Tag Archives: sun

IBM Tops U.S. Patent List for 20th Consecutive Year

By Guest PostJanuary 10, 2013Technology2012, accenture, Amazon, analytics, annual list, apple, big data, cloud, cybersecurity, emc, era of cognitive systems, flexible products, ginni rometty, hp, ibm, ibm inventors, ibm puresystems, ibm watson system, industry solutions, intel, intelligent orchestration system, invention, lightweight, Microsoft, mobile, mobile network, modeling platform, oracle, patented invention, sms, Social networking, software defined environments, sun, symantec, synapse, ultra thin, us patent recipients

IBM inventors deliver innovation in emerging areas of tech

ARMONK, N.Y. – 10 Jan 2013: IBM today announced that it received a record 6,478 patents in 2012 for inventions that will enable fundamental advancements across key domains including analytics, Big Data, cybersecurity, cloud, mobile, social networking and software defined environments, as well as industry solutions for retail, banking, healthcare, and transportation. These patented inventions also will advance a major shift in computing, known as the era of cognitive systems.

This is the 20^th consecutive year that IBM topped the annual list of U.S. patent recipients. (more…)

Within ‘Habitable Zone,’ More Planets than We Knew

By Guest PostJanuary 8, 2013Scienceamerican astronomical society, apollo moon, avatar, debra fischer, eric gershon, Galaxy, gas giant, giant planet, greenhouse atmosphere, habitable moon, habitable world, habitable zone, hospitable, ji wang, jupiter, kepler spacecraft, kian jek, life, liquid water, long beach, NASA, pandora, ph2 b, planet hunters, polyphemus, rocky planet, san francisco, solar star, star trek, sun, yale university

The number of known places in our galaxy theoretically hospitable to life may be significantly greater than previously thought, according to new research.

Researchers with Planet Hunters are reporting the discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet in the so-called “habitable zone” of a star similar to Earth’s sun, as well as the identification of 15 new candidate planets also orbiting within their star’s habitable zone. (more…)

From Cassini for the Holidays: A Splendor Seldom Seen

By Guest PostDecember 20, 2012Sciencecarolyn porco, cassini spacecraft, dark side, earth, european space agency, high solar phase, in saturns shadow, jpl, NASA, orbit, planet saturn, rings, saturn, sun

PASADENA, Calif — Just in time for the holidays, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn for more than eight years now, has delivered another glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings.

On Oct. 17, 2012, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn’s shadow, a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet. Looking back towards the sun is a geometry referred to by planetary scientists as “high solar phase;” near the center of your target’s shadow is the highest phase possible. This is a very scientifically advantageous and coveted viewing position, as it can reveal details about both the rings and atmosphere that cannot be seen in lower solar phase. (more…)

Bright Stars to Black Holes: UA Astronomer Awarded for Her Research

By Guest PostDecember 17, 2012Scienceabsorbs material, astronomy, astrophysical phenomena, black holes, cloud, collapsed stars, collision, dense remnants, energetic, feryal ozel, Galaxy, hydrogen gas, mass, nasa hubble fellow, neutron stars, neutrons, radiation, radio astronomers, radio telescopes, subatomic particles, sun, super, university of arizona

In addition to being selected as one of 50 scholars awarded fellowships each year at the prestigious Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, the UA’s Feryal Ozel has won the 2013 American Physical Society’s Maria Goeppert Mayer Award for her cutting-edge research on neutron stars.

Feryal Ozel studies two things most people don’t think about everyday: neutron stars and black holes.

An associate professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, Ozel has won the 2013 American Physical Society’s Maria Goeppert Mayer Award for her work on neutron stars and her dedication to public outreach and education in science and astronomy. In addition, this year she is completing a prestigious fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. Ozel came to the UA in 2003 as a NASA Hubble fellow and began a faculty position in 2005. (more…)

Can Life Emerge on Planets Around Cooling Stars?

