New Technology Makes Solar Panels Automatically Clean Themselves

Automatic cleaning technology, developed for future missions to the Moon and Mars, could be of some use to the solar energy industry here on Earth.

This great innovation was presented by Professor Malay K. Mazumder, of Boston University, with friends from NASA at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

As of today, only 4 percent of the worlds energy production is derived from solar energy. The demand for solar energy has increased by 50 percent from 2003 to 2008 with a continued growth rate of 25 percent each year after that. This means the demand for solar energy is rising and it's rising at a pretty good rate.

The development of this self cleaning technology couldn't have come at a better time, especially for the big solar power plants like the ones in the Mojave Desert. There are nine solar power plant installations in the Mojave Desert, all built back in the 1980s. Currently, they create enough electricity to serve half a million people.

Solar panels that could self clean themselves could increase their efficiency and lower maintenance costs.

Deserts are prime locations for solar power plants and for obvious reasons. However, since the weather is dry, hot and windy; it tends to blow a lot of dust around. That dust fly's through the air and likes to land on top of the precious solar panels, hindering their electricity output. The solar panels are kinda like windows--the more dust gets on them, the less light can come through.

The original technology was intended for future space missions to dry, dusty environments like the Moon and Mars. Since the electricity source for future manned and robotic missions in space will come from solar panels, scientists needed a way for the them to be able to clean themselves. Otherwise, if too much Moon dust or Mars dust gets on them, they could be rendered useless.

How does it work?
To get the dust off, there is a thin sheet of material that goes on top of the panel. Then, electronic sensors that detect dust on the panel will emit electronic charges to repel the dust away. The whole process only takes about 2 minutes and cleans off 90 percent of the dust.

The importance of this technology
“Less than 0.04 percent of global energy production is derived from solar panels, but if only four percent of the world's deserts were dedicated to solar power harvesting, our energy needs could be completely met worldwide. This self-cleaning technology can play an important role,” explains Mazumder.

Image Credit: US Air Force.

See Also:
Explore The Surface Of Mars With This New Interactive Map
NASA Students Want To Use Ping Pong Balls To Float Space Capsule
Water On Moon Could Mean A Moon Base Is On The Horizon
Asteroid Impact Imminent In 2182
Are We Living Inside A Black Hole

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Using A Magnifying Glass To Study Dark Energy

Abbel 1689 galaxy cluster.

After years of research and mathematical problems that would give Einstein a headache, scientists have devised some special methods to study dark energy. The new research appears in the journal Science and was conducted by scientists from all over the world.

Since the discovery of dark energy in 1998, scientists have been trying to figure out ways to better understand this mysterious force. Dark energy is invisible and cannot be felt or touched. It is the force that scientists believe is responsible for the expansion of the known Universe.

Finding more about dark energy has been a big challenge for scientists. They pretty much had to come up with a whole special system in order to study it. A better understanding of dark energy could help explain more about the development of the Universe and where it's heading.

Recently, scientists have been looking at the cluster of galaxies called Abbel 1689. This is because the cluster produces a phenomenon called "gravitational lensing." Gravitational lensing, in simple terms, is the way super far away galaxies bend light because of their mass, like a giant magnifying glass.

So when astronomers look at Abell 1689 in a telescope, the huge mass and gravitational pull of it actually warps its image. Pretty cool, huh?

Priyamvada Natarajan, one of the scientists behind the research, explains it this way:

"It's like a magnifying glass, where the image you get depends on the shape of the lens and how far you hold it from the object you're looking at. If you know the shape of the lens and the image you get, you can work out the path that light followed between the object and your eye."

By looking at the warped images of the galaxy cluster, scientists can study the exact path the bent light follows on its way to Earth. Furthermore, since dark energy is responsible for the expanding universe, the bent light will be slightly changed and so every image of this galaxy cluster holds valuable information on the affects of dark energy and the fate of the Universe.

Further reading: EurekaAlert!
Image: NASA, ESA

See Also:

• Explore The Surface Of Mars With This New Interactive Map
• NASA Students Want To Use Ping Pong Balls To Float Space Capsule
• Water On Moon Could Mean A Moon Base Is On The Horizon
• Asteroid Impact Imminent In 2182
• Are We Living Inside A Black Hole

Read More >>

NASA Students Want To Use 150,000 Ping Pong Balls To Float Space Capsule

So how awesome are ping pong balls? NASA awesome is how awesome!

The design of a future space capsule to replace the space shuttle has hit a small roadblock...

