (Hey, it is a Star Wars article after all!)
What space stuff was influenced by Star Wars?
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative(SDI). Reagan’s SDI concept focused on a missile defense system intended to protect the United States. Attacks delivered by intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles would be shot down. Critics of the program nicknamed the program “Star Wars” and the name gained common acceptance. Although satellite-based laser and particle weapons didn’t materialize, this was a space-related program that was definitely influenced by the movies.
Tiny integrated circuits destined for space missions, etched onto a single wafer of silicon, examined under a magnifier.
To save money on the high cost of fabrication, various chips designed by different companies and destined for multiple ESA projects are crammed onto the same silicon wafers, etched into place at specialised semiconductor manufacturing plants or ‘fabs’.
Once manufactured, the chips, still on the wafer, are tested. The wafers are then chopped up. They become ready for use when placed inside protective packages – just like standard terrestrial microprocessors – and undergo final quality tests.