By Guest PostNovember 20, 2012Scienceastronomers, astrophysics, brown dwarf, earth, Germany, habitable zone, heating phenomenon, ingredients, leibniz institute, life, liquid, nuclear burning, phase, planets, potsdam, rene heller, rory barnes, runaway greenhouse, sun, support, university, venus, Washington

Astronomers find planets in strange places and wonder if they might support life. One such place would be in orbit around a white or brown dwarf. While neither is a star like the sun, both glow and so could be orbited by planets with the right ingredients for life.

No terrestrial, or Earth-like planets have yet been confirmed orbiting white or brown dwarfs, but there is no reason to assume they don’t exist. However, new research by Rory Barnes of the University of Washington and René Heller of Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam hints that planets orbiting white or brown dwarfs will prove poor candidates for life. (more…)

NASA, Texas Astronomers Find First Multi-Planet System Around a Binary Star

By Guest PostSeptember 3, 2012Scienceaustin, bill cochran, binary star, caroline caldwell, faint star, giant magellan telescope, habitable zone, harlan j smith, het, hobby eberly telescope, jerome orosz, kepler 47, kepler mission, largest telescope, m dwarf star, mcdonald observatory, michael endl, multi planet, NASA, one system, planet, primary star, san diego, secondary star, solar system, space telescope, state university, stellar eclipse, sun, tatooine, telescope, texas, transit, university, west texas, william welsh, world

FORT DAVIS, Texas — NASA’s Kepler mission has found the first multi-planet solar system orbiting a binary star, characterized in large part by University of Texas at Austin astronomers using two telescopes at the university’s McDonald Observatory in West Texas. The finding, which proves that whole planetary systems can form in a disk around a binary star, is published in today’s issue of the journal Science.

“It’s Tatooine, right?” said McDonald Observatory astronomer Michael Endl. “But this was not shown in Star Wars,” he said, referring to the periodic changes in the amount of daylight falling on a planet with two suns. Measurements of the star’s orbits showed that daylight on the planets would vary by a large margin over the 7.4-Earth-day period as the two stars completed their mutual orbits, each moving closer to, then farther from, the planets (which are themselves moving). (more…)

Astronomers Test Einstein in a New Regime Using Pair of Burnt-Out Stars

By Guest PostAugust 31, 2012Sciencealbert einstein, apache point telescope, astronomer, austin, burnt out stars, canary islands, carlos allende prieto, don winget, dwarf stars, einstein, emission, energy, european space agency, fabric, Galaxy, gemini north telescope, general relativity, gran telescopio canarias, gravitational wave, hawaii, j j hermes, j0651, mcdonald observatory, milliseconds, moving object, mukremin kilic, NASA, new mexico, new regime, orbital decay, orbital period, otto struve telescope, ripple, space time, spain, sun, test, texas, theory, university, university of oklahoma, warren brown, west texas

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of astronomers led by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin has confirmed the emission of gravitational waves from the second-strongest known source in our galaxy by studying the shrinking orbital period of a unique pair of burnt-out stars. Their observations tested Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity in a new regime. The results will be published soon in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Last year, the same team discovered that the two white dwarf stars are so close together that they make a complete orbit in less than 13 minutes, and they should be gradually slipping closer. The system, called SDSS J065133.338+284423.37 (J0651 for short), contains two white dwarf stars, which are the remnant cores of stars like our sun. (more…)

Solar Storm Protection

By Guest PostJuly 17, 2012Scienceastronaut, chest xray, chungnam national university, hanyang university, john bieber, john clem, massive explosion, megaelectron volts, mev, neutron monitors, paul evenson, polar region, protection, r pyle, sdo, solar dynamics observatory, solar storm, south korea, south pole, Space, su yeon oh, sun, university of delaware, warning system, yu yi

Warning system to protect astronauts from solar storms

Massive explosions on the sun unleash radiation that could kill astronauts in space.

Now, researchers from the U.S. and South Korea have developed a warning system capable of forecasting the radiation from these violent solar storms nearly three hours (166 minutes) in advance, giving astronauts, as well as air crews flying over Earth’s polar regions, time to take protective action.

Physicists from the University of Delaware and from Chungnam National University and Hanyang University developed the system and report on it in Space Weather: The International Journal of Research and Applications, published by the American Geophysical Union. The research article also is selected as an “Editor’s Highlight.” (more…)