Space

GPS takes piloting to new level of accuracy

NASA has developed a way to pilot aircraft independent of local navigational aids, infrastructure and even good ol’ landmarks. The NASA Global Differential GPS system at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has demonstrated the ability to achieve real-time aircraft positioning accuracy of 10 centimeters horizontally and 20 centimeters vertically, anywhere in the world. Think of it this way: Using the NASA system, a pilot could remotely navigate an unmanned aircraft from, say, Atlanta, Georgia and have it land within three inches of its target in Tokyo, Japan.

Discovery of Big Space Object Renews Debate About Pluto’s Status

The identifying of a massive, 745-mile-diameter object at the far reaches of our solar system has reopened a debate regarding the planetary status of that ninth pile from the sun, Pluto.
National Geographic reports that the newly-noticed space item is named Quaoar (pronounced “KWAH-o-ar”) and is located in the Kuiper belt, a celestial district 4 billion miles from Earth and relatively close to Pluto. Like the Disney dog-named sphere, Quaoar is composed of rock and ice. Also, its orbit is similar to Pluto’s but differs from the eight other planets. “Pluto is the largest known Kuiper belt object,” a University of Hawaii astronomer says. “Some people think of it as a planet as well. That’s fine, of course, but the reasons for doing so are historical, or sociological at best.”

Do you see the key?

If a code is really good, it doesn’t matter much if the enemy (you know, them) gets ahold of one of your encrypted messages. What is risky, is letting your code key fall into the wrong hands. And their delivery is often the weak link in a communications network. “At the moment, highly secure encryption keys are typically sent by a man on a motorbike or a guy with a diplomatic bag,” notes one wonk. But researchers have devised a way to deliver keys using a beam of light, attaching data to individual photons as they stream from sender to receiver. The neat thing about that is if the light beam is intercepted and read, the state of the photons changes, alerting the recipient that the key has been compromised. Thursday British researchers said they’d reached a new milestone in the distance they can send encryption keys this way: 14 miles. It doesn’t sound like much, but it sure beats the few feet the technique could muster just a couple years ago. Expect earth-to-satellite distances soon.

Look, up in the sky… CLUNK!

Ice meteors are falling from the sky in growing numbers. And while some skeptics still think the phenomenon a hoax or the result of ice from planes passing overhead, a Spanish scientist says they are neither. Though he doesn’t know precisely how the meteors form, Jesus Martinez-Frias, director of planetary geography at Spain’s Astrobiology Center in Madrid, notes that their results can be dramatic. The falling ice blocks tend to weigh upwards of 20 pounds and have smashed in cars, destroyed roofs and caused general mayhem where they land. But Martinez-Frias says he isn’t concerned so much about the terrestrial damage they can cause, but the atmospheric damage he believes they portend. “I’m not worried that a block of ice might fall on your head … but that great blocks of ice are forming where they shouldn’t exist,” he said. “Components of the atmosphere, like ozone and water, are changing in different levels of the atmosphere. … We think these signs could be evidence of climate change,” he told Reuters.

Alien bugs here on Earth?

A tough microbe called Deinococcus radiodurans can withstand blasts of radiation, enduring several thousand times the lethal dose for humans. How did these little bugs develop this resistance? A team of Russian scientists has concluded that these extraordinary organisms are actually Martian microbes, here on Earth by way of meteorites. In tests on common bacteria E. coli, the scientists determined that evolution of radiation-resistance would take longer than 3.8 billion years, the time that life has been on Earth. In contrast, the bugs could develop this characteristic on the Red Planet in only a few hundred thousand years. On Mars there are much higher levels of radiation and the planet experiences regular climate swings that would induce dormancy in microbes, allowing them to accumulate sufficient doses of radiation to evolve into radiation-resistant critters.

See also: Acidic clouds of Venus could harbour life

Device gives smart bombs a headache

Plans for GPS-guided bombs to do much of the heavy lifting in a U.S. war on Iraq could be seriously hampered by a $40 device available over the Internet. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, so-called global positioning system “jammers” can interrupt the system’s satellite signal. “At the Paris Air Show in 1999, a Russian company called Aviaconversia demonstrated a 4-watt GPS jammer, weighing about 19 pounds, capable of denying GPS reception for more than 100 miles,” the paper says. “While we do not know the extent of our vulnerability, there is evidence to suggest that GPS jamming can significantly inhibit precision targeting,” says Rep. Joseph Pitts (R., Penn.), co-chairman of Congress’ Electronic Warfare Working Group. So far the only known fix is to boost the GPS signal strength. But without new satellites in place, there’s only so far that approach can go.

