NEW in space: Astronomers detect distant solar system with five planets

Astronomers working at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have discovered a planetary system 127 light-years away that contains at least five planets that orbit the star HD 10180 at distances that follow a regular pattern much like our own solar system.

"We have found what is most likely the system with the most planets yet discovered," said Christophe Lovis, lead author of the paper reporting the result. "This remarkable discovery also highlights the fact that we are now entering a new era in exoplanet research: the study of complex planetary systems and not just of individual planets."

The team of astronomers used ESO's 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla, Chile, for a six-year-long study of HD 10180 located in the southern constellation of Hydrus (the Male Water Snake). The astronomers detected the tiny back and forth motions of the star caused by the complex gravitational attractions from five or more planets. The five strongest signals correspond to planets with Neptune-like masses - between 13 and 25 Earth masses - which orbit the star with periods ranging from about 6 to 600 days. These planets are located between 0.06 and 1.4 times the Earth-Sun distance from their central star.

"We also have good reasons to believe that two other planets are present," says Lovis, adding that one would be a Saturn-like planet and the other would be the least massive exoplanet ever discovered, with a mass of about 1.4 times that of the Earth. The smaller planet is believed to be very close to its host star, at just 2 percent of the Earth-Sun distance. A year on this planet would last only 1.18 Earth-days."

The newly discovered system of planets around HD 10180 is unique in several respects. With at least five Neptune-like planets lying within a distance equivalent to the orbit of Mars, the system is more populated than our solar system in its inner region, and has many more massive planets there. Additionally, the system probably has no Jupiter-like gas giant. In addition, all the planets seem to have almost circular orbits.

Using the new discovery as well as data for other planetary systems, the astronomers found an equivalent of the Titius-Bode law that exists in our solar system: the distances of the planets from their star seem to follow a regular pattern. "This could be a signature of the formation process of these planetary systems," says team member Michel Mayor.

Latest PCB technology boosts power electronics performance

Technology trends - such as energy efficiency, increasing power density or the overall integration of power, signals and data on the same system platform - are both, a challenge for engineering, but also a chance on diversification and innovation. Thus, trends drive growth and attempt to be a decisive factor for an application's success.

Obviously, one of these trends is the increasing performance of power electronics, in correlation with the rapidly growing demand for applications based on power electronics, such as frequency converters, servo drives or photovoltaic devices.

From this point of view, it is recommended to consistently align the component specifications with each phase in the application's life cycle - including conception, design, construction, production, installation and maintenance. This guarantees the optimal level of integration into the system environment. The function and form of the application's connection method plays a key role that should not be underestimated, as it influences several critical technical and economic factors, such as:

- Electrical, thermal and mechanical design flexibility.

- Costs of production, installation and maintenance.

- The user satisfaction level as influenced by the ease of use.

- The facility availability as a link on the transmission path.

- The long-term reliability, especially under threshold limits, and last but not least,

- The safety provided to man and machine.

Referring to power applications, definitely two of the challenges that electronics engineers have to solve, is first the question of thermal management, and second the design of the current carrying systems. Mixed up with EMC requirements, plus the continuous demand for smaller devices, plus production efficiency and last but not least, the cost reduction, you gain an exciting play on balancing technical and economical issues.

One does not need to mention that each of the topics is a science on its own. Looking at the conducting elements of a power electronics device, we may mainly identify the wires, the PCB, usually some bus bars and the junction points.

For example, due to an ongoing improvement of the manufacturing process, particulary the performance of the PCB has been increased along the recent years. Moving from 35µm to 400µm thick-copper paths, extended by iceberg technology and supplemented by wire laid technology, a state-of-the-art board with copper bar inlays is able to carry currents of 800Amps and even more (Fig. 1).

It is one question to get copper bars with a size of 3 x 15mm integrated to a PCB, and another one to get such a power board connected to the peripherals. It is also one thing to stick on the 'good old' bus-bar for the distribution of high currents, and another thing to minimise the dimensions of the device - while maintaining the same level of performance and protection against electrical shock. Finally, it will be one solution, to connect ring lugs to stud bolts, and the other problem to replace a device immediately because every minute of downtime burns loads of money due to production stop.

The significant differences between bus bar based design and PCB based design additionally emphasise the above mentioned advantages, as simply visualised by the contrast between the original application and it's PCB-based Redesign.

Providing the new LXXX 15.00 high-power PCB terminal (Fig. 2), Weidmüller enables the engineer to replace extensive and expensive bus bar constructions up to 150Amps by a compact single component for easy wave soldering, simple integration and fast und safe connection. The features in detail:

- Unique clamping capacity: With its unmatched clamping range, the LXXX 15.0 connects wires up to 50mm2/AWG1 securely to the PCB. Weidmüller's self-securing steel clamping yoke has proven in millions of cases that it is truly 100 per cent maintenance free.

- Protection against incorrect use = functional security: The integrated Wire Guard provides protection against miswiring and eliminates the risk of wires being inserted under the clamping yoke, fusing contact.

Weidmüller's high-performance WEMID insulating material contains neither halogen nor phosphor and is compliant with the strictest environmental standards. The so-called RTI (relative temperature index) of 120°C, the LXXX 15.0 exceeds the maximum continous operating temperature of standard PA (100°C) by 20°K. The benefits: additional performance reserves for the highest level of security due to temperature cycling and overloads.

- Application-Based Design: This transborder perspective of the component directives makes the application approval process quicker and easier. The LXXX 15.0 can be used without any additional covering because of its extended clearance and creepage distances (in accordance with the IEC 61800-5-1 device directive).

