D-Wave promises chip that could SEARCH THE WHOLE UNIVERSE

1k-qubit chip late, still controversial

The 1,000-qubit chip promised by D-Wave last year has landed.

FOR MORE THAN two decades, one of the holy grails of physics has been to build a quantum computer that can process certain types of large-scale, very difficult problems exponentially faster than classical computers. Physicists are making progress toward this goal every day, but nearly every part of a quantum computer still needs re-engineering or redesign to make it all work. 

With companies like Google and Microsoft seriously pursuing the subject of quantum computing, progress towards creating a indisputable quantum computer is likely to speed up. I say an “indisputable” quantum computer because the Canadian company D-Wave already has a quantum computer on the market; but, scientists are torn over whether it truly operates as a quantum computer. 

The 1,000-plus-qubit device was originally planned for the end of 2014.

The doubling of qubits over its previous processor, the company says, gives it a 21000 search space – not only dwarfing the previous 2512 search space, but containing “far more possibilities than there are particles in the observable universe”.

The processors also contain 128,000 Josephson tunnel junctions, the outfit says, which it reckons are “the most complex superconductor integrated circuits ever successfully yielded”.

Just what that means out in the world of computing, we'll have to wait and see. The Register expects the new processor will result in yet more is-it-quantum academic debate in paper and counter-paper (Arxiv should be worth watching) once researchers get their hands on test systems.

At least some aspects of the new chip are familiar, such as discussions about manufacturing yield.

To get the 1,000 qubits – actually 1,152 – the company is fabricating a 2,048 qubit “fabric”.

It then has to run each device through a qualification process to see which qubits are within the performance range, since it says “magnetic offsets and manufacturing variability” disqualify some qubits.

D-Wave says the new processors will land in hardware “soon”. 

Source : The Register

What Is Dark Matter? Colliding Galaxy Clusters May Help Find Answer

Dark matter is a hypothetical kind of matter that cannot be seen with telescopes but accounts for most of the matter in the universe.  Dark matter is estimated to constitute 84.5% of the total matter in the universe. It has not been detected directly, making it one of the greatest mysteries in modern astrophysics.



Hubble Image of Galactic Collision 

A study of 72 large cluster collisions shows how dark matter in galaxy clusters behaves when they collide.

Image Showing How two Galaxies Collides

Astronomers have used data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory to find that dark matter interacts with itself less than previously thought. In an effort to learn more about dark matter, astronomers observed how galaxy clusters collide with each other -- an event that could hold clues about the mysterious invisible matter that makes up most of the mass of the universe.

As part of a new study, published in the journal Science on Thursday, researchers used the Hubble telescope to map the distribution of stars and dark matter after a collision. They also used the Chandra observatory to detect the X-ray emission from colliding gas clouds.

“Dark matter is an enigma we have long sought to unravel,” John Grunsfeld, assistant administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement. “With the combined capabilities of these great observatories, both in extended mission, we are ever closer to understanding this cosmic phenomenon.”



Here are images of six different galaxy clusters taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (blue) and Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) in a study of how dark matter in clusters of galaxies behaves when the clusters collide. A total of 72 large cluster collisions were studied.  NASA and ESA

According to scientists, galaxy clusters are made of three main components -- galaxies, gas clouds and dark matter. During collisions, the gas clouds bump into each other and gradually slow down. Galaxies, on the other hand, are much less affected by this process, and because of the huge gaps between the stars within them, galaxies do not slow each other down.

“We know how gas and stars react to these cosmic crashes and where they emerge from the wreckage,” David Harvey of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, and the study’s lead author, said in the statement. “Comparing how dark matter behaves can help us to narrow down what it actually is.”

The researchers studied 72 large galaxy cluster collisions and found that, like galaxies, the dark matter continued straight through the collisions without slowing down much, meaning that dark matter do not interact with visible particles.

“There are still several viable candidates for dark matter, so the game is not over. But we are getting nearer to an answer,” Harvey said.

Source : IBT times

Europe Wants To Send Humans To The Dark Side Of The Moon

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Should we return to the Moon? While Elon Musk, Mars One, and even NASA have their sights set on the Red planet, many think that the Moon is a better option for space exploration .
The European Space Agency (ESA) is one - they just released a new video stating that the Moon is an important and crucial step in mankind's future.