When NASA hits a roadblock who do you call? The students at NASA's Langley research center of course!

The students have combined their minds to solve a serious dilemma:

"How do you keep an unpressurized space capsule from sinking to the bottom of the ocean?"

The guys at Langley have been working on a new space capsule design to hold astronauts. The design is only in the simluation stage, however, since the craft won't be pressurized like a real space capsule, when NASA goes the test it out; it will sink when it lands in water. So what is NASA to do?

That's when Langley engineer John DiNonno had an epiphany! He suggested that they could just use ping pong balls! If your wondering, he got the idea from watching a show on the Discovery Channel about raising a boat with thousands of ping pong balls. My speculation is that it was probably MythBusters. So much for rocket science, huh?

After the idea was accepted, the idea had to be tested and studied.

The students get to work
The students quickly went to work and started to look at different kinds of ping balls balls and their buoyancy levels and reaction to edge of space vacuum.

Additionally, the students tested the balls with hydraulic press loading, heat applications, and electrostatic discharge tests. All of this was necessary to see how the balls would react through the Earth's atmosphere and to make sure the things didn't produce static electricity that would disrupt the spacecraft's electronics.

All tests passed and yhe students concluded that the ping pong ball idea is completely plausible!

They estimate it will take about 150,000 ping pong balls to keep the test capsule afloat. Wow!

When will the spacecraft launch?
Sadly, even though the idea has been studied and found to be very plausible; it still needs to go through a system before it gets truly accepted. With No launch date yet to be confirmed, Its a waiting game. It might be a while, but I'll keep a look out for it. Gives a whole new meaning to Spaceballs doesn't it?

Further Reading: NASA
Image: NASA/Sean Smith

See Also:

• Explore The Surface Of Mars With This New Interactive Map
• Mimmicking The Moon's Surface In The Basement
• Water On Moon Could Mean A Moon Base Is On The Horizon
• Asteroid Impact Imminent In 2182
• Are We Living Inside A Black Hole

Read More >>

New Pictures From The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Show The Moon Might Be Shrinking

What if the moon shrunk this much?

Pictures taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter may indicate that the moon is shrinking. The findings will be published tomorrow, Augusts 20th, in a journal called Science by Smithsonian scientist Thomas Watters.

Previous images taken by some Apollo missions have shown that the moon contains thrust vaults (areas which the crust has compressed) around the moon's equator.

However, recent pictures by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have proven that the thrust vaults are spread globally across the moon and not just by the equator. This information could mean that the moon is contracting in some way and shrinking.

"Relatively young, globally distributed thrust faults show recent contraction of the whole moon, likely due to cooling of the lunar interior. The amount of contraction is estimated to be about 100 meters in the recent past," Watters explains.

How it may be shrinking
The birth of the moon was forged with asteroids hammering asteroids. This constant beating and hammering caused the moon to get very hot. After the moon began to take its first baby steps; it began to cool down, causing itself to contract and shrink. If the moon is still shrinking today, this might mean that the moon still has some cooling off to do. But, as Watters said, "The amount of contraction is estimated to be about 100 meters in the recent past," -- it certainly isn't much to get fussy about. It's still some cool information though and Thanks goes to NASA!

Further Reading: NASA

See Also:

• Explore The Surface Of Mars With This New Interactive Map
• Mimmicking The Moon's Surface In The Basement
• Water On Moon Could Mean A Moon Base Is On The Horizon
• Asteroid Impact Imminent In 2182
• Are We Living Inside A Black Hole

Read More >>

Explore The Surface Of Mars With This New Interactive Map

A new, highly detailed map of Mars is available to anyone that wants to take a peak. The map is available in an interactive format like Google Earth and is currently the best map of mars ever created.

The map was put together with the help of NASA's THEMIS orbiter and by scientists from Arizona State University Mars Space Flight Facility, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA and of course, Microsoft.

The easy to use interactive map lets you zoom in, zoom out of the mars surface, look for volcanoes, craters and little green men. It's sure to keep you entertained for a little while. At least, I was pretty entertained with it.

Want to see the map?
You can find the interactive map of mars here. There are also extremely high resolution pictures available for the more serious bunch. You will need a good computer to use them though. The map has been in development since launching THEMIS observations back in 2007.

