Interference from satellites is an increasing problem for radio astronomers, and this problem is set to get worse as hundreds of telecommunications satellites are launched into low-Earth orbit over the next few years. Signals from the satellites – mostly for mobile phones – interfere with the radio signals from outer space that the astronomers are […]
Although ESA has undergone a cost cutting exercise over the past two years, it is still looking for new sources of revenue. Rodota hopes to open up additional sources of finance by increasing the number of commercial programmes at the agency. He has targeted three areas in particular: telecommunications, multimedia and Earth observation. Battle also […]
The device works by storing the data as regions of electric charge. The charge is trapped within a thin dielectric layer coated onto a conducting platter. The hard drive reads and writes data using field tip-emitters fabricated on the top of a silicon chip. The tip of each emitter is only 25 nanometres across, which […]
The observatory employs 115 staff to provide technical support for the UK’s overseas telescopes. Some of these staff will transfer to the new Astronomical Technology Centre, which is part of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. Others will take up positions at the University of Cambridge and Liverpool John Moore’s University. Some staff will be made redundant. […]
Richard Preston is best known for his best-seller on the Ebola virus: The Hot Zone. Before that, he had written a book about a group of astronomers working at the Palomar Observatory in California. This book has now been reissued in paperback in the UK. First Light is unusual for a book about physics in […]
The French space agency CNES is hoping to follow in the footsteps of NASA’s Discovery mission programme by using smaller, cheaper spacecraft instead of larger, more expensive missions. SPOT Image, the company set up by the CNES to market satellite imagery, has been a disaster from a financial viewpoint. Although it was set up in […]
Simon Kelley of the Open University in the UK, John Spray of the University of New Brunswick, and David Rowley of the University of Chicago in the US, reached this startling conclusion while trying to calculate the precise age of the Rochechouart meteorite impact in France. Geologists have recorded over 170 impacts in the Earth’s […]
The technique works on any turbid medium observed with light in the wavelength range 200-1000 nm, making it suitable for a wide range of applications. Patent 5719398 describes how three simple stages create the final image. First the observer measures the optical parameters of the object and convolutes the data with a special filter. A […]
Here I am, sitting quietly and comfortably in front of my tiny wooden desk, typing these lines on the keyboard of my laptop computer, peeping from time to time through the light linen of the curtain and the protective window-pane at the bare branches of the tree outside. I hold the book in my hand, […]
Taking a light hearted tone during the proceedings – with frequent references to popular culture – Hawking said: “I don’t believe science fiction like Star Trek, where people are essentially the same 400 years in the future.” Hawking said that new technology – such as artificial intelligence – would not be the only change over […]