Gonna fly now

It’s a technique Orville and Wilbur (God, I still love those names) Wright used a century ago to keep their early airplane afloat. Now the U.S. Air Force thinks it might have legs — or wings — again. It’s called wing warping. Instead of movable flaps and ailerons to steer and control a plane, warping bends the entire wing to achieve the desired effect. The Air Force has fancied it up a bit and redubbed it “active aeroelastic wing” technology. But the goal of its $41 million investment is, like the Brothers Wright, to produce lighter, more maneuverable planes. >> Related sites

Cancer detector works both ways

Dual use technology usually starts out with a military use that civilians find a way to commercialize. The U.S. Navy is hoping to turn that equation around with a $5 million program to improve breast cancer detection. As it happens, looking for a cancerous cell in a human breast relies on a lot of the same science as identifying targets in spy satellite photos. And since the Navy believes its current pick-’em-out technology has hit a ceiling, it hopes to develop advances in breast cancer screening that can be applied to spotting Osama bin Laden from space. Wired has a terrific story on this, and notes that real-world applications are already emerging.

Baby bye bye bye

Oh well. It looks like ‘N Syncer Lance Bass won’t be making a trip into space after all. After failing to pony up the $20 million needed to participate in a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) after several deadline extensions, the pop star was asked to leave Russia’s cosmonaut training program, according to the Russian Space Agency. The Russians have a cargo container ready to go in Bass’s place. Bass had been training for the trip since July and was scheduled to go up to the space station by rocket on October 28. For a look at what Bass will be missing, visit NASA’s SkyWatch site to find out when the station can be viewed flying over your town.

Meteor girl one in a billion

The odds of getting hit by a meteorite are pretty slim. Say, one in several billion. But a Yorkshire girl looks to have been that lucky loner, and best of all, she wasn’t killed or maimed in the process. As reported by the BBC, 14-year-old Siobhan Cowton was getting into the family car outside her home last Thursday when a stone fell on her foot from the sky. The stone, which was “quite hot, ? looked very unusual, with a bubbled surface and tiny indentations like volcanic lava,” the teen said. She showed it to her dad, who was likewise taken by the heavenly descender. According to Dr. Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University, the stone could have come from Mars. After some testing, the Cowtons plan to have the rock mounted in a glass case so Siobhan can keep it for the rest of her life. “After all,” says poppa, “it is not every day you get hit by a meteorite.”

Reefs in trouble

Today a program called Reef Check at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment released the results of a massive, five-year volunteer-run survey of the planet’s coral reefs — what may be the world’s most comprehensive ecological study to date. Unfortunately the study reveals that the reefs around the world are in serious decline, and that the
“>situation is only getting worse. Overfishing has affected 95 percent of the more than 1,107 coral reefs monitored since 1997; at least four species of reef fish, hunted as food or for aquariums, face extinction, according to the study. So how do you monitor the coral reefs, which make up less than .09% of the area of the world’s oceans and are spread around the globe? Volunteers, lots of them. Reef Check scientists taught teams of sea-worthy volunteers — from recreational divers to village fisherman — about reef ecology and scientific monitoring. About 5,000 scientists and volunteers contributed. According to Reef Check’s founder, Gregor Hodgson, of the reefs surveyed, just one, near Madagascar, could be considered pristine. “What we have seen is coral reefs have been damaged more in the last 20 years than they have in the last 1,000,” Hodgson said. “Suddenly, the pressures of overfishing and damaging types of fishing — dynamiting fish and poisoning fish, particularly in Southeast Asia — have taken off.”

NASA, Northwest team on mind-reading tech

This is something that’s been talked about for years, though before Sept. 11 it was always in the context of a bank or high-security government facility, not Northwest Airlines. The upshot of this Washington Times article is that NASA and Northwest are teaming to see if mind-reading technology is feasible, and if so, can it be used to mass-screen airline passengers. Opinion is mixed, and no one in this article addresses the pharmaceutical countermeasures that could potentially be employed to calm a guilt- or panic-ridden brain and heart. Still, plenty creepy.

Space is the place … for Bass

Despite financial setbacks that threatened to keep boyish pop star Lance Bass from his life-long dream of traveling to outer space, Bass continues to train to join a Russian crew heading to the International Space Station in October. The cost of sending Bass into space is said to be about $20 million, and the mission, which Bass has been training for since July, became jeopardized when payments were not made on time. If he makes it there, the 23-year-old Bass would be the youngest person to travel to outer space.