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Topic Review
Heliophysics NASA Science
Heliophysics is an aspect of NASA science that enables understanding the Sun, heliosphere, and planetary environments as a single connected system. In addition to solar processes, this domain of study includes the interaction of solar plasma and solar radiation with Earth, the other planets, and the galaxy. By analyzing the connections between the Sun, solar wind, and planetary space environments, the fundamental physical processes that occur throughout the universe are uncovered. Understanding the connections between the Sun and its planets will allow for predicting the impacts of solar interaction on humans, technological systems, and even the presence of life itself. This is also the stated goal of Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research.
  • 804
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Timeline of Physical Chemistry
The timeline of physical chemistry lists the sequence of physical chemistry theories and discoveries in chronological order.
  • 802
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies
Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies (MA-MISS) is a miniaturized imaging spectrometer designed to provide imaging and spectra by reflectance in the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength region and determine the mineral composition and stratigraphy. The instrument is part of the science payload on board the European Rosalind Franklin rover, tasked to search for biosignatures, and scheduled to land on Mars in spring 2023. MA-MISS is essentially inside a drill on the Rover, and will take measurements of the sub-surface directly. MA-MISS will help on the search for biosignatures by studying minerals and ices in situ before the collection of samples. The instrument is integrated within the Italian core drill system called DEEDRI, and it will be dedicated to in situ studies of the mineralogy inside the excavated holes in terms of visible and infrared spectral reflectance. The Principal Investigator is Maria Cristina De Sanctis, from the INAF (Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica) in Italy.
  • 800
  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Non-Targeted Effects of Australian and European Synchrotrons
The Australian Synchrotron (AS) and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) are best configured for a wide range of biomedical research involving animals and future cancer patients. Due to ultra-high dose rates, treatment doses can be delivered within milliseconds, abiding by FLASH radiotherapy principles. In addition, a homogeneous radiation field can be spatially fractionated into a geometric pattern called microbeam radiotherapy (MRT); a coplanar array of thin beams of microscopic dimensions. Both are clinically promising radiotherapy modalities because they trigger a cascade of biological effects that improve tumor control, while increasing normal tissue tolerance compared to conventional radiation. Synchrotrons can deliver high doses to a very small volume with low beam divergence, thus facilitating the study of non-targeted effects of these novel radiation modalities in both in-vitro and in-vivo models. Non-targeted radiation effects studied at the AS and ESRF include monitoring cell–cell communication after partial irradiation of a cell population (radiation-induced bystander effect, RIBE), the response of tissues outside the irradiated field (radiation-induced abscopal effect, RIAE), and the influence of irradiated animals on non-irradiated ones in close proximity (inter-animal RIBE).
  • 792
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
L-Photo-Leucine
L-Photo-Leucine is a synthetic derivative of the L-Leucine amino acid that is used as its natural analog and is characterized for having photo-reactivity, which makes it suitable for observing and characterizing protein-protein interactions (PPI). When a protein containing this amino acid (A) is lightened with ultraviolet light while interacting with another protein (B), the complex formed from these two proteins (AB) remains attached and can be isolated for its study. Photo Leucine, as well as another photo-reactive amino acid derived from Methionine, Photo-Methionine, were first synthesized in 2005 by Monika Suchanek, Anna Radzikoska and Christoph Thiele from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics with the objective of identifying protein to protein interaction throughout a simple western blot test that would provide high specificity. The resemblance of the photo-reactive amino acids to the natural ones allows the former ones to avoid the extensive control mechanisms that take place during the protein synthesis within the cell.
  • 779
  • 24 Oct 2022
Biography
Amedeo Odoni
Amedeo Odoni is an American physicist currently the T. Wilson Chair Professor Emeritus of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1][2] His most cited papers are 971 and 689.[3] Belobaba, P., A. Odoni and C. Barnhart (eds.), The Global Airline Industry, John Wiley & Sons, London, 2009 Larson, R. C. and A. Odoni, Urban Operations Research, Dynamic Ideas, Belmo
  • 771
  • 09 Dec 2022
Biography
Thomas Michael Donahue
Thomas Michael Donahue (23 May 1921, Healdton, Oklahoma – 16 October 2004, Ann Arbor, Michigan) was an American physicist, astronomer, and space and planetary scientist. Donahue graduated in 1942 from Rockhurst College in Kansas City and received in 1947 his PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University, with an interruption of his graduate studies by WW II and service in the Army Signal Corps.
  • 753
  • 09 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Dark Matter
Dark matter is a term used to describe a form of matter that does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, making it invisible to current astronomical instruments. Despite its elusive nature, dark matter is thought to make up approximately 27% of the universe's mass-energy content, significantly more than the ordinary matter that constitutes stars, planets, and all known structures in the observable universe. The existence of dark matter is inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the universe.
  • 748
  • 25 Jul 2024
Topic Review
Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System
The Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS) instrument is designed to scan the surface of Europa and identify areas of geologically recent resurfacing through the detection of subtle thermal anomalies. This 'heat detector' will provide high spatial resolution, multi-spectral thermal imaging of Europa to help detect active sites such as outflows and plumes. E-THEMIS will be launched on board the planned Europa Clipper astrobiology mission to Jupiter's moon Europa in 2025. The E-THEMIS uses technology inherited from the THEMIS camera flown on board the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, and the OSIRIS-REx OTES instruments.
