Atmosphere With Pinpoint Sharpness

ScienceDaily (June 28, 2010) — A sharp view of the starry sky is difficult, because the atmosphere constantly distorts the image. TU/e researcher Roger Hamelinck developed a new type of telescope mirror, which quickly corrects the image. His prototypes are required for future large telescopes, but also gives old telescopes a sharper view.

The principle of the ‘adaptive deformable mirror’ has been known some fifty odd years, but was limited especially by the technology. Thus, the actuators of earlier systems generated much heat, which caused the systems themselves to become a source of distortion. “Contrary to the old systems, this new system has an ultrathin mirror, so that very little power is needed for its deformation ,” Hamelinck explains. “In combination with the efficient, electromagnetic reluctance actuators, this reduces the heat generation of the system to a very low level. Thanks to this, no active cooling is required.” Hamelinck’s working prototype has a five-centimeter diameter. Given that the design is scalable and expandable with modules, the system is suited for very large telescopes, such as the future 42-meter-big E-ELT (European Extra Large Telescope). The E-ELT is fitted inter alia with an adaptive mirror of 2.4 meters.

Research institute TNO is so enthusiastic about Hamelinck’s work, that the institute is going to market it. Not only so for new telescopes, but also for existing ones. “It can be built into any telescope in the world,” says Ben Braam, business developer Space & Science of TNO. “When you turn on the system, the image is suddenly enhanced. As if it is putting on new spectacles at long last.” Affordable spectacles, in Braam’s opinion. “I’m thinking in terms of fifty to one hundred thousand euro. Which is relatively cheap for that world.”

Admittedly, the system does not correct for everything. Clouds continue to be a problem, for example. Consequently the best places for telescopes are still locations where one can enjoy a clear, cloudless sky most of the time. That would exclude the Netherlands, then.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

A view inside the National Ignition Facility’s target chamber, a space easily big enough for technicians to stand inside. It is hoped the NIF will eventually be a major source of carbon-free energy.

(Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Lab)

LIVERMORE, Calif.–Think clean energy is a fantasy? What if the power of a star was applied to the problem?

That’s the approach being explored at the National Ignition Facility, a huge-scale experiment in laser fusion based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory here. Scientists are looking at NIF as a potential key to producing large amounts of carbon-free power.

It’s not known if the system will ever bear the kind of fruit the scientists and administrators who run NIF would like. Still, the facility is a scientific wonder that can transform a single laser beam no wider than a human hair into 192 beams–each of which is 18 inches wide. Together, the beams are designed to produce 4 million joules, the amount of power that would produce 4 million watts of power in a single second.

Using star power for a clean-energy future (photos)

The NIF was completed in early 2009 and eventually will be used by the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as technicians from national laboratories, fusion energy researchers, academics, and others. It is “the world’s largest and highest-energy laser, [and] has the goal of achieving nuclear fusion and energy gain in the laboratory for the first time,” according to the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, “in essence, creating a miniature star on Earth.”

This is serious high technology. The NIF employs a series of amplifiers and mirrors known as switchyards to route and split the original hair’s-width laser beam over a total distance of 1,500 meters. After being separated by pre-amplifiers into 48 beams, each beam is then split into four beams, and then all are injected into the 192 main laser amplifier beamlines, according to the NIF.

The hope is that NIF will be online as a power plant within 15 to 20 years. For now, the facility is a proof-of-concept system, albeit one comprising two 10-story buildings and more than $3 billion of investment. Eventually, the 192 laser beams reunite to focus on a target fuel pellet that is just millimeters in size, yet placed inside a target chamber that towers over the technicians who sometimes work inside.

And 192 laser beams of this magnitude create some serious heat. The theoretical maximum, according to LLNL retiree and docent Nick Williams, is 100 million degrees Celsius.

For now, because of the amount of power necessary to produce the beams, and the heat created, scientists are only able to fire the laser system once every two or three hours. Eventually, the idea would be to fire it many times a second.

And by 2030, it is hoped, the NIF will be helping produce commercial power and helping scientists and researchers better understand the nature of the universe. That, it would seem, would be a main benefit of producing what amounts to a small star, right here in the middle of Northern California.

On June 24, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2010. After driving more than 18,000 miles in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last four years, I’ll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more throughout the American northeast. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. In the meantime, you can follow my preparations for the project on Twitter @GreeterDan and @RoadTrip.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 7th June 2010

The Electromagnetic Rail Motor (ERM) can power anything from aircraft and cars, to artificial human limbs. The ERM is based on the modern rail gun. By taking the two rails and forming a ring, a continuous rotational force is created that is easily managed and controlled. The speed of rotation can be directly controlled by adjusting the voltage, similar to a gas pedal. Once the ERM powers up, the motor rotation will accelerate to its terminal speed. The blades act as both rotational shafts and as propeller blades to help cool the motor during extremely high speeds. The rail housing holds the assembly together and keeps the rails in place to counter the immense separation force.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 8th Sept 2009

WASHINGTON (UPI) — The U.S. space agency says it will join the Imax Corp. and Warner Bros. Pictures to film the upcoming Hubble Space Telescope mission in 3-D.