- Multiple Marking Options: Labelling options and advantages: individualised (direct printing), flexible (Dekafix marker strips) or cost-efficient (adhesive strips).

Particularly when dealing with power, the top priority is usage and maintenance that is reliable and secure. The test plug (available as an accessory) enables measurement over an extended period of time.

In total, high applicability enables the PCB to also be used in high-current applications for integrated and sustainable systems platforms.

In order to handle this current and voltage level and even the related wire sizes, there is more expertise and competence required than meeting the terminal specifications and component standards.

It is essentially, to avoid mechanical stress to the solder points and the entire circuit board, if the cables connected are finger-thick, but it is even more important, to avoid temperature overload - not only to prevent the device from heat collapse. It is even a question of the reliability and durability (the maximum operating life cycle) due to the so called term of Arrhenius, which proves a reduction of 50 per cent per each temperature rise of 10°C. To put it in another way: An application with a maximum operating temperature rise of 30°C provides double the life time and reliability, compared to a device which indicates 40°C temperature rise under full load.

According to Weidmüller's investigations and experiences in the field of power connectivity, there are several factors influencing the temperature rise of an electrical system: Besides the power loss of the active components and the constructive layout of heat sinks, it is also simple things to consider, such as surface size, cross connection and distance of the wires resp. the power conducting paths in the board or even pin layout, molding and current bar design resp. material of the terminal - the higher the current, the higher the impact.

Last but not least, due to the huge mass of high power components and boards, the solder quality depends strongly on the pin design and the soldering heat profile. The different temperature shapes of a system can easily be determined by thermal imaging (Fig. 3).

It is also important to be aware of the physical phenomenon, that the spot of highest temperature dispense is NOT necessarily the point of heat origin, because the mass and the thermal resistance between the surface of the heat conducting material and the environment determines the relative temperature loss resp. heat sink capability of each spot of the system.

So, if one experiences that a terminal shows the highest share of temperature on the thermal image, the problem is regularly not the terminal, it is only the best heat sink due to the mass and surface of the clamping yoke and the connected wire, which draws the heat out of points of heat origin such as undersized conductor paths or low quality solder connections.

To put it in a nutshell: The latest power PCB technology in combination with high performance connection technology PLUS the experience and expertise concerning special requirements on high currents - this is the key success factor on replacing bulky bus bar constructions in order to save space, production efforts and finally money while maintaining smaller devices at the same or a higher performance level.

LOOKING TO LEAVES FOR SOLAR TECHNOLOGY ???

• A leaf is constantly building new photosynthetic reaction centers to replace those damaged by oxygen and sunlight.

 

• Scientists are experimenting with ways to apply the same principles to building solar energy cells.

 

• This new technology could yield a system that's highly efficient, can self-repair and works well under low light conditions. 

 (this contnet is fully provided by Rachel Ehrenberg, Science News, credit to them)

Plants may hold the key to better solar technology

A new technique may one day lead to solar cells that bring themselves together like a molecular flash mob and repair damage they sustain during the rough business of turning light into electricity.

The research lays the groundwork for cheap, self-repairing solar cells with an indefinite lifetime, a team reports Sept. 5 in Nature Chemistry.

"It's a man-made version of what nature does," says nanocomposite expert Jaime Grunlan of Texas A&M University in College Station. "This really looks like ground-breaking seminal work; I've never seen anything remotely like it."

The sun's rays can be brutal, even for a leaf that's harvesting them. When photosynthesis is going full blast, a leaf is constantly building new photosynthetic reaction centers to replace those damaged by harsh oxygen species and other destructive molecules generated by intense ultraviolet light.

So rather than trying to make solar cells that are extremely durable, the team decided to take a literal leaf from nature's book and go the route of self-repair, says chemical engineer Michael Strano of MIT, who led the project. He and Stephen Sligar and Colin Wraight of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with other colleagues, designed a system where damaged parts could be easily replaced.

The researchers began with light-harvesting reaction centers from a purple bacterium. Then they added some proteins and lipids for structure, and carbon nanotubes to conduct the resulting electricity.

These ingredients were added to a water-filled dialysis bag -- the kind used to filter the blood of someone whose kidneys don't work -- which has a membrane that only small molecules can pass through. The soupy solution also contained sodium cholate, a surfactant to keep all the ingredients from sticking together.

When the team filtered the surfactant out of the mix, the ingredients self-assembled into a unit, capturing light and generating an electric current.

The spontaneous assembly occurs thanks to the chemical properties of the ingredients and their tendency to combine in the most energetically comfortable positions. The scaffolding protein wraps around the lipid, forming a little disc with the photosynthetic reaction center perched on top.  These discs line up along the carbon nanotube, which has pores that electrons from the reaction center can pass through.

Adding the sodium cholate back into the mix disassembles the complexes. But filtering it out again brings them right back together.

"The idea that it happens reversibly and at will is quite amazing," says Strano. "It approaches what happens in biology -- forming a huge amount of order with the flip of a switch. It's kind of like taking puzzle pieces and throwing them up in the air and them coming down assembled."

The complexes eventually lose power, but they are easily revived, says Strano. The research team disassembled the units and replenished the photosynthetic reaction centers. Four such replacements over the course of a week kept keeping the complexes humming along.

"This is very nice work -- the procedure they've got, the control they have over the system," says biochemist Mike Jones of the University of Bristol in England. "It's simple, it's very nice."

The units can't compete with silicon-based solar cells in use today. But silicon-based solar cells reached their current level of efficiency only after decades of research and development, says Jones. Similar investment in this new technology could yield a system that's highly efficient, can self-repair and works well under low light conditions, he says.

