Paris (AFP) Oct 27, 2021
A yellow streak representing high concentrations of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, is visible over southern Iraq on a map produced by Kayrros, a French firm that uses satellites to track leaks from fossil fuel facilities. The source of the immense leak discovered in 2019 was never officially confirmed - and it is only one of many. The satellite map shows blotches of colour splatte

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Oct 26, 2021
OpenET uses publicly available data to provide satellite-based information on evapotranspiration (the "ET" in OpenET). The primary satellite dataset for OpenET is from the Landsat program, a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The most recent satellite in the program, Landsat 9, successfully launched on Sept. 27, 2021. Evapotranspiration is the process through w

Washington (AFP) Oct 27, 2021
The Pentagon's top general said Wednesday that China's recent test of an earth-circling hypersonic missile was akin to the Soviet Union's stunning launch of the world's first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, which sparked the superpowers' space race. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed for the first time the Chinese test of a nuclear-capable missile that would be very d

Tucson AZ (SPX) Oct 29, 2021
Even galaxies don't like to be alone. While astronomers have known for a while that galaxies tend to congregate in groups and clusters, the process of going from formation to friend groups has remained an open question in cosmology. In a paper published in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal, an international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a group of objects that appear to

Durham NC (SPX) Oct 28, 2021
As anyone who has ever parked a car in the sun on a hot summer day knows, glass windows are great at letting sunlight in but terrible at allowing heat out. Now, engineers at Duke University have developed smart window-like technology that, with the flip of a switch, can alternate between harvesting heat from sunlight and allowing an object to cool. The approach could be a boon for HVAC savings,

Washington DC (UPI) Oct 28, 2021
Researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston have developed a free, open-access virtual reality program that allows anyone to interact with individual cells in the human body, they said Thursday. The tool, called singlecellVR, enables users to visualize single-cell assays in virtual reality, or VR, with no advanced technical skills required, the researchers said in an article publish

Norman OK (SPX) Oct 29, 2021
Coastal wetlands support diverse and vital ecosystems central to coastal areas' biodiversity and economic vitality. However, coastal wetlands are threatened by sea level rise that can lead to flooding and land use changes that alter the way people can live or work in these areas. These impacts are large. Approximately 600 million people live less than 10 meters, approximately 6 miles, above sea

Washington DC (SPX) Oct 28, 2021
Space missions, such as NASA's Orion that will take astronauts to Mars, are pushing the limits of human exploration. But during their transit, spacecrafts encounter a continuous stream of damaging cosmic radiation, which can harm or even destroy onboard electronics. To extend future missions, researchers reporting in ACS Nano show that transistors and circuits with carbon nanotubes can be config

Moscow (Sputnik) Oct 29, 2021
Gen. Hyten's remarks come a week after a failed US hypersonic test and as tensions between the US and China over Taiwan, which the latter considers as an integral part of its territory, remain high, as well as recent reports of China allegedly conducting a successful test of a new potentially nuclear hypersonic missile in August. Following China's purported test of a hypersonic missile, th

Washington DC (UPI) Oct 30, 2021
NASA and SpaceX on Saturday scrapped plans to send astronauts to the International Space Station after a large mid-Atlantic storm caused weather issues along the flight path. The Crew-3 launch, which was set to launch Sunday, is now scheduled to take place 1:10 a.m. EDT Wednesday, when weather conditions were expected to be 80% favorable. The NASA astronauts will launch on SpaceX's Crew