tiny nano satellites will be sent by NASA on space research missions soon

The US space agency has said that it has already got as many as a dozen very small research satellites into space.

NASA is going to be leading in sending very small satellites into space.

These macro satellites will be sent along with other bigger satellites in the future launches in the days ahead.

They claim that these satellites are so small that many of them may well actually fit in the palm of your hand.

Reports claim that these cube-shaped nano-satellites, called CubeSats, which measure about four inches on each side and weigh less than three pounds, are small but pack an out-sized research punch. The satellites will enable unique technology demonstrations, education research and science missions.

NASA officials while talking about these very small satellites claim that these will also help in studying topics ranging from how the solar system formed and demonstrating a new radiation-tolerant computer system, NASA said. The 14 CubeSats selected are from 12 US states and will fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2016, 2017 and 2018. They come from universities across the US, non-profit organisations and NASA field centres, NASA said. The US space agency plans to launch 50 small satellites from all 50 states in the next five years.

-nvonews

exploding fireball from a nova star first ever data of an capture by astronomers

A team of astronomers have captured the first images of a thermonuclear fireball from a nova star, allowing them to track the explosion as it expanded.

The nova was detected last year in the constellation Delphinus by the Chara Array infrared telescope in the US.

Researchers from 17 institutions around the world, including the University of Sydney and the Australian National University, analysed the resulting data.

It revealed with “unprecedented clarity” how the fireball evolves as the gas fuelling it expands and cools, Professor Peter Tuthill, a co-author on the study, said.

“We haven’t had the ability to witness such exquisite magnification or high resolution of images until very recently, when we started building these powerful Array telescopes,” Tuthill, from the University of Sydney’s Institute for Astronomy, said.

“These explosions are quite unusual events caused by a white dwarf star, which is a burned-out remnant of a star made of very dense material – a teaspoon full of this stuff weighs tonnes.

“The white dwarf star is like a mosquito that buzzes around the companion star, slowly sucking hydrogen from its companion through a little gravitational straw.”

This created an “ocean” of hydrogen on its surface a few hundred metres thick, Tuthill said, with the pressure at bottom of the ocean eventually reaching critical mass and triggering a thermonuclear explosion called a nova.

“You get a fireball, like a massive hydrogen bomb that propagates outwards,” he said.

Despite the massive detonation, the white dwarf escapes relatively unscathed and continues to circle around its host accumulating more matter so the cycle can repeat again.

Measuring the expansion allowed researchers to establish the nova was about 14,800 light years away from the sun, meaning that the explosion witnessed in August 2013 actually took place nearly 15,000 years ago.

When last measured 43 days after the detonation, the nova had expanded nearly 20-fold, at a velocity of more than 600km per second, the research led by astronomer Gail Schaefer from Georgia State University, found.

The findings were published in the prestigious international journal Nature on Monday.

Science is very close to unlock mistry of birth of sun

Using radioactive materials, researchers have investigated the solar system's prehistoric phase and the events that may have led to the Sun's birth.

The team used radioactivity to date the last time that heavy elements such as gold, silver, platinum, lead and rare-earth elements were added to the solar system matter by the stars that produced them.

"We can now tell with confidence the final one percent of gold, silver and platinum were added to the solar system matter roughly 100 million years before the birth of the sun," said researchers Maria Lugaro and Alexander Heger from Monash University's centre for astrophysics in Melbourne, Australia.

The final one percent of lead and rare-earth elements such as those that make your smartphone, were added much later - at most, 30 million years before the birth of the sun, they added.

The detailed timing opened up new opportunities to understand the series of events that led to the formation of the sun.

Some time after the last addition of heavy elements, the solar system matter went into an "incubation" period, during which time the stellar nursery formed - where the Sun was born together with a number of other stars.

"We now know this incubation period could not have lasted more than 30 million years. This offers us the chance to determine the lifespan of the nursery where the Sun was born, how massive it was and how many stars were born there together," Lugaro explained.

Understanding the time-scale and processes leading to the formation of our solar system is key to relate its birth environment with that of other planetary systems in the galaxy, he noted. The findings were published in the journal Science.

The study was published in the journal Science.