What's more, the main ingredients for these solar cells might one day be easily extracted from plant material, says Strano, perhaps even from garbage biomass. "We could turn waste into an organized product," he says.

GAMMA RAY 'RACE' PROVES EINSTEIN RIGHT AGAIN !!!

Timing is everything, especially to physicists seeking to unite the mechanics of gravity with the quantum world of particles.

So when the opportunity came to measure if gamma rays of different energies traveled at the same speed, a team of physicists stepped up to the challenge.

At stake was nothing less than a foundation of modern physics -- Einstein's theory of relativity, which posits that all electromagnetic radiation travels at the same speed, whether low-energy radio waves, high-energy X-rays or gamma rays, or any wavelength in between.

A violent explosion 7.8 billion light-years away gave scientists the unique opportunity to punch a hole in Einstein's theory. NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope detected many gamma ray photons from the 2.1-second long burst, including one that was a million times more energetic than another.

Scientists wondered if the higher-energy photon might have arrived in the telescope's detector slightly later than its partner due to quantum-level entanglements in space that a less energetic photon wouldn't even notice.

"Some quantum gravity theories predict that the higher energy photons are more affected by the quantum nature of space-time and will travel more slowly than lower energy photons," said Stanford University's Peter Michelson, the lead scientist on the Fermi Large Area Telescope.

Michelson says it's kind of like the difference between a car and an ant traveling down a dirt road: The car isn't impacted by the pebbles and the rocks, whereas an ant has to go around every obstacle in its path.

After a journey of more than 7 billion light-years, however, the gamma ray photons arrived nine-tenths of a second apart on May 9, 2009 -- not enough of a lag to account for the theorized quantum effects.

"Einstein, at this point, wins again," Michelson said.

That's not to say that a theory of quantum gravity doesn't exist.

"It's a theory that would unify all the forces of nature," said Mario Livio, an astrophysicist with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.

"What Fermi has done here is push us to our limit," he added. "This only tells us where are the dead ends. It doesn't necessarily tell us where the correct way is."

The research was presented during a three-day symposium in Washington D.C. to highlight results of the telescope's first year of operations.(credit: discovery channel)

IS A BLACK HOLE 'MIDDLE CHILD' FEASTING IN A DISTANT GALAXY?

                                                                      Black holes are everywhere. They can be left behind as the remnant of a massive star that exploded long ago, being just a few times the mass of our own Sun. Supermassive black holes, containing the mass of million or billions of Suns, sit at the centers of many galaxies. There has been controversy in the astronomical literature about the existence of intermediate mass back holes, and new evidence for one such "middle child" has been presented for an x-ray source in a distant galaxy.

"The candidate's name is HLX-1, and is a bright source of x-rays near a galaxy 300 million light years away. At that distance, it is too bright to be a stellar-mass black hole."

 

 

he emission from the accretion disk around a black hole is limited by the balance between the pressure of the stuff falling in and the pressure of the light itself pushing outwards. For it to be a "normal" black hole, such "ultraluminous" sources would have to have some extra effects thrown in to the model. But this "hyper-ultraluminous" one is really difficult to explain unless it is a few hundred times the mass of the sun, putting it in the elusive intermediate size family.

 

 

There is the possibility, however, that we're looking at a supermassive black hole in an even more distant galaxy that just happens to line up with the galaxy it appears to be in. A very accurate measurement of the x-ray source's position with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory found that it coincided with a source in visible light, and the ratio of the visible light to x-ray light was not consistent with this hypothesis. However, more evidence is necessary.

 

That's where the group led by Klaas Wiersema comes in. They used the Very Large Telescope in Chile to take a spectrum of the visible light of the object. (You can think of that as separating the light into its rainbow of colors.)

This is a tricky situation, as they had to subtract out the spectrum of the galaxy itself. After this, they detected an emission line of hydrogen coming from the mysterious source, and confirmed that it did indeed originate from the galaxy it was near by its redshift. This means that the color of the emission line is slightly redder than you would expect as a result of the galaxy moving away from us in the ever-expanding universe.

Astronomers still aren't sure what makes up with visible light source that coincides with HLX-1. It could be a globular star cluster or the remnants of a dwarf galaxy that was torn apart by host spiral galaxy. Either one is a place where intermediate mass black holes are thought to exist. Though the search for such beasts continues, this is looking like a strong case for their existence in the case of these incredibly bright x-ray sources.

This work has been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters and the preprint is available on arxiv.org. Thanks again to Ned Wright's Cosmology Calculator.(source: discovery channel)
 

Now Black Holes Can Be Reproduce in Laboratory

Black Holes have always fascinated scientist due to their mysterious properties, but there is much to be learned about them. These strange regions once thought to be absent of light before research found that actually these are the regions with such an extreme gravitational force that nothing, not even light can escape from their surface.

ccording to a latest invention Black Holes (imitation of Black Hole actually) can be reproduce in laboratory now!

Black Holes: What are

they?

Let’s understand it through the example of our own earth:

The mass of earth creates the gravity the pulls the things towards it. With enough power we can escape the earth’s gravitational force. This is how space vehicles leave the earth’s atmosphere.

Now if we squeeze the size of earth to that of a marble. This will increase the mass and gravitational force of earth to such extent that it would be impossible to bypass that force. Black holes are also regions with such a large mass and gravitational force that not even light can escape from them. Due to this it is not possible to view Black holes, but their presence can be realized only by the nearby activities.