"In the future, the Moon can become a place where the nations of the world can come together to understand our common origins, to build a common future, and to share a common journey beyond. A place where we can learn to move onwards into the solar system," ESA explains in the video "Destination: Moon" .

ESA envisions future manned missions to the far side of the Moon - also known as the dark side of the Moon because it never faces the Earth (though it isn't shrouded in darkness at all). This alien landscape is a rugged terrain, scarred with billions of years worth of impact craters, including one of the largest impact craters in the solar system, the South Pole-Aitken basin.



Photograph of the far side of the moon taken by a crew member on Apollo 16.

Scientists think the crater formed around 4 billion years ago. Inside of this 8.1-mile-deep crater, certain parts are shrouded in perpetual, freezing darkness, but at the crater's rim, shown below, are high, mountainous peaks that bathe in almost-constant sunlight. It's here, on these lunar mountains that ESA plans to send robots and eventually humans.

By sending future missions to the Moon we will be able to answer questions like:

• Is there water elsewhere on the Moon?


• If so, how much?


• Where did it come from?


• And what can it teach us about the origins of water and life on Earth?

If the Moon proves to have an abundant store of water under it surface, then future human generations can use the hydrogen and oxygen atoms for rocket fuel.

To Check out the full video Goto to Business Insider

SpaceX will launch micro-satellites for low cost internet

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Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX is working on micro-satellites. Following a story in The Wall Street Journal, he tweeted this morning that SpaceX is developing “advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations” with an official announcement due in two to three months.

It said SpaceX is planning a launch of 700 satellites, each weighing less than 250 pounds. A fleet that size would be 10x bigger than the largest current deployment managed by  Iridium Communications.

Sorce : next web

3D-printed moonbase? ESA suggested future moon colony

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The European Space Agency (ESA) has proven that its project to 3D-print a base on the Moon is possible. In a latest video the agency shows how 3D-printing robots may be used to build the base using lunar material.

The ESA started investigation of the lunar base possibility in 2013, working alongside its industrial and architectural partners. The creation of the reliable semi-spherical structures on the surface of the moon could be fulfilled within the next 40 years, and 90 percent of the materials needed would be derived from the moon itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk9PWUGkz7o

latest details of the new concept, which is, however, still "firmly on the drawing board," were discussed at a conference this week at ESA's technical center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

"

ISS crew lands, brings space-born flies to Earth

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Three crew members of the International Space Station have safely returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz-13M spacecraft, bringing back good memories and results of their 165-day shift in orbit – including a space-born generation of experimental fruit flies.

The spacecraft carrying the commander of the ISS Expedition 41 Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev, as well as two flight engineers, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, landed some 80 km from Arkalyk, Kazakhstan.

As part of their mission, the crew completed some 2,640 orbits covering more than 70 million miles and have participated in a number of experiments, including breeding of fruit flies that could potentially shed light on long-term space flight effects on human beings.

Evidence of 'Starquakes' on Neutron Star

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An earthquake can be a pretty awe-inspiring natural event - a testament to the sheer power and size of shifting landmass. But what about seismic activity on a star? NASA's Fermi satellite recently spotted evidence of seismic waves rippling throughout a high-energy neutron star, resulting in an intense "storm" of high-energy blasts.

The star in question, called SGR J1550-5418, is a magnetar - an incredibly dense and highly magnetized neutron star that spins at an exceptionally high speed. The typical neutron star boasts a magnetic pull trillions of times stronger than the Earth's. A magnetar, by comparison, is about 1,000 times more magnetic than that.

Within the last four decades, only 23 magnetars in all have been identified, and among these stars, only three massive flares have ever been seen. The flares were related to "starquakes," in which instability of a neutron's pressing magnetic field literally shakes its surface.

"Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has captured the same evidence from smaller and much more frequent eruptions called bursts.

Source : nature world news

Mars bombarded by once-in-8-million-year meteor storm: NASA

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This handout artist's concept provided by NASA/JPL shows the Comet Siding Spring approaching Mars, shown with NASA’s orbiters preparing to make science observations of this unique encounter.

A pristine distant comet created a once-in-8-million-year fireworks show above Mars last month. But no one got to see it live.

