A team of students representing Penn State will compete April 17-21 in Alabama at the NASA University Student Launch Initiative (USLI). The USLI is an annual event that challenges teams of young engineers and scientists to design, test and build large, high-powered rockets, capable of flying to the target altitude of one mile.
A Penn State project is one of 24 small satellites selected by NASA to fly as auxiliary payloads planned for launch between 2014 and 2016, the agency recently announced.
The 10th annual College of Engineering Research Symposium (CERS) is set for April 2 at the Nittany Lion Inn. The event, free and open to the public, begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m.
A large new collection of space photos taken at wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye and blocked by Earth's atmosphere has been released as a New Year's gift to the people of Earth by NASA and Penn State. The images were captured by a telescope on board NASA's Swift satellite, whose science and flight operations are controlled by Penn State's Mission Operations Center using the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, which resulted from Penn State's collaboration with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory of the University College-London. The telescope is one of just a few that study ultraviolet light, much of which is blocked by Earth's atmosphere.
To see the complete story, go to http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Siegel1-2013.
A new paradigm for understanding the earliest eras in the history of the universe has been developed by scientists at Penn State. Using techniques from an area of modern physics called loop quantum cosmology, developed at Penn State, the scientists now have extended analyses that include quantum physics farther back in time than ever before -- all the way to the beginning. The new paradigm of loop quantum origins shows, for the first time, that the large-scale structures we now see in the universe evolved from fundamental fluctuations in the essential quantum nature of "space-time," which existed even at the very beginning of the universe more than 14 billion years ago. The achievement also provides new opportunities for testing competing theories of modern cosmology against breakthrough observations expected from next-generation telescopes. The research will be published Dec. 11 as an "Editor's Suggestion" paper in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
More information and an image are online at www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Ashtekar11-2012.
A free presentation titled "James Webb Space Telescope: NASA's Next Great Observatory" will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13, in 100 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park campus. The program will be presented by Heidi Hammel, the Executive Vice President of AURA, Inc (The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy). This event is part of the 2012-2013 Friedman Lecture Series in Astronomy, which is free and open to the public.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), an international collaboration that includes Penn State astronomers, has produced the largest-ever three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes. The new map will help to explain the mysterious "dark matter" and "dark energy" that scientists know makes up 96 percent of the universe. The map is the first in a series planned during a six-year project that will fully expand into three dimensions the largest-ever 2-D image of the sky, which the SDSS-III released early last year.
When the NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover makes its final descent towards the Red Planet's surface early Monday morning, two Penn State engineering alumni will be among the engineers and scientists holding their breaths. Brian Schratz, an electrical engineering alumnus, and Ray Baker, an aerospace engineering alumnus, have played crucial roles leading up to Curiosity's planned touch down.
This week, the National Science Board recommended proceeding to the final design stage for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a telescope with a 330-inch mirror to be located in Chile, which will survey over half of the sky. Penn State has been a member of the LSST project since 2005. "The data that LSST will gather during its ten years of operation will offer us an unprecedented view of the universe, and will allow us to investigate important questions ranging from charting unknown objects in our own solar system to the large-scale structure of the universe and the nature of dark energy and dark matter," said Lawrence Ramsey, a member of the LSST Board of Directors as well as a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and an Eberly College of Science Distinguished Senior Scholar at Penn State. Among the many scientific programs enabled by the telescope are the identification of "Near Earth Asteroids," bodies whose orbits indicate that they could collide with the Earth. More information and links to images and videos are online at http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/LSST7-2012.
A new space telescope is scheduled to rocket into orbit during a launch window that began at 11:30 a.m. EDT on June 13. Penn State astronomers are among the scientists who will use NASA's new Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) to hunt for black holes and other dramatic objects in space that produce high-powered X-rays.