Till now scientist have done extensive research about these strange regions in the universe. We know how they born, where they occur, and why they exists in different sizes, but there is much to know about them.

How to Know More about Black Holes?:

Dartmouth researchers have now proposed a new way to explore Black Holes. They plan to reproduce the black hole at a smaller scale in laboratory.  A paper has been published in this regard in Physical Review Letters, August 20 issue.

This method of creating tiny black holes of quantum size will help scientist to understand the insights of Black holes. Stephen Hawking, eminent space scientist had proposed that, Black Holes are not totally void of activity and they emit radiations in the form of photon. This radiation is known as Hawking Radiation or Bekenstein-Hawking radiation.

According to Paul Nation, a co-author of paper and Dartmouth graduate student,

“Hawking famously showed that black holes radiate energy according to a thermal spectrum. His calculations relied on assumptions about the physics of ultra-high energies and quantum gravity. Because we can’t yet take measurements from real black holes, we need a way to recreate this phenomenon in the lab in order to study it, to validate it.”

Scientist has shown that how a magnetic field-pulse microwave transmission line containing an array of superconducting quantum interference devices can reproduce physics analogous to a radiating black hole. This system can be controlled in laboratory and quantum mechanics properties. They can also manipulate the strength of applied magnetic field.

Past Attempts in this Field:

Creation of Black Holes in Laboratory has been proposed before by scientists. It has been proposed using supersonic fluid flows, ultracold bose-einstein condensates and nonlinear fiber optic cables. But the main problem in these schemes was weak Hawking radiation or masked radiation due to overheating of device. This latest scheme is much more efficient than previous proposed models.

Authors of Paper:Paul Nation, Alexander Rimberg, Eyal Buks and Miles Blencowe.

advanced helicopter : Draganflyer X6

Draganflyer X6 is an advanced helicopter that can be operated remotely without any pilot. It is designed mainly to carry wireless video cameras and still cameras. The Draganflyer X6 helicopter can be operated very easily with its hand held controller.

The Draganflyer X6 helicopter is based on a unique 6-rotor design that has been under development since early 2006. It uses 11 sensors and thousands of lines of code to self-stabilize during flight which makes it easier to fly than any other helicopter in its class. The on-board software of Draganflyer X6 is developed after extensive testing and development. Draganflyer X6 helicopter is a revolution in the field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

It can be used very efficiently for various applications and it is ideal for spying on the enemy in a safe and reliable manner.

MAJOR FIELDS OF APPLICATIONS

The new Draganflyer X6 can be used in various field such as Industrial Constructions, Government Applications and Educational needs.

1)Industrial Use:

Draganflyer X6 can be used very efficiently in Bridge Constructions, Building Construction, Pipeline / Hydro-Transmission Line Inspection, Road Construction. With the help of this aircraft you can get videos and images of any site from various angels.

Equipped with a high resolution still camera (with remote zoom, shutter control and tilt) it can capture great images. And its high definition video recorder can record videos very efficiently. It has a range of 500 meters and have a flight time of 20 to 30 minutes.

It is designed specifically with easy controlling system for ease of use it. So, it is easy to fly, needs very minimal training, and provides an extremely stable aerial platform from where you can get photographs and video. It's small size and portability makes it suitable to carry it to any construction site and have it ready to fly in minutes.
2)Government Applications:

Draganflyer X6 can be used in many government applications such as Law Enforcement,Fire, Emergency Measures, Wildlife Management, Environment and Transportation. You can use this advanced machine for Disaster Response, Conservation Enforcement, Crime Scene Investigation, Crowd Control, Explosive Disposal Unit, Search and Rescue Missions, Traffic Congestion Control, Criminal Intelligence Applications, Fire Damage Assessment, Fire Scene Management any many more.

3)Educational Applications:

Draganflyer X6 is very useful in educational applications such as Advanced RC Flight Research, Aerial Archeology, Environmental Assessment, and Geological Exploration.

FEATURES AT A GLANCE:

Draganflyer X6 is unique in many terms. It has some very advanced features that make it different and more efficient then other remote controlled helicopters. Some of these features are:

1)Six Rotor Co-Axial Configuration

2)GPS Facility

3)Carbon Fiber Folding Frame

4)Handheld Flight Controller

5)Advanced Power System

6)High Damage Tolerance

7)Specially manufactured Cases

8)Engineered for Safety

9)Electronic Flight Stability

10)Telemetry Software

11)Wireless Video System

12)Anti-Vibration Camera Mount

13)HD Digital Video Camera

14)Low Light Camera

15)Thermal Infrared Camera
These various features of Draganflyer X6 makes it very useful and efficient in its work.

Vulture - Unmanned Aircraft

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of United States is working to develop an unmanned aircraft that is able to stay in air for a period of 5 years at a time. It is one of the most recent inventions of world.

Officials of DARPA has revealed that this aircraft will be known as VULTURE due to itsPersistent Pseudo-Satellite Capability . It means that this aircraft will be able to fly over a single area, communicating or performing analysis for years at a time.

Major Obstacles in Project:

Even this project looks appealing to many of you, but there are some serious problems or you can say obstacles in achieving this project.

1) First challenge in front of designers is to figure out some Way to Supply Power to this aircraft during long missions.

2) Another problem is that this aircraft will carry a 1000 pound (450 kg) payload in winds at an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

3) Designers have also to sort out the problems regarding Deterioration of Materialsduring their long-time exposure to stratospheric flight.
In addition to this there may be many challenges during designing of this aircraft.

