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Space Dust Measurement
Ever since the beginning of the space age satellites and space probes performed space dust measurements. The goal was, initially, to quantify the hazard of meteoroid impacts onto space vehicles. Samples returned to Earth by the Apollo astronauts demonstrated that the lunar surface is peppered by microcraters generated by high speed impacts of cosmic dust particles. Their analysis provided a measurement of the flux of interplanetary dust particles. The later goal of dust measurements was the exploration of the dust environments throughout interplanetary space, within planetary systems, and, today, it is to analyze planetary bodies from which dust particles originate. The development of instrument swent from simple and small but noisy microphone detectors, over large and reliable multi-coincidence dust detectors to sophisticated dust analyzers that determine the composition of individual dust particles. Overview From the ground space dust is observed as scattered sun light from m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guns
A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, projected water disruptors, and technically also flamethrowers), gas (e.g. light-gas gun) or even charged particles (e.g. plasma gun). Solid projectiles may be free-flying (as with bullets and artillery shells) or tethered (as with Taser guns, spearguns and harpoon guns). A large-caliber gun is also called a ''cannon''. The means of projectile propulsion vary according to designs, but are traditionally effected pneumatically by a high gas pressure contained within the barrel tube, produced either through the rapid exothermic combustion of propellants (as with firearms), or by mechanical compression (as with air guns). The high-pressure gas is introduced behind the projectile, pushing and accelerating it down the length of the tube, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Space Research Organisation
The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964. As an organisation ESRO was based on a previously existing international scientific institution, CERN. The ESRO convention, the organisations founding document outlines it as an entity exclusively devoted to scientific pursuits. This was the case for most of its lifetime but in the final years before the formation of ESA, the European Space Agency, ESRO began a programme in the field of telecommunications. Consequently, ESA is not a mainly pure science focused entity but concentrates on telecommunications, earth observation and other application motivated activities. ESRO was merged with ELDO in 1975 to form the European Space Agency. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pioneer 6, 7, 8, And 9
''Pioneer 6'', ''7'', ''8'', and ''9'' were space probes in the Pioneer program, launched between 1965 and 1969. They were a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilized, solar cell- and battery-powered satellites designed to obtain measurements on a continuing basis of interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. They were also known as Pioneer A, B, C, and D. The fifth (Pioneer E) was lost in a launch accident, and therefore did not receive a numerical designation. Purpose ''Pioneers 6'', ''7'', ''8'', and ''9'' were created to make the first detailed, comprehensive measurements of the solar wind, solar magnetic field and cosmic rays. They were designed to measure large scale magnetic phenomena and particles and fields in interplanetary space. Data from the vehicles have been used to better understand stellar processes and the structure and flow of the solar wind. The vehicles also acted as the world's first space-based solar weather network, providing prac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pegasus (satellite)
The Pegasus Project was a NASA initiative to study the frequency of micrometeoroid impacts on spacecraft by means of a constellation of three satellites launched in 1965. All three Pegasus satellites were launched by Saturn I rockets, and remained connected with their upper stages. The Pegasus satellites were named for the winged horse of Greek mythology and was first lofted into space by a NASA Saturn I rocket on February 16, 1965. Like its namesake, the Pegasus satellite was notable for its "wings", a pair of -long, -wide arrays of 104 panels fitted with sensors to detect punctures by micrometeoroids at high altitudes, in support of the Apollo Program to send manned lunar landing missions starting by 1970. Micrometeoroids were believed to be potentially hazardous to the Apollo crew if they could puncture the spacecraft skin. The sensors successfully measured the frequency, size, direction and penetration of scores of micrometeoroid impacts. The satellite also carried sample pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quadrupole Ion Trap
A quadrupole ion trap or paul trap is a type of ion trap that uses dynamic electric fields to trap charged particles. They are also called radio frequency (RF) traps or Paul traps in honor of Wolfgang Paul, who invented the device and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989 for this work. It is used as a component of a mass spectrometer or a trapped ion quantum computer. Overview A charged particle, such as an atomic or molecular ion, feels a force from an electric field. It is not possible to create a static configuration of electric fields that traps the charged particle in all three directions (this restriction is known as Earnshaw's theorem). It is possible, however, to create an ''average'' confining force in all three directions by use of electric fields that change in time. To do so, the confining and anti-confining directions are switched at a rate faster than it takes the particle to escape the trap. The traps are also called "radio frequency" traps because the switc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linear Particle Accelerator
