UK supports radical shake up at ESA
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 numb...
Radio astronomers agree eight-hour day with mobile phone companies
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 th...
UK science minister praises physics
The UK government is committed to basic science, said Battle. “The ongoing comprehensive spending review gives us the opportunity to spell out our commitment to the science base, ” he adde...
UK budget stresses R&D
The government is to contribute £20 million to a University Challenge Fund to help universities to exploit academic research. The Welcome Trust and the Gatsby Trust have contributed a further ...
Tera-byte disk drives
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 fi...
RGO will close in October
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...
France cuts back SPOT programme
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 Imag...
Did the Earth get hit by multiple impacts?
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...
Three steps to better biomedical images
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 ...
Australia joins Gemini
The observing time of the original six partners – the US, the UK, Canada, Chile, Argentina and Brazil – will be slightly reduced, but this loss will be offset by “enhanced scientific...
