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May 13, 2015

NASA's New Horizons Spots Pluto's Faintest Known Moons
Boulder CO (SPX) May 13, 2015
It's a complete Pluto family photo - or at least a photo of the family members we've already met. For the first time, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has photographed Kerberos and Styx - the smallest and faintest of Pluto's five known moons. Following the spacecraft's detection of Pluto's giant moon Charon in July 2013, and Pluto's smaller moons Hydra and Nix in July 2014 and January 2015, respectively, New Horizons is now within sight of all the known members of the Pluto system. "New Horizo ... read more

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NASA funds SwRI instrument to date Moon and Mars rocks NASA has approved $2.6 million to advance development of Southwest Research Institute's (SwRI) Chemistry, Organics, and Dating Experiment (CODEX) instrument. The device will allow unmanned rovers to ... more		MESSENGER reveals Mercury's magnetic field secrets New data from MESSENGER, the spacecraft that orbited Mercury for four years before crashing into the planet a week ago, reveals Mercury's magnetic field is almost four billion years old. The discove ... more		Weather forecasts for planets beyond our solar system "Cloudy for the morning, turning to clear with scorching heat in the afternoon." While this might describe a typical late-summer day in many places on Earth, it may also apply to planets outside our ... more
				Watch a simple tablet control robot swarm Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have programmed a fleet of robots to respond to a basic set of commands issued via a tablet device. ... more		Galactic Gold Rush: Asteroid Mining to Start This Summer Asteroid mining may not be the stuff of sci-fi flicks for long, as one company prepares to launch its first exploratory satellite from the International Space Station in July. Planetary Resources is ... more

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Long Beach CA - May 19-21, 2015

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 9 - Las Vegas

Next Generation Integrated ISR 2015 - Washington DC - July 27-29

Ceres Animation Showcases Bright Spots The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are better resolved in a new sequence of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 3 and 4, 2015. The images were taken from a distance of 8 ... more		Getting Down to Science at Ceres Dawn's assignment when it embarked on its extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition in 2007 can be described quite simply: explore the two most massive uncharted worlds in the inner solar system. It ... more		Russia launches dozens of drones as Ukraine claims 'important success' Russian jets violate Estonian air space in 'brazen intrusion' U.S. defense in free fall		Saturn Moon's Activity Could Be 'Curtain Eruptions' New research using data from NASA's Cassini mission suggests most of the eruptions from Saturn's moon Enceladus might be diffuse curtains rather than discrete jets. Many features that appear to be i ... more
				Geochemical process on Saturn's moon linked to life's origin New work from a team including Carnegie's Christopher Glein has revealed the pH of water spewing from a geyser-like plume on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Their findings are an important step toward dete ... more		Student Mars Rover team will compete in Utah desert A team of Cornell engineering students has advanced to the finals of the University Rover Challenge, a competition to build and operate a prototype radio-controlled vehicle that could assist astrona ... more

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

Ancient Star Raises Prospects of Intelligent Life Can life survive for billions of years longer than the expected timeline on Earth? As scientists discover older and older solar systems, it's likely that before long we'll find an ancient planet in ... more		DARPA developing zoom lens to spot distant space objects more clearly Imaging of Earth from satellites in space has vastly improved in recent years. But the opposite challenge-using Earth-based systems to find, track and provide detailed characterization of satellites ... more		Fossil fuels harm health from 'cradle to grave': report Trash, mulch and security: All jobs for troops in Washington Rising oceans to threaten 1.5 million Australians by 2050: report		Space debris from satellite explosion increases collision risk for space craft Debris from the US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F13 satellite, which recently exploded in orbit, could pose a threat to other spacecraft and missions according to new research fro ... more
An important step in artificial intelligence In what marks a significant step forward for artificial intelligence, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have demonstrated the functionality of a simple artificial neural circuit. For the first time, a ... more		Controlling swarms of robots with a finger Using a smart tablet and a red beam of light, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have created a system that allows people to control a fleet of robots with the swipe of a finger. A person t ... more		Device could greatly improve speech and image recognition Researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering and the Russian Academy of Sciences have successfully demonstrated pattern recognition using a magnonic holograph ... more		Toward a squishier robot For decades, robots have advanced the efficiency of human activity. Typically, however, robots are formed from bulky, stiff materials and require connections to external power sources; these feature ... more

	IBM's Watson strives to be jack of all trades Watson already has won a major TV game show, is looking for a cure for cancer and has ambitious gastronomy ambitions including devising a recipe for chocolate-beef burritos. ... more		NASA's LRO Moves Closer to the Lunar Surface NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has completed a maneuver that lowered the spacecraft's orbit to within 20 kilometers (12 miles) above areas near the lunar South Pole, the closest the space ... more

EU to fast-track review of 2035 combustion-engine ban

Norway sovereign wealth fund drops French miner over environmental fears

EU split on 2040 climate goal ahead of UN summit

Astronomers detect drastic atmospheric change in super Earth		Astrophysicists offer proof that famous image shows forming planets		3D printer making Chinese space suit parts		A hot start to the origin of life		European Space Agency Director Wants to Set Up a Moon Base
NASA Announces Journey to Mars Challenge		Astrobiology Students Use Art to Develop Critical Thinking Skills		4,000+ Martian Days of Work on Mars!		UAE says on track to send probe to Mars in 2021		US space agency chief confident of putting Americans on Mars in 2030s

IBM's Watson extends cancer insights to 14 new centers

PSI Researchers Look Back at Mercury MESSENGER Accomplishments

Traffic Around Mars Gets Busy

NASA completes MESSENGER mission with surface impact

Rock Spire in 'Spirit of St. Louis Crater' on Mars

New exoplanet too big for its star

Fire and Ice: A MESSENGER Recap

Robots to drive Polaris off-road vehicles in DARPA challenge

Making robots more human

Tracking Japan's asteroid impact mission

KinetX Aerospace Navigates MESSENGER through Final Mission Phase

Possible Polar Cap on Pluto Detected

MESSENGER executes last orbit-correction maneuver ahead of impact

An improvement to the global software standard for analyzing fusion plasmas

Computer faces poker pros in no-limit Texas Hold'em

Robotically discovering Earth's nearest neighbors

Russia Invites China to Join in Creating Lunar Station

Deep Space Atomic Clock On Time For 2016 Mission

Rover on the Lookout for Dust Devils

Astronomers join forces to speed discovery of habitable worlds

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