What is THEMIS?
All of the map images come from the THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System), which is a camera attached to NASA'S Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Happy exploring!
Source: ASU

See Also:

• Water On Moon Could Mean Moon Base Is On The Horizon
• Asteroid Impact Imminent In 2182
• Are We Living Inside A Black Hole?
• One Giant Leap For Cyber Space?
• Free Astronomy Class Lectures From Yale

Read More >>

Mimicking the Moon's Surface in the Basement

Ion Beam Accelerator Credit: DOE/LANL

A team of scientists used an ion beam in a basement room at Los Alamos National Laboratory to simulate solar winds on the surface of the Moon. The table-top simulation helped confirm that the Moon is inherently dry.

In research published today in Science Express, Zachary Sharp of the University of New Mexico and a team of scientists from California, Texas and New Mexico—including Yongqiang Wang, leader of Los Alamos' Ion Beam Materials Lab—present an analysis of chlorine isotopic ratios in lunar rock samples that seem to indicate that the Moon never had water of its own.
Many scientists believe that the Moon formed when a large object collided with Earth early in its formative stages, leaving behind a blob of material that became trapped in orbit around the nascent Earth. Because most of the water on Earth likely came from water liberated from molten basalts as they cooled, researchers have often wondered whether the Moon's geology contains similar concentrations of trapped water.

Sharp and his team examined ratios of stable chlorine isotopes—chlorine-35 and chlorine-37—in terrestrial and lunar rock samples. Chlorine readily interacts with hydrogen and is highly volatile. Consequently, the ratio and concentrations of these isotopes can provide a "fingerprint" of water content of volcanic rocks.

If the Moon were formed via cataclysmic collision of a foreign body with a fledgling Earth, it's reasonable to assume that lunar basalts would share a similarly soggy history as their earthen brethren. However, an analysis of the chlorine isotopic ratios of rocks from the Earth and Moon provided vastly different fingerprints. Sharp and his team came up with three possible explanations for the differences: 1) the moon-forming collision homogenized molten material from Earth and the colliding body into a material with a unique composition, 2) hydrogen-rich solar winds buffeting the moon preferentially stripped away one isotopic chlorine species from rocks, or 3) lunar basalts were inherently anhydrous.

The researchers dismissed the homogenization scenario after comparing observed chlorine isotope concentrations with other volatile elements in the basalts. The other volatile chemicals did not behave consistently with what would have been expected for the homogenization scenario.

To assess the effects of solar winds, Los Alamos researcher Wang took a thin film of sodium chloride—the same chemical as ordinary table salt—and bombarded it with a stream of protons (hydrogen ions) at Los Alamos' Ion Beam Materials Lab. If the rocks were to be affected by the solar winds, the lighter chlorine isotope, chlorine-35, would preferentially react with the protons and be carried away as hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas. If this scenario were true, researchers would then find slightly higher ratios of the heavier isotope in the rocks. After subjecting the sample to eons of "solar-wind" exposure, the research team found that the samples were essentially unaffected by the proton onslaught.

Furthermore, lunar rocks from the surface showed depleted values of chlorine-37 relative to the lighter chlorine-35 isotope, and subsurface lunar rock samples shielded from solar winds had higher, not lower, concentrations of chlorine-37. These findings helped dismiss the second scenario.

The research team found that the third scenario—that the moon was inherently without water—was supported by the lunar rock samples because the residual chlorine isotopes found in the rocks seem to have originated from metal chlorides such as sodium chloride, zinc chloride and iron chloride, which have been seen as surface coatings on lunar volcanic rocks.
With regard to scientific findings of water-ice in lunar surface samples, the likely source is from comets, not the Moon itself.

Other researchers have published papers contradicting the team's findings. Sharp says the reason behind the discrepancies in his team's research and previous research is not well understood yet, and will require further analysis.

Even though his laboratory helped simulate the moon, Los Alamos researcher Wang remains down to Earth.
"It was very gratifying to play a role in the research and to be able to exclude one argument more definitively than before," Wang said.

The research team included Sharp and Chip Shearer of the University of New Mexico; Kevin McKeegan of the University of California at Los Angeles; Jamie Barnes of the University of Texas; and Wang of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Los Alamos National Laboratory's Ion Beam Materials Laboratory was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science's Office of Basic Energy Science. Further support for Los Alamos' efforts come from Los Alamos' Laboratory-Directed Research and Development program.

Original News Source: DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory

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Seeing a Stellar Explosion in 3D

Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have for the first time obtained a three-dimensional view of the distribution of the innermost material expelled by a recently exploded star. The original blast was not only powerful, according to the new results. It was also more concentrated in one particular direction. This is a strong indication that the supernova must have been very turbulent, supporting the most recent computer models.

