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ITS MY OWN LIFE

Soon, solar sheets that turn 95% of sunlight into electricity

Posted by Abhishek Tuesday, 17 May 2011 0 comments


An engineer at the Missouri University chemical engineering department is in the process of developing a flexible solar sheet that captures more than 90 pc of available sunlight.
Patrick Pinhero and his team have developed a thin, moldable sheet of small antennas called nantenna, which can harvest the heat from industrial processes and convert it into usable electricity.
Their ambition is to extend this concept to a direct solar facing nantenna device capable of collecting solar irradiation in the near infrared and optical regions of the solar spectrum.
According to Pinhero, energy generated using traditional photovoltaic (PV) methods of solar collection is inefficient and neglects much of the available solar electromagnetic (sunlight) spectrum.
Today's solar panels only collect about 20% of available light, he reveals.
"Our overall goal is to collect and utilise as much solar energy as is theoretically possible and bring it to the commercial market in an inexpensive package that is accessible to everyone," said Pinhero.
"If successful, this product will put us orders of magnitudes ahead of the current solar energy technologies we have available to us today," he added.
Pinhero plans to make prototypes available to consumers within the next five years

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Soon, solar sheets that turn 95% of sunlight into electricity

Posted by Abhishek 0 comments


An engineer at the Missouri University chemical engineering department is in the process of developing a flexible solar sheet that captures more than 90 pc of available sunlight.
Patrick Pinhero and his team have developed a thin, moldable sheet of small antennas called nantenna, which can harvest the heat from industrial processes and convert it into usable electricity.
Their ambition is to extend this concept to a direct solar facing nantenna device capable of collecting solar irradiation in the near infrared and optical regions of the solar spectrum.
According to Pinhero, energy generated using traditional photovoltaic (PV) methods of solar collection is inefficient and neglects much of the available solar electromagnetic (sunlight) spectrum.
Today's solar panels only collect about 20% of available light, he reveals.
"Our overall goal is to collect and utilise as much solar energy as is theoretically possible and bring it to the commercial market in an inexpensive package that is accessible to everyone," said Pinhero.
"If successful, this product will put us orders of magnitudes ahead of the current solar energy technologies we have available to us today," he added.
Pinhero plans to make prototypes available to consumers within the next five years

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The loaf is out there: The bread-sized satellite that's searching for alien life

Posted by Abhishek 0 comments


The world's first satellite the size of a loaf of bread is to explore the final frontier with one task: to hunt down extra terrestrial life.
The nano-satellite will launch next year with a sole purpose of finding 'Exoplanets' beyond our solar system which could support life like Earth.
Séamus Tuohy, director of space systems at Draper Laboratory, which has developed the ExoPlanetSat with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the mission was ground breaking.
Best thing since sliced bread: The nano-satellite will study stars and orbiting planets to search for planets with life, like ours.
Best thing since sliced bread: The loaf-sized nano-satellite will study stars and orbiting planets to search for planets with life like Earth
He said: 'While there have been many small satellites, these are typically used to perform simple communication or observation missions. 
'We are doing something that has not been done before.'
At just 10 centimetres wide and 30 centimetres long, the £3million device works by surveying the brightness of a star as an orbiting planet passes in front of it. By working out how much a star dims, scientists can work out the planet's size.
Calculations to work out how long the planet takes to orbit mean they can then work out how far that planet is from its star.
Measuring a star's brightness however means the spacecraft must be kept stable as any disturbances will blur the image making it unusable. Special technology has been developed to make sure movement is kept to a minimum.

    Experts say the tiny satellite is designed to work in conjunction with larger satellites, like NASA's Kepler satellite which launched two years ago.
    The nano-satellite, which will be powered by solar panels, will focus on a single stars which larger spacecraft, which can look at about 150,000 stars, deem worthy of further study.
    Each nano-satellite costs £379,000 once it is in production but only has a shelf-life of one to two years. 
    Scientists are hoping to launch a fleet of nano-satellites in the future to survey hundreds of stars to see if they can discover other planets similar to ours.



