Environment

Sun and solar

Stories

123
2010
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0
30
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A research team from the University of Waterloo’s Laboratory for Emerging Energy Research is looking into processing lunar regolith, the Moon’s top layer of soil and dust, into usable materials for life support, energy generation, and construction. This includes investigating the use of defunct satellite material as a fuel source when mixed with lunar regolith. Read on to learn more.
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Technology & Society: Power
NREL scientists use new power electronics to support the electric power grid. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Energy
The novel solar concentrators can be applied to textile fibers without the textile becoming brittle and susceptible to cracking or accumulating water vapor in the form of sweat. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Energy
According to the researchers, this proof-of-concept system could be adapted to help produce precursors for plastics or other chemical feedstocks, as well as scaled up to produce larger amounts of sustainable biofuels.
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Application Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
In partnership with Point One, Civ Robotics is ensuring that precise construction layouts won’t be at odds with efficiency. Land surveying is a critical stage in the construction layout process, during which workers use various forms of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to mark specific locations for builders. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Energy
Researchers have developed a sensor that, similar to human skin, can sense temperature variation that originates from the touch of a warm object as well as the heat from solar radiation. The sensor combines pyroelectric and thermoelectric effects with a nano-optical phenomenon.
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Briefs: Energy
Combination of Stressors Key to Testing Perovskite Solar Cells
Solar cells must endure a set of harsh conditions — often with variable combinations of changing stress factors — to judge their stability, but most researchers conduct these tests indoors with a few fixed stressing conditions.
Technology & Society: Energy
Sandia engineers convert excess renewable electricity into heat that gets stored in piles of gravel.
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Articles: Energy
NASA’s Artemis program consists of a series of missions designed to land humans on the Moon and establish a sustainable, continuing presence. A long-term foothold on the Moon’s surface enables invaluable research and testing opportunities that will set the stage for future groundbreaking missions, including the first human mission to Mars.
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Briefs: Imaging
An international team of researchers reports on a compact high-brightness mid-IR-driven source combining a gas-filled anti-resonant-ring photonic crystal fiber with a novel nonlinear-crystal. The tabletop source provides a seven-octave coherent spectrum from 340 nm–40,000 nm with spectral brightness 2–5 orders of magnitude higher than one of the brightest synchrotron facilities.
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Briefs: Manned Systems
Recent experiments by a team from the West Virginia University focused on how a weightless microgravity environment affects 3D printing using titania foam, a material with potential applications ranging from UV blocking to water purification. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces published their findings.
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Briefs: Imaging
Imagine being able to snap a picture of extremely fast events on the order of a picosecond.
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Briefs: Materials
Most space satellites are powered by photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight to electricity. Exposure to certain orbit radiation can damage the devices. Scientists have proposed a radiation-tolerant photovoltaic cell design that features an ultrathin layer of light-absorbing material.
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Briefs: Energy
Artificial Photosynthesis Produces Food without Sunshine
Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis.
Technology & Society: Materials
A robot developed at North Carolina State University can conduct experiments more sustainably and accelerate energy materials research.
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Briefs: Materials
Researchers have developed a colloidal synthesis method for alkaline earth chalcogenides. This method allows them to control the size of the nanocrystals in the material.
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Briefs: Materials
An international research collaboration led by UCLA has developed a way to use perovskite in solar cells while protecting it from the conditions that cause it to deteriorate.
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5 Ws: Green Design & Manufacturing
Rice University engineers are turning sunlight into hydrogen with record-breaking efficiency with a device that splits water molecules and generates hydrogen when stimulated by simulated sunlight.
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Articles: Aerospace
As NASA builds a blueprint for exploration throughout the solar system, the agency is doing it with staying power in mind. The agency's new analysis process is designed to align its Moon to Mars exploration strategy and codify the supporting architecture.
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Briefs: Energy
Idaho National Laboratory has developed world-class capabilities to help industry design efficient SPS manufacturing processes. The lab’s newest addition makes it possible to manufacture new materials at industrially relevant scales.
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NASA Spinoff: Electronics & Computers
Traveling-wave tubes designed for NASA are being used not only for satellite systems but also ground applications.
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Briefs: Materials
A new thermal control coating material, developed for use as a coating or rigid tiles, reflects essentially all solar radiation in the space environment.
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Briefs: Materials
Researchers have been exploring how to turbocharge a passive cooling technique — known as radiative or sky cooling — with sun-blocking nanomaterials that emit heat away from building rooftops.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A team of MIT engineers is designing a kit of universal robotic parts that an astronaut could easily mix and match to rapidly configure different robot “species” to fit various lunar missions.
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Briefs: Imaging
NASA's NEID tool delivered its first batch of data on the nearest and best-studied star, our Sun.
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Briefs: Materials
An international research collaboration led by UCLA has developed a way to use perovskite in solar cells while protecting it from the conditions that cause it to deteriorate.
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Briefs: Energy
A new kind of solar panel has achieved 9 percent efficiency in converting water into hydrogen and oxygen — mimicking a crucial step in natural photosynthesis.
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Briefs: Design
To overcome the limitations of using cleaning agents, sprays, or bulky high-cost sterilizing systems, NASA developed the Ultraviolet Germicidal Door Handle.
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Briefs: Energy
A highly efficient and long-lasting solar flow battery generates, stores, and redelivers renewable electricity from the Sun in one device.
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