Unlike the Sun, which will die rather quietly, massive stars arriving at the end of their brief life explode as supernovae, hurling out a vast quantity of material. In this class, Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) in the rather nearby Large Magellanic Cloud occupies a very special place. Seen in 1987, it was the first naked-eye supernova to be observed for 383 years (eso8704), and because of its relative closeness, it has made it possible for astronomers to study the explosion of a massive star and its aftermath in more detail than ever before. It is thus no surprise that few events in modern astronomy have been met with such an enthusiastic response by scientists.

SN 1987A has been a bonanza for astrophysicists (eso8711 and eso0708). It provided several notable observational ‘firsts’, like the detection of neutrinos from the collapsing inner stellar core triggering the explosion, the localisation on archival photographic plates of the star before it exploded, the signs of an asymmetric explosion, the direct observation of the radioactive elements produced during the blast, observation of the formation of dust in the supernova, as well as the detection of circumstellar and interstellar material (eso0708).

New observations making use of a unique instrument, SINFONI [1], on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have provided even deeper knowledge of this amazing event, as astronomers have now been able to obtain the first-ever 3D reconstruction of the central parts of the exploding material.

This view shows that the explosion was stronger and faster in some directions than others, leading to an irregular shape with some parts stretching out further into space.

The first material to be ejected from the explosion travelled at an incredible 100 million km per hour, which is about a tenth of the speed of light or around 100 000 times faster than a passenger jet. Even at this breakneck speed it has taken 10 years to reach a previously existing ring of gas and dust puffed out from the dying star. The images also demonstrate that another wave of material is travelling ten times more slowly and is being heated by radioactive elements created in the explosion.

"We have established the velocity distribution of the inner ejecta of Supernova 1987A,” says lead author Karina Kjær. “Just how a supernova explodes is not very well understood, but the way the star exploded is imprinted on this inner material. We can see that this material was not ejected symmetrically in all directions, but rather seems to have had a preferred direction. Besides, this direction is different to what was expected from the position of the ring.”

Such asymmetric behaviour was predicted by some of the most recent computer models of supernovae, which found that large-scale instabilities take place during the explosion. The new observations are thus the first direct confirmation of such models.

SINFONI is the leading instrument of its kind, and only the level of detail it affords allowed the team to draw their conclusions. Advanced adaptive optics systems counteracted the blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere while a technique called integral field spectroscopy allowed the astronomers to study several parts of the supernova’s chaotic core simultaneously, leading to the build-up of the 3D image.

“Integral field spectroscopy is a special technique where for each pixel we get information about the nature and velocity of the gas,” says Kjær. “This means that besides the normal picture we also have the velocity along the line of sight. Because we know the time that has passed since the explosion, and because the material is moving outwards freely, we can convert this velocity into a distance. This gives us a picture of the inner ejecta as seen straight on and from the side.”

Notes
[1] The team used the SINFONI (Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observations in the Near Infrared) instrument mounted on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). SINFONI is a near-infrared (1.1–2.45 µm) integral field spectrograph fed by an adaptive optics module.

News source: European Southern Observatory.

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6 Really Cool Lightning Pictures

There's nothing like really cool lightning pictures to stimulate the awesomeness of this planet. Enjoy!

Those poor buildings...

Doesn't this one kinda remind you of that clock tower in the movie "Back to the Future?"

Can anyone say "War of the Worlds?"

Zeus is mad at somebody!

I so wish I was on that boat!

There's something mystical about this one.

All of these lightning pictures were taken in Baltimore, Maryland by Tim Shahan. Big Thanks to Tim Shahan, these were awesome!

Another must see is this video of a lightning bolt that struck a little too close.

Read More >>

Free Astrophysics & Astronomy Class Lectures From Yale University

Want to know what I've been doing with my time these days? I've been watching this Astrophysics & Astronomy class made available on Youtube via Yale University. After doing a simple search on youtube.com/edu of "Astrophysics," I found this fantastic educational video series. The series boasts a total of 24 video lectures, all for free.

The class is titled "Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics" and is taught by Professor Charles Bailyn (he's a great professor). I've been watching 1 class per day, sometimes 2, depending on my mood. It's a great resource for astronomy lovers that want to just sit and chill, while watching some educational astro videos from a superb university.

Here is the introduction video to the astrophysics & astronomy course. There's no worksheets to work through or anything like that. This is just a series of class lectures from Yale that have been filmed so anybody can give them a view for free. That way, people that don't have the cash for college (like me) can pretend to sit in class and get a free education in the comfort of there own home.



