An Alphabet X innovation lab project has been working on a high-speed wireless optical communications network that uses beams of light instead of cables or radio waves, and folks in Kenya will be the first to benefit from the fruits of these labors. New Atlas reports: Project Taara, a part of Alphabet’s X moonshot factory, has been working on a wireless…
Tag: radio waves
Transmitting data from space to earth with laser filaments
Could light be used to transmit information between satellites and Earth? Atmospheric water vapor scatters and absorbs light energy, but overcome that obstacle, and light will carry far more information and move it faster than the radio waves we currently rely on. A new research project, supported by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, proposes to use the properties of light itself to…
Astronomers discover clues that unveil the mystery of fast radio bursts
Fast radio bursts, or FRBs—powerful, millisecond-duration radio waves coming from deep space outside the Milky Way Galaxy—have been among the most mysterious astronomical phenomena ever observed. Since FRBs were first discovered in 2007, astronomers from around the world have used radio telescopes to trace the bursts and look for clues on where they come from and how they’re produced. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-astronomers-clues-unveil-mystery-fast.html…
Weird space radio signal tracked to its source for the first time
Strange blasts of radio waves called fast radio bursts have been spotted all over the cosmos, and now astronomers have figured out where one came from Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2258758-weird-space-radio-signal-tracked-to-its-source-for-the-first-time/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
GPS and Water Don’t Mix. So Scientists Have Found a New Way To Navigate Under the Sea
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: [E]ven today’s most sophisticated GPS systems are still unable to map a huge chunk of the Earth: that which is located under oceans, seas, or rivers. The technology, in effect, doesn’t mix well with water, which breaks down the radio waves GPS relies on to function. MIT scientists have been looking at ways…
An Underwater Navigation System Powered by Sound
GPS isn’t waterproof. The navigation system depends on radio waves, which break down rapidly in liquids, including seawater. To track undersea objects like drones or whales, researchers rely on acoustic signaling. But devices that generate and send sound usually require batteries — bulky, short-lived batteries that need regular changing. Could we do without them? From a report: MIT researchers think so….
Spacecraft DAPPER will study ‘Dark Ages’ of the universe in radio waves
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has joined a new NASA space mission to the far side of the Moon to investigate when the first stars began to form in the early universe. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-09-spacecraft-dapper-dark-ages-universe.html…
Search for ETs among 10 million stars comes up empty
Astronomers used a radio telescope in Australia to search for artificial radio signals among 10 million stars. The search came up empty. But, they say, that’s not bad news for those hoping to find intelligent extraterrestrials. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-10-million-stars…
A breakthrough in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
The researchers called their new analytical technique “a milestone in SETI.” One researcher commented: “We now know that fewer than one in 1,600 stars closer than about 330 light years host transmitters just a few times more powerful than the strongest radar we have here on Earth.” Source: https://earthsky.org/space/analytical-breakthrough-seti-expand-search-200-times…
Repeating fast radio burst woke up again on schedule. Now what?
FRB 121102 is one of the few known repeating fast radio bursts, and astronomers are trying to use this new period of activity to understand it better. Some predict the current active phase should end sometime between August 31 and September 9. Will it? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/repeating-fast-radio-burst-frb-121102-wakes-up-chime…