A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear beamline. The principles for such machines were proposed by Gustav Ising in 1924, while the first machine that worked was constructed by Rolf Widerøe in 1928 at the RWTH Aachen University. Linacs have many applications: they generate X-rays and high energy electrons for medicinal purposes in radiation therapy, serve as particle injectors for higher-energy accelerators, and are used directly to achieve the highest kinetic energy for light particles (electrons and positrons) for particle physics. The design of a linac depends on the type of particle that is being accelerated: electrons, protons or ions. Linacs range in size from a cathode ray tube (which is a type of linac) to the linac at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ames Research Center
The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory. That agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist and one of the founding members of NACA. At last estimate NASA Ames had over US$3 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget. Ames was founded to conduct wind-tunnel research on the aerodynamics of propeller-driven aircraft; however, its role has expanded to encompass spaceflight and information technology. Ames plays a role in many NASA missions. It provides leadership in astrobiology; small satellites; robotic lunar exploration; the search for habitable planets; s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impact Ionization
Impact ionization is the process in a material by which one energetic charge carrier can lose energy by the creation of other charge carriers. For example, in semiconductors, an electron (or Electron hole, hole) with enough kinetic energy can knock a bound electron out of its bound state (in the valence band) and promote it to a state in the conduction band, creating an electron-hole pair. For carriers to have sufficient kinetic energy a sufficiently large electric field must be applied, in essence requiring a sufficiently large voltage but not necessarily a large current. If this occurs in a region of high electrical field then it can result in avalanche breakdown. This process is exploited in avalanche diodes, by which a small optical signal is amplifier, amplified before entering an external electronic circuit. In an avalanche photodiode the original charge carrier is created by the absorption of a photon. The impact ionization process is used in modern cosmic dust detectors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laboratory For Atmospheric And Space Physics
The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) is a research organization at the University of Colorado Boulder. LASP is a research institute with over one hundred research scientists ranging in fields from solar influences, to Earth's and other planetary atmospherics processes, space weather, space plasma and dusty plasma physics. LASP has advanced technical capabilities specializing in designing, building, and operating spacecraft and spacecraft instruments. History Founded after World War II, the first scientific instruments built at LASP were launched into space using captured German V-2 rockets. To this day LASP continues a suborbital rocket program through periodic calibration instrument flights from White Sands Missile Range. It was originally called the Upper Air Laboratory, but changed to its current name in 1965. LASP has historical ties to Ball Aerospace Corporation and the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA). Facilities LASP has two main f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Planck Institute For Nuclear Physics
The Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik ("MPI for Nuclear Physics" or MPIK for short) is a research institute in Heidelberg, Germany. The institute is one of the 80 institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Max Planck Society), an independent, non-profit research organization. The Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics was founded in 1958 under the leadership of Wolfgang Gentner. Its precursor was the Institute for Physics at the MPI for Medical Research. Today, the institute's research areas are: crossroads of particle physics and astrophysics (astroparticle physics) and many-body dynamics of atoms and molecules (quantum dynamics). The research field of Astroparticle Physics, represented by the divisions of Jim Hinton, Werner Hofmann and Manfred Lindner, combines questions related to macrocosm and microcosm. Unconventional methods of observation for gamma rays and neutrinos open new windows to the universe. What lies behind “dark matter” and “dark energy” is theore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electrostatic Particle Accelerator
An electrostatic particle accelerator is a particle accelerator in which charged particles are accelerated to a high energy by a static high voltage potential. This contrasts with the other major category of particle accelerator, oscillating field particle accelerators, in which the particles are accelerated by oscillating electric fields. Owing to their simpler design, electrostatic types were the first particle accelerators. The two most common types are the Van de Graaf generator invented by Robert Van de Graaff in 1929, and the Cockcroft-Walton accelerator invented by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton in 1932. The maximum particle energy produced by electrostatic accelerators is limited by the maximum voltage which can be achieved the machine. This is in turn limited by insulation breakdown to a few megavolts. Oscillating accelerators do not have this limitation, so they can achieve higher particle energies than electrostatic machines. The advantages of electrost ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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