The nature of a peculiar cosmic explosion detected on Dec. 25, 2010, remains an intriguing question without a clear answer. The cause of the explosion, a gamma-ray burst that first was detected by NASA's Swift observatory, either was a novel type of supernova located billions of light-years from Earth or an unusual collision much closer to home inside our own galaxy, report astronomers in papers published in the Dec. 1 issue of Nature. "It is nice to find that the universe can still surprise us, after seven years and 600 bursts since Swift was launched," said Michael Siegel, a research associate in astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and the lead scientist for Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT). Siegel analyzed the UVOT data as it came down to Penn State's Mission Operations Center from the spacecraft, and he also coordinated Swift's follow-up observations.
As an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier streaked past Earth during the early-morning hours last week, a team of astronomers at Penn State University and other institutions using NASA's Swift satellite monitored the fast-moving space rock, as did other professional and amateur astronomers using other instruments around the globe. The Swift satellite was the only observatory that captured the asteroid's ultraviolet emissions. Scientists now can use these ultraviolet data to understand the asteroid's surface composition and to more precisely predict the path of its future fly-bys near Earth.
Three planets -- each orbiting its own giant, dying star -- have been discovered by an international research team led by Alexander Wolszczan, Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State and the discoverer of the first planets ever found outside our solar system. Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, astronomers observed the planets' parent stars, which are tens of light years away from our solar system. One of the massive, dying stars has an additional mystery object orbiting it. The new research is expected to shed light on the evolution of planetary systems around dying stars. It also will help astronomers to understand how metal content influences the behavior of dying stars.
The research will be published in December in the Astrophysical Journal. The first author of the paper is Sara Gettel, a graduate student from Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the paper is co-authored by three graduate students from Poland.
Interested in the latest discoveries of NASA's Swift satellite? The Swift team has released a free iPhone application that gives users the details of all the latest gamma-ray-burst discoveries that the Swift observatory is making throughout the universe. The app also allows users to track, in real time, the location of Swift as it orbits the Earth, to see where Swift is pointed right now, and to view an informative gallery of beautiful images obtained by the Swift satellite.
Research Unplugged will feature Michael Paul, a space systems engineer at Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) and team leader of Lunar Lion, presenting "Lunar Lion: Penn State Enters the Private Sector Race to the Moon" from noon to 1 p.m. on Nov. 2 at the Penn State Downtown Theatre.
A team of students representing Penn State will compete April 17-21 in Alabama at the NASA University Student Launch Initiative (USLI). The USLI is an annual event that challenges teams of young engineers and scientists to design, test and build large, high-powered rockets, capable of flying to the target altitude of one mile.
A Penn State project is one of 24 small satellites selected by NASA to fly as auxiliary payloads planned for launch between 2014 and 2016, the agency recently announced.
The 10th annual College of Engineering Research Symposium (CERS) is set for April 2 at the Nittany Lion Inn. The event, free and open to the public, begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m.
A large new collection of space photos taken at wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye and blocked by Earth's atmosphere has been released as a New Year's gift to the people of Earth by NASA and Penn State. The images were captured by a telescope on board NASA's Swift satellite, whose science and flight operations are controlled by Penn State's Mission Operations Center using the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, which resulted from Penn State's collaboration with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory of the University College-London. The telescope is one of just a few that study ultraviolet light, much of which is blocked by Earth's atmosphere.
To see the complete story, go to http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Siegel1-2013.
A new paradigm for understanding the earliest eras in the history of the universe has been developed by scientists at Penn State. Using techniques from an area of modern physics called loop quantum cosmology, developed at Penn State, the scientists now have extended analyses that include quantum physics farther back in time than ever before -- all the way to the beginning. The new paradigm of loop quantum origins shows, for the first time, that the large-scale structures we now see in the universe evolved from fundamental fluctuations in the essential quantum nature of "space-time," which existed even at the very beginning of the universe more than 14 billion years ago. The achievement also provides new opportunities for testing competing theories of modern cosmology against breakthrough observations expected from next-generation telescopes. The research will be published Dec. 11 as an "Editor's Suggestion" paper in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
More information and an image are online at www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Ashtekar11-2012.