New NASA data from satellites circling Mars shows that when the comet named Siding Spring skimmed the red planet, tons of comet dust bombarded the Martian sky with thousands of fireballs an hour. It warped the Martian atmosphere leaving all sorts of metals and an eerie yellow afterglow on Oct. 19.

A meteor shower from magnesium, sodium, iron and five other metals may have been so heavy that it might be even considered a meteor storm, said University of Colorado scientist Nick Schneider. Spikes in magnesium physically changed the atmosphere around Mars, while sodium left a yellowish glow in the sky after the meteor showers finished, he said.

“It would have been truly stunning to the human eye,” said Schneider, who was the lead instrument scientist for one of NASA’s Martian satellites. “It would have been really mind-blowing.”

The best view would have been from the Martian surface, where NASA had the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity looking up. But the rovers could only take stills, said agency chief planetary scientist Jim Green. There was no video to capture the shooting stars that made it a spectacular light show.

Instead, NASA’s satellites recorded lots of scientific data, which allowed astronomers to describe what it must have been like.

The core of the spinning comet moved by Mars at more than 125,000 mph and could have been as large as 1.2 miles wide, astronomers said.

It was not only big, but the dust assault was far larger than NASA anticipated, Green said. NASA’s models estimated that the dust wouldn’t be enough to harm the satellites around Mars, but the agency moved them to the other side of the planet just in case. That turned out to be wise, he said.

The comet came from the Oort Cloud, which is at the very edge of our solar system. Comets from there are rare so this was the type of event that happens once every 8 million years. And when they come toward the sun they aren’t as dusty as others, more pristine, astronomers said.

“We never before had the opportunity to observe an Oort Cloud comet up close,” Green said. “Instead of going to the comet, it came to us.”

Source: new york post

Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole Reveals Identity of Strange Object at Center of Our Galaxy

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 What are Supermassive Black Hole ?

Supermassive black hole (SMBH) is the largest type of black hole, on the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most—and possibly all—galaxies are inferred to contain a supermassive black hole at their centers.In the case of the Milky Way, the SMBH is believed to correspond with the location of Sagittarius A*.

For years, astronomers have been puzzled by a bizarre object in the center of the Milky Way that was believed to be a hydrogen gas cloud headed toward our galaxy's enormous black hole. Having studied it during its closest approach to the black hole this summer, UCLA astronomers believe that they have solved the riddle of the object widely known as G2.

A team led by Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy in the UCLA College, determined that G2 is most likely a pair of binary stars that had been orbiting the black hole in tandem and merged together into an extremely large star, cloaked in gas and dust — its movements choreographed by the black hole's powerful gravitational field. The research is published today in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"We are seeing phenomena about black holes that you can't watch anywhere else in the universe," Ghez added. "We are starting to understand the physics of black holes in a way that has never been possible before."

Ghez, who studies thousands of stars in the neighborhood of the supermassive black hole, said G2 appears to be just one of an emerging class of stars near the black hole that are created because the black hole's powerful gravity drives binary stars to merge into one. She also noted that, in our galaxy, massive stars primarily come in pairs. She says the star suffered an abrasion to its outer layer but otherwise will be fine.

Astronomers had figured that if G2 had been a hydrogen cloud, it could have been torn apart by the black hole, and that the resulting celestial fireworks would have dramatically changed the state of the black hole. "G2 survived and continued happily on its orbit; a simple gas cloud would not have done that," said Ghez, who holds the Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Chair in Astrophysics. "G2 was basically unaffected by the black hole. There were no fireworks."

Black holes, which form out of the collapse of matter, have such high density that nothing can escape their gravitational pull — not even light. They cannot be seen directly, but their influence on nearby stars is visible and provides a signature, said Ghez, a 2008 MacArthur Fellow.

The image below shows Sagittarius A* — the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy — appears dim in this composite image because very little material is falling into it.

Ghez and her colleagues — who include lead author Gunther Witzel, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar, and Mark Morris and Eric Becklin, both UCLA professors of physics and astronomy — conducted the research at Hawaii's W.M. Keck Observatory, which houses the world's two largest optical and infrared telescopes.

When two stars near the black hole merge into one, the star expands for more than 1 million years before it settles back down, said Ghez, who directs the UCLA Galactic Center Group. "This may be happening more than we thought. The stars at the center of the galaxy are massive and mostly binaries. It's possible that many of the stars we've been watching and not understanding may be the end product of mergers that are calm now."