Daniel Newman: The Man Behind VULTURE

Daniel Newman is the Project Manger of this ambitious project of NASA. In his words: "We want to completely change the paradigm of how we think of aircraft. Aviation has a perfect record - we've never left one up there. We will attempt to break that record". It looks that its time to get out of the traditional "launch - recover - maintain - launch cycle of aircrafts."

Concept Behind Vulture:

Basically Aircrafts operates just like satellites, but the major difference is that these are not regulated by orbital mechanics. You can understand Vulture as a Pseudo-Satellite, which operates in the stratosphere and not in the low Earth orbit. This would provide a 65 dB upgrading in communications capability and will increase onboard sensor resolution.

Next after 3G: 4G Technology

Fourth Generation (4G) mobiles

4G also called as Fourth-Generation Communications System, is a term used to describe the next step in wireless communications. A 4G system can provide a comprehensive IP solution where voice, data and streamed multimedia can be provided to users on an "Anytime, Anywhere" basis. The data transfer rates are also much higher than previous generations.

The main objectives of 4G are:

1)4G will be a fully IP-based integrated system.

2)This will be capable of providing 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s speeds both indoors and outdoors.

3)It can provide premium quality and high security.

4)4G offer all types of services at an affordable cost.

4G is developed to provide high quality of service (QoS) and rate requirements set by forthcoming applications such as wireless broadband access, Multimedia Messaging, Video Chat, Mobile TV, High definition TV content, DVB, minimal service like voice and data, and other streaming services.

4G technology allow high-quality smooth video transmission. It will enable fast downloading of full-length songs or music pieces in real time.

The business and popularity of 4Gmobiles is predicted to be very vast. On an average, by 2009, this 4Gmobile market will be over $400B and it will dominate the wireless communications, and its converged system will replace most conventional wireless infrastructure.

Data Rates For 4G:

The downloading speed for mobile Internet connections is from 9.6 kbit/s for 2G cellular at present. However, in actual use the data rates are usually slower, especially in crowded areas, or when there is congestion in network.

4G mobile data transmission rates are planned to be up to 20 megabits per second which means that it will be about 10-20 times faster than standard ASDL services.

In terms of connection seeds, 4G will be about 200 times faster than present 2G mobile data rates, and about 10 times faster than 3G broadband mobile. 3G data rates are currently 2Mbit/sec, which is very fast compared to 2G's 9.6Kbit/sec.

MOVE OVER HYDROGEN, MAKE WAY FOR MAGNESIUM POWER

Magnesium burns as a white hot flame in fireworks.

•      Magnesium could work better than hydrogen in fuel cells.

•      There's enough magnesium in seawater to provide energy for 300,000 years.

 "When people talk about alternative energy, hydrogen often comes up. How about magnesium? We’ll see. Today, on Engineering Works! Listen to the podcast."

 

Magnesium is nifty stuff. Pure magnesium is a silvery metal, and you probably remember from high school chemistry that it burns with a hot white flame.

 

While a lot of research has already gone into using hydrogen to store energy, either directly as a fuel or as part of fuel cell systems, some researchers think we should be looking at magnesium as a way to store energy. Magnesium stores about 10 times as much energy as hydrogen. And there’s enough magnesium in seawater to provide energy for 300,000 years

 

Engineers at a Canadian company are working on a fuel cell that uses magnesium, air and water to produce electricity. An Israeli researcher has come up with a magnesium-based battery sort of like the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries we all know about. And a California researcher is working on a way to use magnesium to produce hydrogen for fuel.

All of this sounds good, but there’s a problem. It takes a lot of energy to purify magnesium to a form we can use. Maybe more than we’d get back. One researcher in Japan thinks he has the answer: solar energy to power a laser that would give us the almost 6,700° F. heat needed. We’ll see how that turns out.

Our magnesium power is somewhere in the future, so we’re done. See you next time.

Engineering Works! is made possible by Texas A&M Engineering and produced by KAMU-FM in College Station.

 

Flying a simulated Boeing Dreamliner (photos)

NASA with space telescope !!

How Real Satellites/Space Telescopes Come About
A December 2007 artist's conception of the James Webb Space Telescope.Credit: NASA › Larger imageIt takes years to bring a real large space telescope from basic concept to hardware reality. First, a scientist comes up with an idea to study some aspect of the Earth or the cosmos. The idea is discussed, reviewed and developed by committees of scientists. It is proposed to NASA, who makes decisions on what missions to go forth on, and which missions to pass on. If a mission is selected for study a timeline is created to develop the mission.

One of the most difficult aspects of creating a new mission is convincing others to fund it. Once a mission is funded, the team of scientists and engineers "pitching" the mission can then investigate how it could come together. Later, NASA usually selects a prime contractor to help design the telescope and other systems that will fly on the satellite. Northrop Grumman was selected to build components for the Webb telescope. The instruments, or cameras, on the telescope are selected as well, with teams of scientists to watch over the design.

The design process usually includes a number of different designs, which are all tested to see which would yield the best result for the type of object the instrument would study. For example, various types of infrared cameras may be developed and tested, and the one that gives a scientist the best result, would be chosen to be built as a test unit.
Engineering Test Units
The life-sized James Webb Space Telescope model sits in front of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, in Dublin, Ireland.Credit: Richard Bent, Northrop Grumman Space Technology › Larger imageEngineering test units, or ETUs are created before an actual instrument is built, so that engineers and scientists can make sure it would work properly. ETUs are a replica of the flight unit that can perform certain flight functions for testing purposes. ETUs are also used when engineers are practicing installation of an instrument into a satellite's mainframe or "bus." The outcome of the tests on ETUs may lead to a change in handling procedures of the actual flight instrument, but not a change in its flight construction.

