NASA Testing Super Black Material

Imagine something so black, so devoid of any reflected light that it is impossible to see when it is folded! This new material absorbs 99.5% of all visible light that hits it and 99.8% of all infrared. This is seriously dark material!

Scientist, astronomers and engineers alike hope that this material, that they hope to coat devices like components going on to space telescopes (or even land based scopes). This would drastically cut down on the light reflected into the optics and optical sensors.

NASA sent a little round of the coating to the International Space Station, aboard a recent resupply flight. This delivery also contained experimental robotic systems for fixing satellites in orbit.  It is NASA's plan that the coating module will stay on an unpressurized platform, on the outside of the ISS, exposing it to the rigors of space, for a year, before being sent back to Earth for analysis.

Read the rest of the Popular Science article HERE

Queenslanders Simulate Time Travel

Is time travel possible? Who knows...In the form that most are envisioning, probably not. It would seem the only way we are going to travel in time is forward at at the rate of 1 second per second.  

But into that cozy comfort of conformity jumps a team from the University of Queensland to give the faithful a glimmer of hope.

From the Engadget blog HERE

• Their study used individual photons to replicate a quantum particle traveling through a space-time loop (like the one you see above) to arrive where and when it began. Since these particles are inherently uncertain, there wasn't room for the paradoxes that normally thwart this sort of research. 

The particle couldn't destroy itself before it went on its journey, for example.

 Now "simulation" is the telling term here. There hasn't actually been a warp of time (though I suspect some of our "perceptions" have been twisted and pulled into strange new shapes! ;)  -- the experiment  only shown how it can or could work. 

From the article, once again:

• It could take a long time before there's proof that whole atoms and objects can make the leap, let alone a real-world demonstration.

BMU #418 is now online

Well, what do you know, Beam Me Up is in da houuuuuuse!

After my opening comments I play a piece of audio called the speed of dark which is brilliant in it's explanation of the opposite of lightspeed...

Next is a cut piece of music.  It comes from the closing music of the anime series "The Devil is a partimer"

next is the rendezvous of the craft Rosetta as after 10 years has finally caught comet Chury

The final offering this week is the conclusion of Chury called "Double Down on Double by Michael Juby.

Beam Me Up

Rosetta now in ORBIT!!!

The Rosetta spacecraft has after over a decade of maneuvering become the first probe to orbit a comet. Now I know that is going to raise a few hackles, but Ceres etc. were ASTEROIDS and mini-planets or dwarf planets.So Dawn et al were another class of probe and the few that DID approach were chasers or fly ahead types that did good science, it is Rosetta that will set the bar much higher.

Controllers instructed Rosetta to fire its thrusters on its final approach to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, "Chury", on Wednesday August seventh.  They announced a half an hour after the burn, that the Rosetta had entered into orbit around the comet.

The Rosetta probe will remain in orbit, but plans are to get the probe to within 6 miles so the second history making part of the mission to take place.  Early in November of 2014 the lander Philae will set another historic first for the Rosetta mission by landing on the surface.  (that should prove quite a feat as Chury is swapping it's north and south poles at a fairly rapid interval)  when it lands on the comet.

From the NationalJournal website

• The 220-pound probe will deploy ice screws and harpoons as it hits the surface, because 67P's (Chury) minimal gravity is not enough to keep it anchored.

Beam Me Up # 417 now Online

In this week's opening comments, I marvel at what it takes to get an automated craft to the outer planets, this was in reaction to the upcoming flyby of Pluto and the ESA craft that is fast closing on it's target comet and marveling at the time and effort that both experiments have had to undergo just to finish their tasks!







You can down load the podcast by clicking

HERE

I break this flow with a really good music track "collide". The music itself is a great deal of fun but the strange baseball challenge that this cut is playing to is even more fun.  Podcast yes, but do take a trip over to the blog @ wrfrbeamEup.blogspot.com.  I often don't get a chance to read all the articles I have planned, so this would be a good reason to take a jaunt over there.

Before I start with this week's story, I take my own advice and go looking for highlights on this week's blog.

I make the suggestion to check out this month's sky sighting over at Space.com for planets, moon phases and other planetary events.

After reading an article by Jesus Diaz writing for Gizmodo, was marveling at an astronaut floating 200 miles above the planet and I start a conversation of just this sort of amazing eye opener.

The Mars 2020 rover is getting interest and therefor a bit more news.

And news about the worlds largest rocket lifting platform.

Finally, part one of Michael Jubie's Doubling Down on Dublee