Ghez and her colleagues also determined that G2 appears to be in that inflated stage now. The body has fascinated many astronomers in recent years, particularly during the year leading up to its approach to the black hole. "It was one of the most watched events in astronomy in my career," Ghez said.

Ghez said G2 now is undergoing what she calls a "spaghetti-fication" — a common phenomenon near black holes in which large objects become elongated. At the same time, the gas at G2's surface is being heated by stars around it, creating an enormous cloud of gas and dust that has shrouded most of the massive star.

Witzel said the researchers wouldn't have been able to arrive at their conclusions without the Keck's advanced technology. "It is a result that in its precision was possible only with these incredible tools, the Keck Observatory's 10-meter telescopes," Witzel said.

The telescopes use adaptive optics, a powerful technology pioneered in part by Ghez that corrects the distorting effects of the Earth's atmosphere in real time to more clearly reveal the space around the supermassive black hole. The technique has helped Ghez and her colleagues elucidate many previously unexplained facets of the environments surrounding supermassive black holes.

The image at the top of the page is a simulation showing the possible behavior of a gas cloud that has been observed approaching the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Source :  daily galaxy

NASA rocket to click 1,500 images of Sun in 5 minutes

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This image provided by NASA shows the sun emitting a significant X3.2-class flare erupting from the lower half of the sun, peaking at 5:40 p.m. EDT on Oct. 24, 2014. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly and captured images of the event.

A sounding rocket fitted with technology to gather 1,500 images of the Sun in flat five minutes is set for launch on Monday.

Capturing five images per second, the Rapid Acquisition Imaging Spectrograph Experiment (RAISE) mission will focus in on the split-second changes that occur near active regions on the Sun.

These are areas of intense and complex magnetic fields that can give birth to giant eruptions on the Sun that shoot energy and particles out in all directions, the U.S. space agency said in a statement.

“Even on a five-minute flight, there are niche areas of science we can focus on well. There are areas of the Sun that need to be examined with the high-cadence observations we can provide,” said Don Hassler, solar scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

RAISE will create a kind of data product called a spectrogram which separates the light from the sun into different wavelengths.

“The Sun has been extremely active recently, producing several X-class flares in the past few weeks. The team will aim their instrument at one of these active regions to try to understand better the dynamics that cause these regions to erupt,” Mr. Hassler explained.

The team hopes to see how heat and energy move through such active regions, which, in turn, helps scientist understand what creates the regions and perhaps even what catalyses the sun’s eruptions.

RAISE’s launch time is planned for 2.07 p.m. (EST) from the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Success in the search for quiet, distant quasars

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If quasars weren’t so luminous, we couldn’t see them so far away in space and time. But how about modest quasars, also far away? Astronomers say they’ve found some.

Astronomers at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) in Spain say they have at last discovered a population of quiet, distant quasars. Nearly all the quasars we see at great distances are ultraluminous, and no wonder. They must be extremely luminous in order for us to glimpse them over the vastness of space. And yet astronomers have thought there must be, at those same vast distances, some quasars that were relatively quiet. Now, they say, they’ve found some and have been able to compare them both with the ultraluminous quasars in the early universe and also with closer quasars of moderate luminosity.

The farther away we look in space, the deeper we are looking into the past. Thus the ultraluminous quasars at great distances are showing us events taking place in the early universe: mergers of great galaxies containing gigantic black holes, with masses equivalent to billions of our suns, at their cores. These objects and events in the young universe are what we see as the distant quasars. The question has been, do the distant, tremendously high energy quasars have local relatives, in their same region of space and time, with much lower energy? And are those quiet quasars at great distances the dying versions of formerly ultraluminous quasars? Or are they something else entirely?

Jack W. Sulentic, astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), who is leading the research, said:

Astronomers have always wanted to compare past and present, but it has been almost impossible because at great distances we can only see the brightest objects and nearby such objects no longer exist.

Until now we have compared very luminous distant quasars with weaker ones close by, which is tantamount to comparing household light bulbs with the lights in a football stadium.

Now, these astronomers say, they have detected the first distant, quiet quasars.