Once the ETUs test successful, then the actual instruments that will fly aboard a satellite or space telescope can be manufactured. Those instruments go through their own set of rigorous tests by the manufacturing contractor, NASA and other partners. On the Webb telescope, NASA is partnering with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
Testing the System

Satellite and space telescope instruments can endure harsh temperature swings as big as 200 degrees Fahrenheit, micro-meteor impacts and exposure to solar radiation. On top of that, before a spacecraft like the Webb can operate in orbit, it has to survive a ride on a rocket to get there. That's where environmental testing chambers like the ones at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., come into play. Hardware gets run through NASA Goddard's centrifuge, acoustics and thermal vacuum chambers to ensure they can endure the rigors of launch.

The centrifuge simulates the increased feeling of gravity's pull during a launch. For astronauts, that's normally a few minutes at two or three times the force of Earth's gravity, measured in Gs. The Webb telescope can experience 6-7 G's due to the Ariane 5 rocket's combined acceleration and vibration. The Webb telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 ECA rocket. The launch vehicle is part of the European contribution to the mission.

Launching a rocket carrying a satellite or space telescope creates extraordinarily loud noise, so engineers use an Acoustic Test Chamber to make sure an instrument can handle it safely. In Goddard's 42-foot-tall chamber, technicians expose payloads to the noise of a launch. To do that, they rely on 6-foot-tall speakers. The speakers (more accurately called horns) use an altering flow of gaseous nitrogen to produce a sound level as high as 143 decibels for one-minute tests. That's about the level of sound heard standing next to a jet engine during takeoff.
This panorama shows the inside of Goddard's High Bay Clean Room, as seen from the observation deck. The clean room will be a home to some Webb components before the telescope is put together. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn › Larger image 

The hardware is also tested in the thermal vacuum which exposes them to conditions they will experience in space. The chamber has massive mechanical vacuum pumps and cryopumps to ensure that the hard vacuum of space is simulated in the test chamber. The cryopumps use gaseous helium to condense remaining gases out of the chamber once the mechanical pumps have done their work. The two types of pumps work together to eliminate all but the tiniest trace of air in the chamber, down to about a billionth of Earth's normal atmospheric pressure.

Because the Webb telescope is operating in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum it is designed to operate at very cold temperatures. To simulate this environment an additional cooling system, a helium refrigeration system, was added so the thermal vacuum chamber could reach temperatures in the -413 Fahrenheit (F) range. "The ISIM structure was tested in our thermal vacuum chamber down to about 26 Kelvin, or minus 413 F," said Jon F. Lawrence, Webb telescope Mechanical Systems Lead Engineer/Launch Vehicle Liaison at NASA Goddard.

This test program starts at the lowest level of assembly, instrument or spacecraft components and is repeated at each next level of assembly. Once the instruments pass these tests they are all put together into the structure which holds them and the unit is tested again. The instrument structure is connected to the telescope and the whole observatory is tested yet again. There isn't a vacuum chamber large enough to hold the entire Webb observatory at NASA Goddard, so the telescope will travel to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to be tested in a chamber that was originally built for testing the Apollo command module to simulate the trip to the moon. The next stop after that is launch into deep space.

Currently, ETUs or actual flight hardware for the Webb telescope are being tested in various ways.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the next-generation premier space observatory, exploring deep space phenomena from distant galaxies to nearby planets and stars. The Webb Telescope will give scientists clues about the formation of the universe and the evolution of our own solar system, from the first light after the Big Bang to the formation of star systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth.

The Webb Telescope project is managed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

For information about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, visit:
http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

To see photos of the Full-scale model on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. May 10-12, 2007, visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scifilaura/sets/72157600211237270/

Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

10 new technologies that will revolutionise your life !

Staying up to date with everything that's going on in PCs and tech is almost impossible, so these are the ten technologies that you should be most aware of, as they're the ones that'll make the biggest difference to your life.

1. 3D gaming

The fact that to get any kind of 3D image from a 2D screen means wearing a pair of sunglasses or worse means that three dimensional gaming isn't quite as convincing as multitouch and natural user interfaces, even though the two have been commoditised at almost the same time.

An Acer Aspire 5738 laptop with a 3D display costs about £550 at the moment, not bad for something with cutting edge technology that adds depth to any DirectX 9 game. The screen is of the polarised filter type, which is the new norm for extra dimensions.

Instead of using coloured filters splitting an image into two – one for each eye – the vertical pixel columns are alternated between left image and right image and shone through a piece of polarised glass. A pair of dark glasses with oppositely polarised lenses ensures that only one image is seen by each eye. The difference to a game is tangible too, something like WoW runs and looks incredible on the low-end graphics hardware.

It's over in TV land that the real push for 3D is happening, though, as LCD suppliers ask us to upgrade again to watch hyper-real cinema in the lounge. Compared to the other technologies we've talked about here, though, 3D requires a lot of effort on behalf of the watcher (those pesky glasses) and most of us are very lazy; hence the ubiquity of MP3 and standard definition movies, while Blu-ray and higher resolution sound standards continue to flounder. We value ease of use over quality every time.

In its favour, 3D doesn't actually require any work on behalf of games developers or publishers, as the stereoscopic image is created at the driver level. On the other hand, that means there's no massive push by the people who make and sell games to encourage us to adopt it.

2. Streaming games

The advancements in superfast broadband hasn't just helped the cause of downloadable games. It will also have no some small impact on the future of streaming games over broadband, or at least that's the theory.

There are several companies pursuing and a significant amount of money invested in the idea that one day, your precious PC will be almost entirely redundant as a games machine.

