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NASA has awarded UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory up to $200 million to build a satellite to determine how Earth’s weather affects weather at the edge of space, in hopes of improving forecasts of extreme “space weather” that can disrupt global positioning satellites (GPS) and radio communications.
Tag: NASA
Melvin Calvin’s moon dust rediscovered at Berkeley Lab
May 8, 2013:
Some 44 years ago, the late chemist Melvin Calvin and colleagues at the Space Sciences Laboratory analyzed moon dust brought back by Apollo 11 and 12, published a paper, and then stashed the dust on a shelf. Archivists at Berkeley Lab rediscovered the precious material, vacuum sealed in a jar, and have returned it to NASA.
Earth-size planets common in galaxy
January 8, 2013:
Last year, astronomers were excited to discover that the number of exoplanets increases toward smaller sizes, suggesting that there are many Earth-size planets in the galaxy. A new analysis of three years of Kepler data shows that this increase plateaus around twice Earth size. Nevertheless, Earth-like planets occur around at least 17 percent of sun-like stars.
X-ray telescope to focus on hottest regions of black holes, supernovas
June 8, 2012:
NASA is scheduled to launch an orbiting X-ray satellite on Wednesday, June 13, that will open a new window on the universe, allowing scientists to probe the roiling edges of black holes, exploding stars and the smallest, most frequent flares on the sun. UC Berkeley scientists and engineers helped build the instruments, will operate the satellite, and will analyze the data from supernova explosions.
Twin ARTEMIS probes to study moon in 3-D
July 13, 2011:
Some two years ago, two of five THEMIS satellites were boosted from their orbits around Earth toward permanent lunar orbits. The second of two is destined to arrive at the moon on Sunday, July 17. The probes, renamed the ARTEMIS mission, will acquire 3-D data on the moon’s magnetic fields.
UC Berkeley SETI survey focuses on Kepler’s top Earth-like planets
May 13, 2011:
UC Berkeley is searching for evidence of intelligent life on planets identified by the Kepler space telescope team as having Earth-like environments. This search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) uses the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and targets 86 stars with possible planetary systems.