The Imax cameras will be used to document what the National Aeronautics and Space Administration calls one of its most complex space shuttle operations — the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

“The cameras will launch aboard space shuttle Atlantis, which is scheduled to lift off May 11,” NASA said. “Astronauts will use the cameras to film five spacewalks needed to repair and upgrade Hubble.

Officials said the footage will be used in the movie “Hubble 3D” that is scheduled for release in the spring of 2010.

The Atlantis’ crew has been trained to operate the cameras, one of which will be mounted outside the crew cabin in the shuttle’s cargo bay to capture images of the historic final servicing mission. The commander and pilot will double as filmmakers as two teams of spacewalking astronauts “perform some of the most challenging work ever undertaken in space as they replace and refurbish many of the telescope’s precision instruments,” the space agency said.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 11th May 2009

Apollo 16 departs for moon

Wireless power technologies are moving closer to becoming viable options.

In Pictures: 10 Wireless Electricity Technologies

This year probably won’t be the tipping point for wireless electricity. But judging from all the new techniques and applications of this awe-inspiring technology, getting power through the airwaves could soon be viable.

Fulton Innovations showcased blenders that whir wirelessly and laptops that power up without a battery at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month. The devices are all powered by electromagnetic coils built into the charging surface, and there’s not a plug in sight.

Fulton’s wireless electricity technology is called eCoupled, and the company hopes it can be used across a wide rage of consumer devices. Fulton was one of half a dozen companies that wowed consumers at CES.

In Pictures: 10 Wireless Electricity Technologies

ECoupled uses a wireless powering technique called “close proximity coupling,” which uses circuit boards and coils to communicate and transmit energy using magnetic fields. The technology is efficient but only works at close ranges. Typically, the coils must be bigger than the distance the energy needs to travel. What it lacks in distance, it makes up in intelligence.

In conjunction with the Wireless Power Consortium, Fulton, a subsidiary of Amway, has developed a standard that can send digital messages back and forth using the same magnetic field used to power devices. These messages are used to distinguish devices that can and can’t be charged wirelessly, and to relay information like power requirements or how much battery is left in a device.

Using this technique, an industrial van parked outside the Fulton booth at CES charged a set of power tools from within its carrying case. The van was tricked out by Leggett & Platt (nyse: LEG – news – people )–a diversified manufacturing company based in Carthage, Mo., and an eCoupled licensee–and is designed to solve its customers’ biggest headache: arriving at the job site with a dead set of tools. Fulton, which teamed up with Bosch to design the setup, already has test vehicles rolling around in the field and plans to sell them to utility and other industrial companies by the end of the year.

Texas Instruments (nyse: TXN – news – people ) announced last November that it will manufacture a chip set that will reduce the manufacturing cost of integrating eCoupled wireless power into consumer electronic devices.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 16th April 2009

Thermostat

WORLD TEMPERATURE CONCERNS

Scientists, including Obama’s science advisor, get tied in knots over geoengineering.

Oil and gas are so deliciously tempting that humans are having no success in slowing down global warming the way scientists agree we should, by going easy at the fossil fuel buffet.

So like surgeons who use liposuction to deal with obesity, scientists are considering ways to deal with the consequences of our unhealthy carbon diet. They are thinking about blowing soot into the stratosphere, hanging sunshades in space and sprinkling the oceans with fertilizer to create blooms of carbon-sucking phytoplankton.

These approaches are aimed at cooling the earth by either allowing less sunlight in or letting more heat bounce back to space by removing heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. The big idea–fighting or reversing atmospheric changes with large-scale tinkering of the earth–is called geoengineering, and it’s tying scientists in knots.

President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, got twisted up himself last week. In his first interview since he was appointed, he mentioned to the Associated Press that he and the administration had discussed geoengineering approaches. Holdren later had to write an e-mail clarifying his position in response to fears that he and the administration were considering planning something specific. They aren’t.

“I said that the approaches that have been surfaced so far seem problematic in terms of both efficacy and side effects, but we have to look at the possibilities and understand them because if we get desperate enough it will be considered,” Holdren wrote.