The concept is simple: all the game's data is hosted on a central server and all you will have to do is receive the display and send back input commands. It's a little like the technology used for MMORPGs, except that the rendering engine isn't on your PC, it's actually in the same server farm as the core intelligence.

This idea was actually mooted some years ago with the Phantom console, which never made it to the stores. It's looking unlikely that OnLive (www. onlive.com), Gaikai and Microsoft's own streaming project will end up as vapourware though, despite the obvious concerns about input lag: the delay that occurs every time you press a key. The signal has to travel hundreds of miles before a character even moves.

Proponents say that even twitch gaming FPS games are possible but we're a little more sceptical. There's another reason that at least one of these services will be properly launched soon, and that's vested interest by games publishers.

Because no content is stored on your machine, of course, it's impossible to pirate a streamed game, which is obviously an attractive proposition for them. In the immediate future, though, it is more likely to be a technology that runs like games such as Quake Live, which use a combination of some local processing power and some server-based cycles. That's certainly the route Microsoft is taking, and seems more achievable than relying on 'the cloud' at this stage.

3. Six-core processors

You won't have to wait long for this one. Intel's Westmere CPUs may be hanging around with the dregs of processor society at the moment, chucking their chips in with the integrated graphics crowd, but they're about to grow up – and fast.

Sometime over the next few months Intel will go two better than the current line up of quad-core CPUs by launching a six-core version of its high-end Core i7 line. Based on the existing Nehalem architecture, the headline feature is a process shrink down to 32nm, while the rest of the spec sheet remains largely the same. It could be a genuine upgrade.

Games programmers are getting much better at working with multithreaded code so that most major titles, like Empire: Total War and its forthcoming sequel Napoleon, will see a much bigger performance increase when given extra cores to play around in than the often sporadic leaps in frame rate we saw going from two to four cores.

Because the benefits will be in the amount of cores, rather than the speed of things you can do at once, Intel are encouraging some developers to add extra content specifically for people with a six-core CPU. Given the plethora of disappointments we've had lately with almost every technology that's promised to increase our frame rates, we'll reserve judgement until we have one in the office.

The good news is that these hexa-powered processors will fit into most existing X58 motherboards after a simple BIOS flash. The bad news is X58 motherboards are still very expensive too.

4. Wireless power

A few years ago we saw a demonstration by a team at Fulton Innovation of a product called eCoupled. Using the principle of electromagnetic induction, by which an electrical charge can be stimulated in a wire coil by placing another one nearby, the crazy boffins were able to display wireless power transfer.

Despite being high voltage, they said, it was safe, efficient and could be applied to any surface. The demo room consisted of a kitchen without plugs, but full of lights that could be stuck anywhere and a frying pan that heated up just by sitting it on the counter. Put a phone on the same counter and it began charging. Clearly, this was the future.

Fulton are still working on wireless power, but it's a different company that's beat it to the shops, Powermat – and its products are expensive for something that replaces a 50p mains plug.

The good news is that the Wireless Power Consortium are going to be finalising a standard for wireless power called Qi later this year, which should mean prices drop and manufacturers have the confidence to build the technology straight into devices, rather than requiring an adaptor.

If you think that's crazy, though, take a look at Airnergy by RCA. It's a tiny dongle that can turn Wi-Fi signals back into electricity for charging phone batteries and the like.

5. Wireless displays

The last two standards for monitors, HDMI and DisplayPort, didn't exactly have us all rushing out to upgrade our PC screens and graphics cards, so it's a safe bet that DVI will remain the cabled interface of choice for some time to come. What about connecting a monitor to your PC without wires though?

That's something that could be worth shelling out for. Two different technologies were on the show floor at CES, which should be available en masse this year.

The first, WirelessHD is being pushed by the usual line-up of TV and DVD player manufacturers as a replacement for HDMI. It uses a short range, high bandwidth in the Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) spectrum to transmit HD video and audio from a set-top box or media centre to a TV screen.

The idea is nothing new, Philips have had a kit out for a while that does the same thing, but WirelessHD is a proper standard and should ensure maker A's TV works nicely with maker B's Blu-ray machine and so on.

Perhaps more relevant for us, though, is Intel's new Wireless Display, or WiDi. It's designed specifically for laptops in order to remove the hassle of cables when you want to dock them with a proper screen, and like WirelessHD sends the video signal to a receiver box.

Unlike WirelessHD, WiDi can't handle protected content and the like, but it is much simpler since it requires no new hardware inside the laptop. Instead of using a separate transmitter, WiDi is a software layer on top of the existing Wi-Fi chip, so it's much cheaper to produce. Providing there's no latency introduced to the picture refresh rate, this could be a killer.

6. OLED displays

Yeah, we hear you. Another year, another promise that OLED screens are going to take over. Haven't we heard it all before? Except this time it could be true.

Google's Nexus phone has just launched with an OLED screen, and by all accounts it makes the handset almost – say it in hushed tones – more desirable than the iPhone. Brighter colours, sharper resolutions, darker blacks, whiter whites; why is this OLED technology so superior?

Put simply, it's because instead of filtering the light from a white or blue lamp behind the screen, each pixel in an OLED panel produces its own light. You don't have to be an optometrist to see why this is better, but it is much more expensive to produce.

Still, it also means OLED screens are much thinner than backlit ones, for obvious reasons, and while you may not be using an OLED PC monitor by the end of the year there are a lot more laptops with the technology arriving.

