Physical Sciences

A document proposes a CO2-reduction primary electrochemical cell as a building block of batteries to supply electric power on the surface of Venus. The basic principle of the proposed cell is similar to that of terrestrial Zn-air batteries, the major differences being that (1) the anode metal would not...

A modification of the design of the pulse tube in a pulse-tube cryocooler reduces axial thermal conductance while preserving radial thermal conductance. It is desirable to minimize axial thermal conductance in the pulse-tube wall to minimize leakage of heat between the warm and cold ends of the pulse tube. At the same time, it...

Two documents describe a proposed Earth-atmosphere observatory to orbit the Sun at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point — a point of unstable equilibrium in the shadow of the Earth, about 1.5 million km from the Earth along an outward projection of the Earth-Sun axis. The observatory would...

Equipment and techniques have been developed to implement a method of photometric calibration of consumer video cameras for imaging of objects that are sufficiently narrow or sufficiently distant to be optically equivalent to point or line sources. Heretofore, it has been difficult to calibrate...

A report discusses the second generation of the JPL Electronic Nose (ENose), an array of 32 semi-specific chemical sensors used as an event monitor to identify and quantify contaminants released into breathing air by leaks or spills. It is designed to monitor the environment for changes in air quality, and is...

A report discusses Ka-band (35-GHz) radar for mapping the surface topography of glaciers and ice sheets at high spatial resolution and high vertical accuracy, independent of cloud cover, with a swath-width of 70 km. The system is a single-pass, single-platform interferometric...

A 40-cm-diameter plasma device has been developed as a source of ions for material-processing and ion-thruster applications. Like the device described in the immediately preceding article, this device utilizes electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) excited by microwave power in a magnetic field to generate...