A free presentation titled "James Webb Space Telescope: NASA's Next Great Observatory" will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13, in 100 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park campus. The program will be presented by Heidi Hammel, the Executive Vice President of AURA, Inc (The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy). This event is part of the 2012-2013 Friedman Lecture Series in Astronomy, which is free and open to the public.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), an international collaboration that includes Penn State astronomers, has produced the largest-ever three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes. The new map will help to explain the mysterious "dark matter" and "dark energy" that scientists know makes up 96 percent of the universe. The map is the first in a series planned during a six-year project that will fully expand into three dimensions the largest-ever 2-D image of the sky, which the SDSS-III released early last year.
When the NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover makes its final descent towards the Red Planet's surface early Monday morning, two Penn State engineering alumni will be among the engineers and scientists holding their breaths. Brian Schratz, an electrical engineering alumnus, and Ray Baker, an aerospace engineering alumnus, have played crucial roles leading up to Curiosity's planned touch down.
This week, the National Science Board recommended proceeding to the final design stage for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a telescope with a 330-inch mirror to be located in Chile, which will survey over half of the sky. Penn State has been a member of the LSST project since 2005. "The data that LSST will gather during its ten years of operation will offer us an unprecedented view of the universe, and will allow us to investigate important questions ranging from charting unknown objects in our own solar system to the large-scale structure of the universe and the nature of dark energy and dark matter," said Lawrence Ramsey, a member of the LSST Board of Directors as well as a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and an Eberly College of Science Distinguished Senior Scholar at Penn State. Among the many scientific programs enabled by the telescope are the identification of "Near Earth Asteroids," bodies whose orbits indicate that they could collide with the Earth. More information and links to images and videos are online at http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/LSST7-2012.
A new space telescope is scheduled to rocket into orbit during a launch window that began at 11:30 a.m. EDT on June 13. Penn State astronomers are among the scientists who will use NASA's new Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) to hunt for black holes and other dramatic objects in space that produce high-powered X-rays.
The nature of a peculiar cosmic explosion detected on Dec. 25, 2010, remains an intriguing question without a clear answer. The cause of the explosion, a gamma-ray burst that first was detected by NASA's Swift observatory, either was a novel type of supernova located billions of light-years from Earth or an unusual collision much closer to home inside our own galaxy, report astronomers in papers published in the Dec. 1 issue of Nature. "It is nice to find that the universe can still surprise us, after seven years and 600 bursts since Swift was launched," said Michael Siegel, a research associate in astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and the lead scientist for Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT). Siegel analyzed the UVOT data as it came down to Penn State's Mission Operations Center from the spacecraft, and he also coordinated Swift's follow-up observations.
As an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier streaked past Earth during the early-morning hours last week, a team of astronomers at Penn State University and other institutions using NASA's Swift satellite monitored the fast-moving space rock, as did other professional and amateur astronomers using other instruments around the globe. The Swift satellite was the only observatory that captured the asteroid's ultraviolet emissions. Scientists now can use these ultraviolet data to understand the asteroid's surface composition and to more precisely predict the path of its future fly-bys near Earth.
Three planets -- each orbiting its own giant, dying star -- have been discovered by an international research team led by Alexander Wolszczan, Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State and the discoverer of the first planets ever found outside our solar system. Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, astronomers observed the planets' parent stars, which are tens of light years away from our solar system. One of the massive, dying stars has an additional mystery object orbiting it. The new research is expected to shed light on the evolution of planetary systems around dying stars. It also will help astronomers to understand how metal content influences the behavior of dying stars.
The research will be published in December in the Astrophysical Journal. The first author of the paper is Sara Gettel, a graduate student from Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the paper is co-authored by three graduate students from Poland.
Interested in the latest discoveries of NASA's Swift satellite? The Swift team has released a free iPhone application that gives users the details of all the latest gamma-ray-burst discoveries that the Swift observatory is making throughout the universe. The app also allows users to track, in real time, the location of Swift as it orbits the Earth, to see where Swift is pointed right now, and to view an informative gallery of beautiful images obtained by the Swift satellite.
Research Unplugged will feature Michael Paul, a space systems engineer at Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) and team leader of Lunar Lion, presenting "Lunar Lion: Penn State Enters the Private Sector Race to the Moon" from noon to 1 p.m. on Nov. 2 at the Penn State Downtown Theatre.