They say they employed the light-gathering power of the Gran Telescopio Canarias – known as GranTeCan or GTC telescope – located on the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands in Spain. This telescope let Sulentic and his team obtain the first spectroscopic data from distant, low luminosity quasars similar to typical nearby ones.

They say their data are reliable enough to let them establish essential parameters of the quiet, distance quasars such as their chemical composition, and the mass of the central black hole or rate at which it absorbs surrounding gas and dust.

Quasars appear to evolve with distance. That is, the farther away they are in space, the brighter they are. This could indicate that quasars extinguish over time. Or it could be the result of anobservational bias masking a different reality: that gigantic quasars evolving very quickly, most of them already extinct, coexist with a quiet population that evolves more slowly, but which our technological limitations have not allowed astronomers to study. Ascensión del Olmo, another IAA-CSIC researcher who took part in this study, said:

We have been able to confirm that, indeed, apart from the highly energetic and rapidly evolving quasars, there is another population that evolves slowly. This population of quasars appears to follow the quasar main sequence … There does not even seem to be a strong relation between this type of quasars, which we see in our environment and those ‘monsters’ that started to glow more than 10 billion years ago.

Are there also differences between distant, quiet quasars and the moderate quasars closer to us in space? These astronomers say there are, and these differences are not surprising. Jack W. Sulentic said:

The local quasars present a higher proportion of heavy elements such as aluminum, iron or magnesium, than the distant relatives, which most likely reflects enrichment by the birth and death of successive generations of stars.

Bottom line: Astronomers in Spain have been able to identify a population of quiet quasars located in the distant universe, that is, in the early universe. They have compared them both to ultraluminous quasars in the early universe and also to quasars closer to us in space and time … and found differences in both cases.

Source : earth sky

'Interstellar' Black Hole is Best Black Hole in Sci-Fi

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Christopher Nolan’s movie ‘Interstellar’ will be an epic space adventure encapsulating humanity’s need to explore the Universe, but it’s the visual effects for the movie that are garnering early attention.

By combining the help of one of the world’s leading black hole physicists with a cutting-edge visual effects (VFX) team, ‘Interstellar’ will depict the most scientifically accurate black hole in science fiction history. And, during production, some new discoveries were made as to how a black hole would appear if we could view it up close.

“Neither wormholes or black holes have been depicted in any Hollywood movie in the way they actually would appear,” said Caltech physicist Kip Thorne in a behind-the-scenes video released by Paramount Pictures (featured below). “This is the first time that the depiction (of a black hole) began with Einstein’s general relativity equations.”

General relativity describes the nature of gravity. How a black hole, being the most gravitationally dominant object in the known Cosmos, would look to an observer can therefore be described by Einstein’s equations — except for when tangling with the Black Hole Information Paradox, then you’ll need some quantum equations to boot.

Thorne is a lifelong friend of fellow black hole guru Stephen Hawking and between both of the theoretical physicists, our modern understanding of how these singularities work has flourished. So with the help of Thorne, Nolan has done something very smart; he’s been able to provide the movie-viewing public with a rare sci-fi look into the actual science of a black hole while maintaining an artistic representation that we can easily comprehend.

Interstellar Movie Trailer #3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePbKGoIGAXY

Warped Spacetime

While crunching the mathematics and arriving at graphical representations of Einstein’s famous equations, Thorne and the movie’s VFX team realized that if a star is positioned behind the black hole, the starlight may become trapped in the warped spacetime close to the black hole’s event horizon. Known as gravitational lensing, this spacetime effect can be used by astronomers to detect exoplanets, for example. But during the production of ‘Interstellar,’ the team realized a spacetime subtlety.

The Matter of an Accretion Disk

Of course, no black hole would be complete without the addition of a radiating accretion disk. But how would that appear on film?

As matter falls toward the spinning black hole’s event horizon, the gas collects into a hot accretion disk, shining brilliantly. By adding the disk, “we found that if you then render this whole thing and you visualize it all through this extraordinary gravitational lens, the gravity twists this glowing disk of gas into weird shapes and you get this extraordinary ‘rainbow of fire’ across the top of the black hole,” said Franklin.

Science fiction movies are produced to entertain, first and foremost. But as computer graphics become more sophisticated and the science fiction-viewing public becomes more savvy, there is a growing motivation by filmmakers to make space phenomena as ‘real’ as possible. And often that will mean employing the help of scientists to make our most extreme space fantasies as scientifically accurate as possible to maintain a credible storyline.