Here is the webpage on Yale's website with all of the class videos and materials for the astrophysics & astronomy course. However, below, I have the first 5 videos of the course via youtube. For some, the videos on Youtube might be easier to watch than the one's on Yale's website. They were for me because my computer sucks.

1) Intoduction (video above)
2) Planetary Orbits
3) Our Solar System and the Pluto Problem
4) Discovering Exoplanets: Hot Jupiters
5) Planetary Transits

Also, if you have a really slow connection and can't watch these videos, but wish you could; go to this page on Yale's site, click on the lecture you want and you will notice they offer transcripts and mp3 downloads of the lectures for free as well. Happy learning everyone!

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Water Found On Moon Could Mean A Moon Base Is On The Horizon

The moon isn't that empty, dusty, dry little "ghost town moon" you may have stuck in your head. I'm not saying there is little green men on the moon, but what I'm trying to tell you is that new research has indicated that water on the moon is much more abundant that originally thought. It's not exactly in the form of H2O but its close enough. Add some heat and abracadabra, you get water. Abundant water on the moon could make building a moon base a little bit easier. Read on to see why.

It was last year that some scientists from the University of Knoxville, Tennessee found traces of water in the upper layers of the Moon's surface. The discovery was dubbed "lunar dew" and changed the dry moon theory upside-down. Lunar dew is thought to possibly come from solar wind, which invites hydrogen to meet and shake hands with the oxygen on the Moon, forming water. 

New research has found even more water
New research, from the guys at the University of Knoxville, Tennessee and geologists at the California Institute of Technology, has indicated that there is even more water on the Moon than originally thought. Unlike Lunar dew, this new source of water is much more widespread and comes from something completely different. They don't have a precise clue of where this source of water has come from, but speculation is impacts from comets could have possibly left some residual ice or hot magma that existed during the birth of the moon, preserved some water.

The importance of widespread water on the moon
This research is very important because with good supplies of water on the moon, this could mean that a human "moonbase" is more plausible. Currently, it would cost you 25 grand just to take 1 pint of water to the moon. I don't know about you, but that's not economically feasible to me. So now, with the water resource more abundant, scientists can create ways to extract this water and enable astronauts to use it as fuel or drinking water. This would lift a huge economic burden and make life on the moon more sustainable.

"Now we have ready sources of water that can be consumed by plants and humans but also electrolyzed into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to develop rocket fuel," explains Larry Taylor, one of the many scientists of the research.

This research was published in an article called, “Lunar Apatite with Terrestrial Volatile Abundances” in the July 22 issue of the scientific journal, Nature.

Maybe one day you will be strolling through your local grocery store and on the shelf is distilled water, drinking water, moon water! It could happen!

Pack your bags, were heading to the Moon!

Further Reading:
Evidence of Water in Lunar Rocks: Water on Moon May Be Widespread, Similar to Earth's
UT researchers discover water on the moon is widespread, similar to Earth's

Read More >>

The Plastiki - A Boat Built With 12,500 Recyclable Bottles

Do you ever wonder what you can do with 12,500 plastic bottles?  

The Plastiki, a vessel that is powered by completely renewable energy finished its voyage across the pacific last Monday. The catamaran boat stays afloat due to 12,500 recyclable plastic bottles. It departed in March from San Fransisco and set sail on a 8,000 mile voyage across the Pacific to create awareness for plastic pollution and also show the world how trash can be useful. On their website, theplastiki.com it says:

"It’s about encouraging the world to reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink more of the planets natural resources. It’s about delivering a spectacular global “Message in a Bottle.”

One man's trash is another's treasure right? They really make good use of that term!

The Plastiki and her 10 crew members, including expedition leader David De Rothschild, safely arrived to its final destination of Sydney Harbor in Sydney Australia last Monday, calling an end to a 4 month long journey across the Pacific.

Staying true to their philosophy, the Plastiki was built with many other recyclable materials, for example, the super structure was made from a unique-type of recyclable plastic, the mast is a used aluminum irrigation pipe and the sail is hand made from recycled PET cloth. The boat also comes fully green equipped with solar panels, wind turbines and energy bikes. With all of that renewable energy, the boat has a top speed of 5 knots per hour. Okay, so the boat wont be winning any races, so what! Its completely green energy!

In addition, it also has a piss to water system, rainwater collecting buckets and other goodies. This is one heck of a green machine!
  
For more pictures and information, go to theplastiki.com and show your support for this awesome, green, "message in a bottle."

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