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Orbit
Long awaited satellite to monitor water cycle reaches orbit
By Darren Quick
22:43 November 5, 2009 PST
The 658kg (1,450 lb) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) this week is the first ever satellite designed both to map sea surface salinity and to monitor soil moisture on a global scale. The unique radiometer it carries will enable passive surveying of the water cycle between oceans, the atmosphere and land thereby playing a key role in the monitoring of global climate change. Read More
Pentagon looking for someone to pick up the trash in space
18:05 October 8, 2009 PDT
The Soviet Union launched the very first earth-orbiting satellite in 1957, and the world looked on in awe as Sputnik flashed through the sky. Fifty years later, you’d be lucky to see anything. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network says there are almost 20,000 man-made objects in orbit, ninety-four percent of which are non-functional debris. And that’s not counting the hundreds of thousands of bits of junk too small to track. Little wonder the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has put out a call for someone – anyone – to come up with a way to effectively remove orbital debris. Read More
Time to think globally - the wn-2 Earth watch
By Mick Webb
12:22 October 5, 2009 PDT
Much like the recent spherical Eris watch, here’s another way to tell the time that is a little “out of this world”. Japanese not-for-profit organization Think The Earth has released the wn-2 watch, featuring a tiny replica of the Earth that rotates in the same direction and at the same speed as the real thing. By offering a view similar to that seen from orbit, the creators hope the wn-2 (which stands for “watch Northern Hemisphere”) will encourage the wearer to put things in perspective and consider the world around them. Read More
A hard rain's gonna fall on exoplanet COROT-7b
By Mick Webb
04:12 October 5, 2009 PDT
Raining rocks? The concept may not be as preposterous as it sounds according to scientists at Washington University in St Louis who have theorized that a recently-discovered exoplanet, COROT-7b, may have an atmosphere that does exactly that. Read More
Altec Lansing’s Orbit USB 360° sound portable speaker packs a punch
By Darren Quick
18:13 September 6, 2009 PDT
Laptop speakers generally aren’t the most impressive sound reproduction devices going around so travelers either have to put up with poor sound quality, rely on a set of headphones, or pack a set of (often not so) portable speakers. Altec Lansing appears to have overcome this annoyance by unveiling its Orbit USB ultra portable speaker at IFA 2009 this week. Read More
Terotech
- November 21, 2009 @ 19:38 UTC