‘Interstellar’ is shaping up to be one of those rare movies that will combine science and fiction, exciting the viewing public, potentially engaging us with astrophysics in a way we’ve never experienced before.

Source : Discovery News

"Unexpected Planet" Discovered by Yale Astronomers

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Astronomers have discovered a new planet that has a highly inconsistent orbit time around its Sun.

The low-mass, low-density planet, known only as PH3c, which is 2,300 light years away from the Earth, has an atmosphere loaded with hydrogen and helium.

The planet nearly escaped detection as PH3c does not have a consistent orbit time around its Sun due to the gravitational influence of other planets on its system.

“On the Earth, these effects are very small, only on the scale of one second or so,” said Joseph Schmitt, a graduate student at Yale University.

“PH3c’s orbital period changed by 10.5 hours in just 10 orbits,” explained Schmitt.

This inconsistency kept the planet out of reach for automated computer algorithms that search stellar light curves and identify regular dips caused by objects passing in front of stars, he said.

The researchers discovered the new planet with the help of Planet Hunters programme coordinated by Yale University and University of Oxford.

The programme, which has found over 60 planet candidates since 2010, enlists citizen scientists to check survey data from the Kepler spacecraft.

Not only did Planet Hunters spot PH3c, but the discovery also enabled astronomers to better characterise two other planets - one on each side of PH3c.

An outer planet PH3d is slightly larger and heavier than Saturn. An inner planet, PH3b may have a rocky composition like the Earth.

“Finding the middle planet was key to confirming the others and allowing us to find their masses,” Schmitt explained.

Universe may face a darker future

New research offers a novel insight into the nature of dark matter and dark energy and what the future of our Universe might be.

Researchers in Portsmouth and Rome have found hints that dark matter, the cosmic scaffolding on which our Universe is built, is being slowly erased, swallowed up by dark energy.

The findings appear in the journal Physical Review Letters, published by the American Physical Society. In the journal cosmologists at the Universities of Portsmouth and Rome, argue that the latest astronomical data favours a dark energy that grows as it interacts with dark matter, and this appears to be slowing the growth of structure in the cosmos.

Professor David Wands, Director of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, is one of the research team.

He said: "This study is about the fundamental properties of space-time. On a cosmic scale, this is about our Universe and its fate.

"If the dark energy is growing and dark matter is evaporating we will end up with a big, empty, boring Universe with almost nothing in it.

"Dark matter provides a framework for structures to grow in the Universe. The galaxies we see are built on that scaffolding and what we are seeing here, in these findings, suggests that dark matter is evaporating, slowing that growth of structure."

Cosmology underwent a paradigm shift in 1998 when researchers announced that the rate at which the Universe was expanding was accelerating. The idea of a constant dark energy throughout space-time (the "cosmological constant") became the standard model of cosmology, but now the Portsmouth and Rome researchers believe they have found a better description, including energy transfer between dark energy and dark matter.

Research students Valentina Salvatelli and Najla Said from the University of Rome worked in Portsmouth with Dr Marco Bruni and Professor Wands, and with Professor Alessandro Melchiorri in Rome. They examined data from a number of astronomical surveys, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and used the growth of structure revealed by these surveys to test different models of dark energy.
Professor Wands said: "Valentina and Najla spent several months here over the summer looking at the consequences of the latest observations. Much more data is available now than was available in 1998 and it appears that the standard model is no longer sufficient to describe all of the data. We think we've found a better model of dark energy.

"Since the late 1990s astronomers have been convinced that something is causing the expansion of our Universe to accelerate. The simplest explanation was that empty space – the vacuum – had an energy density that was a cosmological constant. However there is growing evidence that this simple model cannot explain the full range of astronomical data researchers now have access to; in particular the growth of cosmic structure, galaxies and clusters of galaxies, seems to be slower than expected."
Professor Dragan Huterer, of the University of Michigan, has read the research and said scientists need to take notice of the findings.

He said: "The paper does look very interesting. Any time there is a new development in the dark energy sector we need to take notice since so little is understood about it. I would not say, however, that I am surprised at the results, that they come out different than in the simplest model with no interactions. We've known for some months now that there is some problem in all data fitting perfectly to the standard simplest model."