7. Superfast broadband

There are two things about broadband you should be concerned about. The first is whether or not the Digital Britain report, with its three strikes policy, outrageous invasion of privacy and extra charging for bandwidth, makes it into law before the general election final hits.

The second is what's going on at your exchange. By early next year, 75 per cent of us should be living in proximity to a telephone exchange that has a fibre optic connection to the internet. It's all part of BT's 21CN project to replace the entire copper telephone and broadband internet infrastructure with a single ethernet-based network fit for the 21st century.

So far, it's been dogged by delays and problems, but it's finally picking up the pace and is being tested by ISPs all over the country. The idea is that it will increase competition for high-speed broadband and bring down access prices, as well as bring services like IPTV – of the sort Virgin customers enjoy – to everyone.

It doesn't just mean better access to large downloadable game files and lower ping times, however. Our biggest hope is that it will eventually encourage telephone companies to do away with the irritating £12 a month line rental charge for a phone we don't actually use.

8. Augmented reality

Actually, we're kidding ourselves with this one. Augmented reality: the ability to overlay information on a live video feed of the world, is very cool, and it's impossible not to love iPhone apps like Yelp that pull in details and distances to the nearest pub or restaurants as you point the camera in their general direction.

Holding your phone three inches in front of your face as you're walking around feels a little too ridiculous to catch on, though. Perhaps it's like handsfree and Bluetooth headsets. Not so long ago people still sniggered if they saw someone using a phone without holding it to their ear, and not so long before that mobile phones themselves were devices for sales dorks.

In a couple of years time, it may seem the most natural thing in the world to see someone walking around with a phone held at arms length, directing them to food or drink with their own personal dynamic GPS system, or pulling up interesting information about the buildings and people in front of them. Yes, that's right, people.

Twitter 360 is an iPhone app that directs you to geotagged tweeters on your friends list, while TAT (www.tat.se) is working on an Augmented ID program, so if people point a camera at you various bits of information from your social feeds floating around your head. Makes stalking a lot easier then. Scary.

9. Natural user interface

In his CES keynote presentation, Steve Ballmer made several references to the 'Natural User Interface' (NUI), which is a handy catch all to describe all the Wii wand-waving, multitouch point and Project Natal-style aerobics that are catching headlines out there.

The keyboard and mouse is by no means dead, but the sudden flood of cheap laptops and all-in-ones with a built-in, multitouch screen suggests that it won't be long before we'll all have something a little bit different on our desktops.

Over in the US, for example, custom laptop maker IBuyPower has already started selling high-end gaming notebooks with a multitouch screen, and French developer, Eugen Systems has incorporated Win7's multitouch controls into the heart of its forthcoming strategy title R.U.S.E. It's all very exciting, except for one thing.

Multitouch may be native to Win7 and no other operating system, but the implementation is nowhere near as smooth as it is on, say, the iPhone. PCFormat has yet to use a multitouch application on a PC that doesn't suffer from a bit of inaccuracy or sluggishness, and the key to the NUI is in the first word. It has to feel natural, unforced and invisible to the end user. That's what using multitouch on an iPhone is like, and that's what Windows must achieve. If the mouse remains faster and more trusted, that's what people will use.

There are some brilliant ideas out there, though. Project Natal, Microsoft's full body 3D gesture recognition system for Xbox 360, is by far the most ambitious prototype, and we can't wait for a PC hack.

At CES the prototype Light Touch projector, from Light Blue Optics (lightblueoptics.com), was a show stealer. Using a technique called holographic laser projection, this tiny projector turns any 10inch surface – flat or curved - into a sharp multitouch screen.

10. Long-term evolution

The idea of getting high speed, super-reliable mobile broadband from a cell tower to your laptop or phone via WiMAX is not quite dead in the water, but it's certainly in need of a bit of mouth to mouth.

Far from being the 'Next Big Thing' as it was touted a few years back, it's had a painful and traumatic incubation period, which has seen some US carriers begin to adopt it and, in fact, quite a few businesses use it for point to point communications, but public access has dwindled from trial areas to almost nothing.

Partly, this may be because the company which owns the licence to operate WiMAX licences in several cities, Freedom4, was recently bought out and the new owners aren't in any rush to monetise the technology. More likely, it's because the mobile phone companies are happy with the current HSPDA speeds and are betting on an alternative technology, which is known as 4G, or Long Term Evolution (LTE) to supply almost the same amount of bandwidth without completely reworking their networks for WiMAX.

Lucky Scandinavians living in Stockholm or Oslo with a TeliaSonera contract can already sign up for LTE, while O2 is planning on launching a 150Mbps LTE package in the UK some time this year. We don't expect WiMAX to give up without a serious fight, though.

In the US, mobile networks are beginning to fall over because of the volume of 3G traffic running over them, and WiMAX's new architecture could well be a way to increase capacity to cope with demand. In which case, expect to see it begin sprouting up everywhere.

Faster bits and bytes

Rather more prosaic than the technologies listed elsewhere in this article the internals of your PC are also being overhauled by the powers that be. There's a revision to the SATA standard out for disk drives, and USB 3.0 is appearing on motherboards to speed up the default peripheral connection.

They are big steps forward. SATA III doubles the bandwidth available to storage from a theoretical 3Gbps to 6Gbps, while on paper USB 3.0 is a ten-fold increase from 480Mbps to 4.8Gbps for cabled peripherals.

Motherboards sporting ports of both flavours are already available from most manufacturers. Although both technologies are much faster than their predecessors, neither is likely to have a huge impact on consumer PCs.

In the world of business where milliseconds are money, the upgrades may mean something, but for the likes of us, compatible drives and peripherals will be a while coming yet.