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May 15, 2015

Mystery Methane on Mars: The Saga Continues
Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 15, 2015
A scientist has raised questions about the latest detection of methane on Mars, suggesting that NASA's rover could be responsible for the mysterious burp. Highly unlikely, but not impossible, says the Curiosity team. Is the Red Planet giving off methane? The question has taunted scientists for nearly 50 years, ever since the Mariner 7 spacecraft detected a whiff of the gas near Mars' south pole. Researchers retracted the finding a month later after realizing that the signal was in fact coming from ... read more

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Ether Compounds Could Work like DNA On Oily Worlds In the search for life beyond Earth, scientists have justifiably focused on water because all biology as we know it requires this fluid. A wild card, however, is whether alternative liquids can also ... more		Asteroid Distant 'Flyby' Thursday An asteroid, designated 1999 FN53, will safely pass more than 26 times the distance of Earth to the moon on May 14. To put it another way, at its closest point, the asteroid will get no closer than ... more		Mercury's core dynamo present early in planet's history The Messenger spacecraft, which crash-landed into Mercury just a few days ago, found traces of magnetization in Mercury's crust, a new study reports. The presence of residual magnetization pro ... more
				Auroras on Mars One day, when humans go to Mars, they might find that, occasionally, the Red Planet has green skies. In late Dec. 2014, NASA's MAVEN spacecraft detected evidence of widespread auroras in Mars's nort ... more		Telescope-Laser Cannons to Clean Up Dangerous Space Junk The low Earth orbit is filled with what amounts to an outer space junk yard, left behind by decades of discarded satellites, collisions, and debris. And now Operation Orbital Clean House is aiming t ... 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

NASA Awards Study Contract To Deep Space Industries NASA has selected Deep Space Industries (DSI) for two contracts devoted to developing critical technologies for utilizing asteroid resources. One will support the development of asteroid regolith si ... more		Quick Detour by NASA Mars Rover Checks Ancient Valley Researchers slightly detoured NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the mission's planned path in recent days for a closer look at a hillside site where an ancient valley had been carved out and refilled ... 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		Curiosity tracks sundown on Mars The sun dips to a Martian horizon in a blue-tinged sky in images sent home to Earth this week from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to record the sunset during a ... more
				Russian Scientist Gets Patent on Transfiguring Martian Atmosphere As the Earth's brainpower is focused on Mars exploration, a chemist privatized space engineering and is ready to make the Red Planet's atmosphere suitable for colonists. No jokes. A Russian ch ... 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

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

Will a soft robot be first to explore Europa's oceans? Long intrigued by Europa's icy, water-logged environs, researchers around the world are trying figure out the best way to explore the alien world up close. ... 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		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		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
NASA's New Horizons Spots Pluto's Faintest Known Moons 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 sm ... more		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

	Robot pets to rise in an overpopulated world University of Melbourne animal welfare researcher Dr Jean-Loup Rault says the prospect of robopets and virtual pets is not as far-fetched as we may think. His paper in the latest edition of Frontier ... 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

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

Watch a simple tablet control robot swarm		DARPA developing zoom lens to spot distant space objects more clearly		Galactic Gold Rush: Asteroid Mining to Start This Summer		Ceres Animation Showcases Bright Spots		Getting Down to Science at Ceres
Space debris from satellite explosion increases collision risk for space craft		NASA's LRO Moves Closer to the Lunar Surface		Astronomers detect drastic atmospheric change in super Earth		Saturn Moon's Activity Could Be 'Curtain Eruptions'		Astrophysicists offer proof that famous image shows forming planets

3D printer making Chinese space suit parts

A hot start to the origin of life

Geochemical process on Saturn's moon linked to life's origin

European Space Agency Director Wants to Set Up a Moon Base

NASA Announces Journey to Mars Challenge

Student Mars Rover team will compete in Utah desert

Ancient Star Raises Prospects of Intelligent Life

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

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