  • 743
  • 18 Oct 2022
Biography
Juan Gualterio Roederer
Juan G. Roederer is a professor of physics emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). His research fields are space physics, psychoacoustics, science policy and information theory. He conducted pioneering research on solar cosmic rays, on the theory of earth’s radiation belts, neural networks for pitch processing, and currently on the foundations of information theory. He is also an
  • 737
  • 06 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Coronal Cloud
A coronal cloud is the cloud of hot plasma gas surrounding a coronal mass ejection. It is usually made up of protons and electrons. When a coronal mass ejection occurs at the Earth's Sun, it is the coronal cloud that usually reaches Earth and causes damage to electrical equipment and space satellites, not the ejection or flare itself. The damage is mostly the result of the high amount of electricity moving through the atmosphere. A coronal cloud is released when a solar flare becomes a coronal mass ejection; the coronal cloud often contains more radioactive particles than the mass ejection itself. A coronal mass ejection occurs when a solar flare becomes so hot that it snaps and breaks in two, becoming a "rope" of heat and magnetism that stretches between two sunspots. The resulting coronal mass ejection can be compared to a horseshoe magnet, the sunspots being the poles and the oscillating magnetic connector the handle. Coronal mass ejections typically do not last very long, because they cool down as the coronal cloud of gas is released and begins to hurtle away from the Sun.
  • 736
  • 07 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Solar Team
The University of Calgary Solar Car Team is a multi-disciplinary student-run solar car racing ("raycing") team at the University of Calgary, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada . It was established to design and build a solar car to compete internationally in the American Solar Challenge (ASC) (previously named the North American Solar Challenge) and the World Solar Challenge (WSC). The team is primarily composed of undergraduate students studying Engineering, Business, Science, Arts and Kinesiology. The mission of the University of Calgary Solar Car Team is to educate the community about sustainable energy and to serve as an interdisciplinary project through which students and faculty from various departments can collaborate in supporting sustainable energy.
  • 731
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Belgrade Observatory
Belgrade Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in the eastern part of Belgrade, Serbia, in the natural environment of Zvezdara Forest.
  • 708
  • 18 Oct 2022
Biography
Harry C. Kelly
Harry Charles Kelly (9 October 1908—2 February 1976)[1] was an American physicist best known for his role in Japan in the aftermath of World War II in preserving scientific research not related to weaponry.  He forged enduring relations between the U.S. and Japanese scientific communities, recognized by the Japanese government. Upon his death in 1976, the Japanese government requested a porti
  • 698
  • 13 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist
Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist is an historical novel by historian of science Russell McCormmach, published in 1982 by Harvard University Press. Set in 1918, the book explores the world of physics in the early 20th century—including the advent of modern physics and the role of physicists in World War I—through the recollections of the fictional Viktor Jakob. Jakob is an old German physicist who spent most of his career during the period of classical physics, a paradigm being confronted by the rapid and radical developments of relativistic physics in 1900s and 1910s. This conflict allows for extensive examination of the various tensions placed on Jakob by the academic environment, the German academic system, and the changing academic culture of the early 20th century. The character of Jakob, a professor at a minor German university, is an amalgam of German physicists based on archival research by McCormmach. In the novel, he recalls interactions and events, documented in extensive footnotes to genuine publications and archival sources, involving many of the well-known physicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Night Thoughts, pointedly criticized for its lack of literary merit by some reviewers, was generally praised for its attempt at forging a new approach to history and historical fiction by incorporating extensive research into the text.
  • 694
  • 02 Nov 2022
Biography
Gregory S. Boebinger
Gregory Scott Boebinger is the director of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida, and a professor of physics at Florida State University. Boebinger was born June 29, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, one of four sons of a minister and an elementary-school teacher. He is a 1977 graduate of North Central High School in Indianapolis. He married his high-school sweethea
  • 686
  • 13 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Composition (Objects)
Compositional objects are wholes instantiated by collections of parts. If an ontology wishes to permit the inclusion of compositional objects it must define which collections of objects are to be considered parts composing a whole. Mereology, the study of relationships between parts and their wholes, provides specifications on how parts must relate to one another in order to compose a whole.
  • 684
  • 04 Nov 2022
Biography
William C. Schwartz
William C. Schwartz (March 25, 1927 – July 23, 2000) was a civic leader in Central Florida and a pioneer in the laser industry. He was founder, President and Chairman of International Laser Systems, Inc., and later, Schwartz Electro-Optics, Inc., both based in Orlando, Florida. Schwartz was born in Lexington, Missouri. He attended Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, then went on to earn a
  • 668
  • 08 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Chemical Force Microscopy
In materials science, chemical force microscopy (CFM) is a variation of atomic force microscopy (AFM) which has become a versatile tool for characterization of materials surfaces. With AFM, structural morphology is probed using simple tapping or contact modes that utilize van der Waals interactions between tip and sample to maintain a constant probe deflection amplitude (constant force mode) or maintain height while measuring tip deflection (constant height mode). CFM, on the other hand, uses chemical interactions between functionalized probe tip and sample. Choice chemistry is typically gold-coated tip and surface with R–SH thiols attached, R being the functional groups of interest. CFM enables the ability to determine the chemical nature of surfaces, irrespective of their specific morphology, and facilitates studies of basic chemical bonding enthalpy and surface energy. Typically, CFM is limited by thermal vibrations within the cantilever holding the probe. This limits force measurement resolution to ~1 pN which is still very suitable considering weak COOH/CH3 interactions are ~20 pN per pair. Hydrophobicity is used as the primary example throughout this consideration of CFM, but certainly any type of bonding can be probed with this method.
  • 639
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Soil Moisture Active Passive
Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) is an United States environmental research satellite launched on 31 January 2015. It was one of the first Earth observation satellites developed by NASA in response to the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey.
  • 633
  • 28 Oct 2022
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