Bionic butterfly wings are ultimate heat sensors
Bionic butterfly wings are ultimate heat sensors
Move over spider silk. Butterfly wings are the new "it" material of the animal kingdom, doubling up as ultra-sensitive heat sensors.
Morpho butterfly wings are iridescent thanks to rows of tiny tree-like structures on their surfaces. Light reflecting off each micrometre-long branch and trunk interferes, producing shimmering colours.
Now Andrew Pris at General Electric's Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York, and colleagues say those same "Christmas trees" make excellent heat sensors.
When heat, or infrared radiation, hits the trees, the chitin they are made from expands. This increases the distance between the branches and trunks, shifting the wavelength of light they reflect perceptibly.
To boost the wings' sensitivity, the researchers coated samples with a layer of heat-absorbing carbon nanotubes. The coated wings could reveal temperature differences of just 0.018 °C.
Move over spider silk. Butterfly wings are the new "it" material of the animal kingdom, doubling up as ultra-sensitive heat sensors.
Morpho butterfly wings are iridescent thanks to rows of tiny tree-like structures on their surfaces. Light reflecting off each micrometre-long branch and trunk interferes, producing shimmering colours.
Now Andrew Pris at General Electric's Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York, and colleagues say those same "Christmas trees" make excellent heat sensors.
When heat, or infrared radiation, hits the trees, the chitin they are made from expands. This increases the distance between the branches and trunks, shifting the wavelength of light they reflect perceptibly.
To boost the wings' sensitivity, the researchers coated samples with a layer of heat-absorbing carbon nanotubes. The coated wings could reveal temperature differences of just 0.018 °C.
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Telescope takes a fresh look into a nebula's golden eye
A nearby planetary nebula shines like a huge golden eye in a new photo snapped by a telescope in Chile.The image shows the Helix Nebula, which lies about 700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer. The picture was taken in infrared light by the European Southern Observatory's VISTA telescope, one of the instruments at ESO's Paranal Observatory.
The Helix Nebula is a planetary nebula, a strange object that forms when a star like our sun exhausts its hydrogen fuel. The star's outer layers expand and cool, creating a huge envelope of dust and gas. Radiation flowing from the dying star ionizes this envelope, causing it to glow.
Despite their name, planetary nebulas have nothing to do with planets. Rather, the term refers to their superficial resemblance to giant planets, when observed through early telescopes. [See the new Helix nebula photos and video]
The dying star at the heart of the Helix Nebula is evolving to become a white dwarf, a shrunken, super-dense object that can pack a sun's worth of material into a sphere the size of Earth. The star is visible as a tiny blue dot at the center of the picture, researchers said.
Volunteers wanted for planet hunt
Members of the public are being asked to join the hunt for nearby planets that could support life.
Volunteers can go to the Planethunters website to see time-lapsed images of 150,000 stars, taken by the Kepler space telescope.
Volunteers can go to the Planethunters website to see time-lapsed images of 150,000 stars, taken by the Kepler space telescope.They will be advised on the signs that indicate the presence of a planet and how to alert experts if they spot them.
"We know that people will find planets that are missed by the computer," said Chris Lintott from Oxford University.
Russia's Phobos Grunt craft falls to Earth
NEWS
A Russian Mars probe, stranded in low-Earth orbit after a malfunction following launch in November, reportedly fell back into the dense lower atmosphere on Sunday.
The £111m Phobos-Grunt craft apparently broke up over the southern Pacific Ocean west of Chile.
Russian engineers predicted that the probe, loaded with more than 11 tons of unused rocket fuel, would burn up during entry, but 20 to 30 pieces of debris, totaling several hundred pounds, were expected to survive atmospheric heating to hit the surface.
In a statement released last month, Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, said the spacecraft's propellant — highly toxic nitrogen tetroxide and dimethylhydrazine rocket fuel — would burn up in the atmosphere and posed no threat to the public. Likewise, the agency said that 10 micrograms of radioactive Cobalt-57, used in one of the spacecraft's experiments, would not pose a health threat or have any adverse environmental threat.
Canada safe as Russian satellite in final Earth orbits
Once a symbol of Russia's out-of-this-world ambitions, an unmanned probe struck in cosmic purgatory is expected to come crashing down to Earth on Sunday.
Phobos-Ground is expected fall to Earth between 11:41 a.m. and 4:05 p.m. ET, the country's space agency Roscosmos said.
The 13,500 kilo probe was designed to travel to a moon of Mars but those plans were derailed when it got stuck in Earth's orbit.
Now, experts say it's only a matter of time before Phobos-Ground plummets somewhere along its orbiting route over Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia or South America.
