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April 23, 2016

Pluto's 'Halo' Craters
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 22, 2016
Within Pluto's informally named Vega Terra region is a field of eye-catching craters that looks like a cluster of bright halos scattered across a dark landscape. The region is far west of the hemisphere NASA's New Horizons spacecraft viewed during close approach last summer. The upper image - in black and white - sports several dozen "haloed" craters. The largest crater, at bottom-right, measures about 30 miles (50 kilometers) across. The craters' bright walls and rims stand out from their dark fl ... read more

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China targets 2020 Mars mission launch: official China plans to send a rover to Mars to explore the Red Planet, a top space official announced on Friday, in the latest step of its ambitious space programme. ... more		Princeton grad student writes program to help stabilize fusion plasma Imene Goumiri, a Princeton University graduate student, has worked with physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) to simulate a method for limiti ... more		China plans to launch core module of space station around 2018 China will launch a core module belonging to its first space station around 2018, according to a senior engineer with China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. on Thursday. Two space labs will be ... more
				China set to launch "more livable" space lab in Q3 China will put the country's second space lab Tiangong-2 into space in the third quarter of this year with more livable conditions for astronauts, a spokesman said here Thursday. According to ... more		China aims for deeper space with new generation rockets China will take its new generation heavy-lift rocket Long March-5 to the skies later this year, and is planning even bigger models. According to Wang Jue, head of the Long March-5 project, the ... more

Human 2 Mars Conference May 17-19 2016 - Washington DC

NASA seeks industry ideas for an advanced Mars satellite NASA is soliciting ideas from U.S. industry for designs of a Mars orbiter for potential launch in the 2020s. The satellite would provide advanced communications and imaging, as well as robotic scien ... more		Mice in space showed liver damage after two weeks Lab mice that spent just two weeks in orbit showed early signs of liver damage upon returning to Earth, raising concern about what long-duration spaceflight might do to humans, researchers said Wednesday. ... more		Romania says Russian drone breached its airspace MSBAI wins DoD contract to accelerate OrbitGuard for space situational awarenes Next-Gen Automotive Innovation: Smarter, Safer, More Connected		Swiss watch exports plunge on Hong Kong, US slowdown Global exports of Swiss watches plummeted in March, amid a dramatic contraction of sales in main markets Hong Kong and the United States. ... more
				Mice flown in space show nascent liver damage In a discovery with implications for long-term spaceflight and future missions to Mars, a researcher at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has found that mice flown aboard the space ... more		Students observe damaged Hitomi X-ray satellite and debris Engineering Physics students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach Campus have made several high-cadence telescope observations of the recently damaged Hitomi X-ray satellite and s ... more

Military Network Modernization 2016 - Washington DC - April 25-27

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Pasadena CA - May 24-26, 2016

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 7-9 - Las Vegas

Directed Energy And Next Generation Munitions - 20-22 June - Washington DC

Sorting the wheat from the chaff Physicists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich report that temperature gradients within pores in rock could have separated primitive biopolymers on the basis of their sequences - a ... more		'Pee power' turns urine into sustainable power source for electronic devices Researchers at the University of Bath have developed an innovative miniature fuel cell that can generate electricity from urine, creating an affordable, renewable and carbon-neutral way of generatin ... more		Ash improves methane yield and fertilizer value in biogas systems Bio-oil from agricultural and forest waste could help seal abandoned oil wells and store carbon Rice researchers turn wasted data center heat into clean power		In these microbes, iron works like oxygen A pair of papers from a UW-Madison geoscience lab shed light on a curious group of bacteria that use iron in much the same way that animals use oxygen: to soak up electrons during biochemical reacti ... more
New Ceres Images Show Bright Craters Craters with bright material on dwarf planet Ceres shine in new images from NASA's Dawn mission. In its lowest-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of 240 miles (385 kilometers) from Ceres, Dawn ha ... more		Chinese scientists develop mammal embryos in space for first time Chinese scientists on Sunday said they have successfully developed early-stage mouse embryos in space for the first time on a retrievable microgravity satellite set to return to Earth sometime next ... more		Lone planetary-mass object found in family of stars In 2011, astronomers announced that our galaxy is likely teeming with free-floating planets. In fact, these lonely worlds, which sit quietly in the darkness of space without any companion planets or ... more		Pluto's haze varies in brightness Scientists on NASA's New Horizons mission team are learning more about the structure and behavior of Pluto's complex atmosphere by discovering new attributes of its extensive haze layers. The ... more

	Rover mini-walkabout to find clay mineral continues Opportunity is exploring the south side of 'Marathon Valley' located on the rim of Endeavour crater. The objective is to identify specific outcrops for evidence of clay minerals, so Opportunit ... more		Y Marks the Spot A sinuous feature snakes northward from Enceladus' south pole like a giant tentacle. This feature, which stretches from the terminator near center, toward upper left, is actually tectonic in nature, ... more

Manipulating light to advance quantum entanglement research

Top Japan start-up Sakana AI touts nature-inspired tech

Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience

Russia, Italy plan first bid to explore beneath mars surface in 2018		Re-entry capsule of SJ-10 lands in Northern China		Strathclyde-led project to open up space technology to new nations		University of Massachusetts Lowell PICTURE-B Mission Completed		Two doctoral students work on NASA mission
UCF gets grant to plan for space mining on NASA mission		Robots could get 'touchy' with self-powered smart skin		Venezuela moves clocks forward 30 min to save power		Autonomous vehicles face test limits tto prove safety		University of Sussex research brings 'smart hands' closer to reality

Airbus wins contract for solid state recorder on NASA-ISRO SAR Mission

Russia to shift all Lunar launches to Vostochny Cosmodrome

Saturn Spacecraft Samples Interstellar Dust

First light for ExoMars

Supernova iron found on the moon

China begins testing Tiangong-2 space lab

Stars strip away atmospheres of nearby super-Earths

Cooling down the hot side of space hardware

Scientists invent robotic 'artist' that spray paints giant murals

Artificial comet holds clues to the origin of life

Humanoid robotics and computer avatars could help treat social disorders

1917 astronomical plate has first-ever evidence of exoplanetary system

PPPL scientists help test innovative device to improve efficiency of tokamaks

First joint EU-Russian ExoMars mission to reach Mars orbit Oct 16

How to reach Alpha Centauri in just 20 years

Icy 'Spider' on Pluto

New tool refines exoplanet search

Lessons learned from Tiangong 1

Cooked planets shrink due to radiation

Lunar lava tubes could help pave way for human colony

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