An Earth-like planet that orbits Proxima Centauri in its habital zone has been found. The discovery was made by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) using the La Silla Observatory‘s reflecting telescope. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) will be announcing the finding at the end of August. Universe Today reported the discovery from a der Spiegel …
Scientists with NASA’s Dawn mission have identified permanently shadowed regions on the dwarf planet Ceres. Most of these areas likely have been cold enough to trap water ice for a billion years, suggesting that ice deposits could exist there now. “The conditions on Ceres are right for accumulating deposits of water ice,” said Norbert Schorghofer, …
The Airvinci personal ducted fan helicopter and drones could enable the flying car future. The unmanned heavy cargo drone version looks like a good way to commercially ramp up to true personal flight. If Amazon or other internet ecommerce companies use this for 120 kg deliveries then it will be the path to the flying …
A newly discovered helium field in the geothermally active East African Rift Valley may contain more helium than the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve near Amarillo, Texas, which holds about 30 percent of the world’s helium supply. Independent experts have calculated a probable resource of 54 billion cubic feet [1.5 billion cubic meters] in just one …
LiquidPiston built a functioning engine and has demonstrated it powering a Go-kart. Shkolnik says the engine could see its first practical application, in a drone, within a few years. The liquid piston engine weighed 4 pounds and replaced a 40 pound engine. Ultimately, the LiquiPiston engine will power exoskeletons, robots, drones, boats, electric cars, and …
Conventional passwords might soon be a thing of the past, or at least on devices running Android. Google announced at I / O last week that it’s pushing ahead with plans to replace passwords with “trust scores” that incorporate various data points about users to determine whether or not they’re legitimate. Its Trust API is …
A breakthrough by an Australian collaboration of researchers could make infra-red technology easy-to-use and cheap, potentially saving millions of dollars in defence and other areas using sensing devices, and boosting applications of technology to a host of new areas, such as agriculture. Infra-red devices are used for improved vision through fog and for night vision …
Project RAMA, Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata, has been designed to leverage the advancing trends of additive manufacturing (AM) and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) to enable asteroid rendezvous missions in which a set of technically simple robotic processes convert asteroid elements into very basic versions of spacecraft subsystems (GNC, Propulsion, Avionics). Upon completion, the asteroid …
Next month, the worldwide semiconductor industry will formally acknowledge what has become increasingly obvious to everyone involved: Moore’s law [semiconductor scaling], the principle that has powered the information-technology revolution since the 1960s, is nearing its end. Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a microprocessor chip will double every two years or so …
Russia and China are increasingly pursuing the ability to attack America’s space-based assets, but is there anything the Pentagon can do to thwart Beijing and Moscow’s ambitions? Space-based capabilities like GPS, communications and reconnaissance satellites are the sinews that hold the U.S. military together, allowing American forces to operate across the globe. Russia’s leaders also …
Researchers have shown that a MEMS-based gas sensor manufactured with a desktop device performs at least as well as commercial sensors built at conventional production facilities. In the other paper, they show that the central component of the desktop fabrication device can itself be built with a 3-D printer. Together, the papers suggest that a …