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    The loaf is out there: The bread-sized satellite that's searching for alien life

    Posted by Abhishek 0 comments


    The world's first satellite the size of a loaf of bread is to explore the final frontier with one task: to hunt down extra terrestrial life.
    The nano-satellite will launch next year with a sole purpose of finding 'Exoplanets' beyond our solar system which could support life like Earth.
    Séamus Tuohy, director of space systems at Draper Laboratory, which has developed the ExoPlanetSat with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the mission was ground breaking.
    Best thing since sliced bread: The nano-satellite will study stars and orbiting planets to search for planets with life, like ours.
    Best thing since sliced bread: The loaf-sized nano-satellite will study stars and orbiting planets to search for planets with life like Earth
    He said: 'While there have been many small satellites, these are typically used to perform simple communication or observation missions. 
    'We are doing something that has not been done before.'
    At just 10 centimetres wide and 30 centimetres long, the £3million device works by surveying the brightness of a star as an orbiting planet passes in front of it. By working out how much a star dims, scientists can work out the planet's size.
    Calculations to work out how long the planet takes to orbit mean they can then work out how far that planet is from its star.
    Measuring a star's brightness however means the spacecraft must be kept stable as any disturbances will blur the image making it unusable. Special technology has been developed to make sure movement is kept to a minimum.

      Experts say the tiny satellite is designed to work in conjunction with larger satellites, like NASA's Kepler satellite which launched two years ago.
      The nano-satellite, which will be powered by solar panels, will focus on a single stars which larger spacecraft, which can look at about 150,000 stars, deem worthy of further study.
      Each nano-satellite costs £379,000 once it is in production but only has a shelf-life of one to two years. 
      Scientists are hoping to launch a fleet of nano-satellites in the future to survey hundreds of stars to see if they can discover other planets similar to ours.



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      Nokia shows Ovi brand the door

      Posted by Abhishek 0 comments


      Nokia will abandon its Ovi brand, the handset manufacturer said today.
      The company had been pushing the mobile services brand hard since its 2007 launch, but the Ovi services will rebranded as "Nokia services" later this year. It is not clear how much of this is to do with Nokia's tie-in with Microsoft, a deal that will involve the integration of the Ovi services and content store with Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace.
      "Ovi" means "door" in Suomi, a Finnish language. As of April, there were 5 million downloads a day of Ovi-branded apps. According to a Nokia blog post today, there will be "no planned disruption to the service roadmaps" despite the rebranding, which will start with the "first services on some of the new Nokia devices in July and August" and finish by the end of 2012.

      Full Story

      Nokia shows Ovi brand the door

      Posted by Abhishek 0 comments


      Nokia will abandon its Ovi brand, the handset manufacturer said today.
      The company had been pushing the mobile services brand hard since its 2007 launch, but the Ovi services will rebranded as "Nokia services" later this year. It is not clear how much of this is to do with Nokia's tie-in with Microsoft, a deal that will involve the integration of the Ovi services and content store with Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace.
      "Ovi" means "door" in Suomi, a Finnish language. As of April, there were 5 million downloads a day of Ovi-branded apps. According to a Nokia blog post today, there will be "no planned disruption to the service roadmaps" despite the rebranding, which will start with the "first services on some of the new Nokia devices in July and August" and finish by the end of 2012.

      Full Story

      Gujarati boy in Poland astronomy olympiad

      Posted by Abhishek 0 comments


      AHMEDABAD: City-based student Sharad Miraniwill represent India at the 5th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) to be held in Poland during August 25 to September 3 this year. Mirani is member of the five-member team representing India. Other students are Jeevan Priya ( Hyderabad), R. S. B. Bhardwaj (Hyderabad), Akhil Kedia (Kolkata) and Akshay Krishna (Bangalore).

      IOAA is a prestigious world forum for scientific activities held for continuous 10 days in which high school students from around the world compete against each other, solving theoretical, analytical and observational problems in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics. More than 30 countries will participate in the event, said science city officials.

      Sharad, a student of Prakash High School in Ahmedabad, was the first student of Gujarat to represent India at the International Earth Science Olympiads held at Taiwan during 2009 and International Astronomy Olympiads (Jr.) in Ukraine in 2010.

      Science City officials said that they are nurturing students to prepare them for international arena where they can compete with students from different countries. "Our summer camps and awareness seminars for the school children are targeted at bringing out genius in them by igniting their curiosity and imagination. We want more Sharads from the state to represent our nation," said a science city official.

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