Tragedy won't crush space tourism, supporters say

The second crash this week of a space craft is a setback for the fledgling field of space tourism, aerospace experts say. But it's unlikely to stop an industry that has attracted a trio of ambitious, daring billionaires like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk from trying to open a pathway for ordinary citizens to travel into space.

VirginGalactic's SpaceShipTwo, which was designed to ultimately carry paying passengers into suborbital space, crashed Friday in the Mojave Desert during a test flight. The accident occurred three days after an Orbital Sciences rocket headed to the International Space Station exploded within seconds of liftoff in Virginia.

Pedro Llanos, who teaches about the commercialization of space at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach campus, said that space travel has suffered similar, sometimes deadly setbacks, in other stages of its evolution.

"It happened ... in the space era with the Apollo. It happened with the shuttle,'' he said. "The reason it happened in the past is because we were testing new technologies. It's happening now because we are pushing technology's boundaries, to move space exploration forward.''

Such exploration is critical, Llanos said, whether it's to create the possibility of mining asteroids for resources that are scarce on earth, or perfecting technology that will one day allow a person in California to travel to Australia within a couple of hours. "It will help us,'' he says. "It will help society.''

Now XCOR Aerospace, which has been developing its own suborbital vehicle, may get its paying passengers into space first, says John Spencer, founder and president of the West Los Angeles-based Space Tourism Society.

"It may be now that XCOR is first to go into a commercial setting because it will take a while for Virgin Galactic to catch up,'' he says.

"Virgin Galactic will eventually recover ... because of the extensive experience Branson and the Virgin brand has with one of the world's most successful airlines. Being first is cool but that doesn't really matter when you're creating a long-term vision for an expanding industry,'' Spencer said.

Among the hundreds who have paid tens of thousands of dollars for a ticket on one of Virgin Galactic's flights are actors Ashton Kutcher, Tom Hanks and Angelina Jolie. Spencer said those who want to go to space aren't easily dissuaded.

"One of the inherently unique aspects of space is it is dangerous but people are willing to risk their lives for that experience,'' Spencer said. "Just like climbing Mount Everest or sky diving.''

Source : USA TODAY

Virgin Galactic space rocket crash: Richard Branson’s dream of space tourism suffers setback after Mojave crash kills test pilot

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo went down Friday afternoon, killing at least one while highlighting safety concerns that Richard Branson said could kill the space tourism industry.

Investors see private space travel as the market of the future. According to the Space Angels Network, an organization created to connect investors with entrepreneurs in the private space travel business, in 2012 the global space economy was valued at over $300 billion. The network says it is expected to grow to $600 billion by 2030.

On Tuesday, an unmanned rocket manufactured by Orbital Sciences, a Virginia company NASA has contracted to resupply the space station, exploded during its launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This engine used in the flight, the Antares 130, is powered by old Soviet engines.

For years, Richard Branson, who owns a part of Virgin Galactic, has touted the bright future of space tourism. In February, he said that he and his children would be on the first space tourism flight.

Everybody who signs up knows this is the birth of a new space program and understands the risks that go with that," Branson said in an interview for Weekend magazine. "But every person wants to go on the first flight."

He even alluded to the fact that accidents could kill the industry. Right now, tickets to space cost a minimum $250,000 each.

“Space is hard, and today was a tough day,” said George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic, at a press conference. “We believe we owe to the folks who were flying these vehicles to understand this and to move forward, which is what we’ll do.”

Source : The Independent

Isro to Test Crew Module in December for India's First Human Space Flight

India will launch an unmanned crew module in December onboard a heavy rocket to test its re-entry into the atmosphere for the country's maiden human space flight, the space agency chief said Thursday.
"We will send an unmanned crew module on the experimental GSLV-Mark III rocket in December and test its re-entry into the earth's atmosphere for a human space flight plan in future," Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan told reporters in Bangalore on the margins of an engineers conclave.

Weighing 3.6 tonnes, the crew module will be put into orbit 100-120km up in a satellite and brought back to Earth for checking its re-entry characteristics when carrying two Indian astronauts in the proposed human space flight.

"Though the actual human space flight will be in an orbit around earth at a height of 270km for a week, the experimental flight with the crew module in a spacecraft will go up to 100-120km above earth to test its heat shield survive very high temperatures (about 1,500 degrees Celsius) during the re-entry into the atmosphere," Radhakrishnan noted.