This highlights why geoengineering is such an extraordinarily touchy scientific subject and why there is such deep ambivalence in the scientific community about it. Almost no one thinks that humans should be trying to change the atmosphere on a global scale. But then again, aren’t we already doing that by removing carbon from the ground in the form of fossil fuels and depositing it in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide on a massive scale? And what if we don’t solve the problem in time?

TOO HOT??

What complicates things is that the scientists who are most concerned with the pace of global warming and the destruction that might ensue are the ones who are forcing themselves to think about radical solutions. It terrifies them because they know better than anyone that the climate is massively complex and that unintended consequences lurk everywhere.

Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, best known for his work on ozone depletion, has advanced the idea of injecting sulfur particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from earth. James Lovelock, a hero to early environmentalists who proposed the Gaia hypothesis, has advocated placing long, vertical wave-driven pipes in the ocean that would pump nutrient-rich water to the surface to fertilize algae that would consume carbon dioxide.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 16th April 2009

nuclear fusion

A fusion-fission hybrid reactor could produce clean electricity and remove dangerous nuclear waste from the planet. If it ever works.

The light of 192 lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility travels more than a half-mile through a stadium-size building toward its target. Along the way, the beams are amplified, shaped and focused into the world’s most powerful laser, capable of delivering power in a pulse that lasts 20 billionths of a second and peaks at 500 million megawatts.

The target of all of this fury is tiny–a gold capsule the size of an extra-strength Advil. The goal is to mash the contents of the capsule, a BB-size pellet of hydrogen frozen to nearly absolute zero, until the hydrogen atoms fuse into helium and release a gush of energy. This fusion is the same reaction that takes place in the center of the sun and stars, and at the business end of a nuclear bomb.

“NIF is by far the biggest hammer in the world right now,” states Peter J. Wisoff. A former Space Shuttle astronaut who now runs the laser’s operations, 50 miles east of San Francisco, Wisoff retains a no-nonsense demeanor from his days making sure people returned to Earth safely. His current job may be harder. Wisoff will try to use NIF’s $3.5 billion hammer, which took 12 years to build and was just completed in March, to ignite for the first time on Earth a controlled fusion reaction.

If NIF succeeds, it will be a transcendent moment for science. But this is more than just a race for a Nobel Prize: Fusion’s powerful pull is that it has the potential to turn a modest amount of seawater into a large supply of clean energy. NIF’s plan to use fusion for energy is especially dramatic. NIF scientists have proposed building a reactor that uses both fusion and fission to deliver clean energy and nearly eliminate nuclear waste from the planet.

Generations of scientists have been frustrated by fusion’s complexities. There are elaborate experimental fusion reactors all over the globe, and they have made steady but achingly slow progress toward a controlled, self-sustaining burn. Eight nations, including the U.S., are cooperating to build a $15 billion reactor in France scheduled to be completed in 2016. Its own chief scientist says reaching the goal will require a miracle.

[For a different fusion-fission approach, see "Texas Smoosh 'Em."]

NIF’s director, the outspoken Edward Moses, is undaunted. He dismisses all previous attempts at fusion as lighting the edge of a pile of wet leaves. “Poof, and then it’s out,” he says. “We’re going to burn the pile. We are on the edge of burn.”

The National Ignition Facility was conceived in response to a nuclear-weapon test ban signed by George H.W. Bush in 1992. The Department of Energy’s national laboratories were charged with trying to understand bomb physics in such exquisite detail that weapon performance could be modeled accurately without blowing anything up.

NEW GALAXIES

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (UPI) — Fifteen massive galaxies may have formed relatively recently despite wide-held belief they formed 13 billion years ago, says a U.S. astronomer.

The relatively low abundance of heavy elements suggests the 15 galaxies may be 3 billion or 4 billion years old, said John Salzer, an astronomer at Indiana University USA  who led a team in studying the galaxies.

Most theories of galaxy formation have held that such massive, luminous systems, including the Milky Way, formed shortly after the big bang 13 billion years ago, he said.

If the team’s new theory is correct, astronomers could use the 15 galaxies to study to stellar formation and evolution, the university said in a release.

The discoveries are the result of a several-year survey of more than 2,500 star-forming galaxies, Salzer said, noting that previous surveys failed to find the unusual galaxies.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 15th April 2009

Electronic Stop-Start System

ELECTRONIC STOP START SYSTEM

Another way to reduce fuel consumption and emissions is to switch the engine off when a car isn’t moving–in a traffic jam or at a stop light. Bosch offers an electronic stop-start system that turns the engine off when the vehicle is stopped and starts it again when the driver releases the brake. Bosch claims that in urban traffic their stop-start system reduces fuel consumption and CO-2 emissions by 8%. Currently the Bosch system is available on the BMW1 series.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 31 st March 2009