The crew module will have a parachute that will open up after re-entry into the atmosphere and fall into sea for retrieval.

"The parachute will open up for soft landing of the spacecraft carrying the crew module in the Bay of Bengal, about 450 km away from Andamans (islands), and will be retrieved by a boat," Radhakrishnan said.

The previous UPA government had sanctioned Rs. 145 crores to Isro for developing a crew module that will fly two Indian astronauts into space, space suits, life support systems and related technologies for the human space flight programme.

The heavy rocket (GSLV) will, however, have a passive cryogenic stage - liquid nitrogen at super cooled temperature and gaseous nitrogen instead of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

The space agency is integrating the rocket with the crew module at its Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, about 90 km northeast of Chennai.

Source : NDTV

NASA catches the sun celebrating Halloween

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured quite a photo of the sun on October 8.

In the photo, hotspots of magnetic fields on the sun form what can appear to look like eyes, a nose and a grin reminiscent of a Jack-O-Lantern.

The image is a composite of two photos taken in ultraviolet light. The magnetic activity in the corona, or sun's atmosphere, is what creates the pattern.

The SDO, launch in 2010, monitors the sun's activity to provide accurate space weather forecasts, including to provide warning when solar flares may threaten the Earth.

China's Main Competitor in Space Exploration is India, Not Russia

China's principal competitor in space exploration is India, not Russia, researcher at the Russian Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Vasily Kashin told RIA Novosti on Friday.

"China and India are two new space powers. They have vast resources and consider their space programs from the national prestige perspective ," the expert said.

He added that China and India are following Russian and US footsteps in space exploration.

"China's more developed space-rocket industry and immense resources have let it take the lead in the two countries' space race," Kashin argued.

Despite being behind China in space exploration, India has a significant advantage, according to the researcher.

"China is still under rigid restrictions on any form of cooperation with the United States, including on the purchase of components...The Chinese are forced to do many things on their own and they sometimes cannot produce components of a required level. The Indians have less resources, but they are in good relations with everyone. India can cooperate with both Russia and the West, adopting their best technologies," Kashin concluded.

Earlier on Friday, China launched an experimental spacecraft to the moon orbit, which is to return to Earth in eight days. The spacecraft is to test out re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere for the planned 2017 Chang'e-5 lunar mission.

Czech Republic prepares own space program

The Czech Republic will have its own space program, according to the National Space Plan for 2014-2019 that the government approved at the beginning of the week, the daily Hospodárske noviny (HN) writes today.
The plan recommends that the National Space Agency, "a considerably smaller variant of NASA," be established to integrate the currently fragmented competences in this field, HN says.
So far the Czech Republic has participated in the European Space Agency (ESA) programs, the second most significant player in space exploration after NASA, which they joined in 2008. Czechs annually give some 14 million euros to the ESA.
The national space exploration program should have an annual budget of three to five million euros and last for five years at least.
It should complement the research carried out within the ESA. Consequently, the National Space Agency could fund the projects that cannot be paid by the ESA, HN says.
Jan Kolář, head of the Czech Space Office NGO, welcomes the idea of the national space program.
"However, it should focus on the preparation of research and development activities in technical sciences," such as the development of materials and various types of detectors and the aerodynamics area, Kolář said.
HN writes that one of the rare successes that Czech science and industry has recently scored in this filed is a micro-accelerometer used in the SWARM satellites that were sent into space last November. The device, developed by 15 Czech firms, measures slight and slow accelerations that influence the satellite's movement, which removes possible distortions in the magnetic field measurements, HN notes.
However, the successful Czech micro-accelerometer was rather an exceptional case, Kolář told HN.
He said Czech participation in the ESA is limited by finances on the one hand, and by skills on the other hand. "In addition, our participation in each program is confronted with other European countries," he added.
Under the approved national space plan, the Czech Republic's contribution to the ESA's optional programs must be doubled at least, HN writes.
The transitory six-year period, in which the Czech Republic as a new ESA member could use a special incentive program, ends this year. Almost a half of the Czech obligatory payments to the agency went to it.
After the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania entered the ESA, while Estonia and Hungary plan to do so, and now they can use the advantages of newcomers, HN adds.
Source : prague post