Tech & Science
Technology and Science news from Boulder, Colorado
CU-BOULDER STUDENTS TO DEMONSTRATE INNOVATIONS AND INVENTIONS AT DEC. 4 ENGINEERING DESIGN EXPO
Dec 1st
More than 80 student projects will be demonstrated at the end-of-semester event. The Expo is free and open to the public from noon to 3:30 p.m. at the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory, located on the corner of Regent Drive and Colorado Avenue.
The semiannual demonstration of engineering projects will showcase the work of about 400 undergraduate students. Most of the students are enrolled in the popular First-Year Engineering Projects course, which allows students to practice real-world engineering design from the start of their college experience.
Working in teams throughout the fall semester to design solutions to an array of challenges, engineering students have developed various interactive video games that promote exercise, interactive 3-D puzzles for children with lights and sounds, water disinfection systems, assistive technology for people with disabilities, and much more.
Volunteers from industry, government and the community will serve as judges, rating each project on its originality, craftsmanship, as well as the students’ understanding of engineering principles, presentation and effectiveness. An awards ceremony will be held at 3 p.m. Members of the community can vote for their favorite project to win the coveted “People’s Choice” award.
Free parking is available across the street from the ITL Laboratory in lot 436. For more information, call 303-492-7222.
SOURCE: CU PRESS RELEASE
CU-BOULDER FACULTY MEMBER TO MAKE STELLAR OBSERVATIONS WITH AIRBORNE OBSERVATORY
Dec 1st
A University of Colorado at Boulder faculty member is one of two scientists who will use data gathered by a world-class telescope flying aboard a modified Boeing 747 to peer at a distant star-forming region during its inaugural science flight this week.
Known as the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, the jet was significantly modified in order to mount a 2.5-meter reflecting telescope in the rear fuselage, said Senior Research Associate Paul Harvey of CU-Boulder’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, one of the scientists involved in the mission.
The jet will fly at 40,000 to 45,000 feet in altitude, putting it above more than 99 percent of the water vapor in the atmosphere — which blocks infrared light from reaching the ground — and will allow scientists to observe stellar targets in wavelengths of light that can’t be observed by ground-based telescopes, said Harvey.
The aircraft and telescope were successfully tested in the summer of 2009. SOFIA’s Faint Object InfraRed Camera, known as FORCAST, is a versatile camera that collects light from the visible, infrared and sub-millimeter portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, Harvey said.
Harvey will be observing and analyzing the distribution of dust and gas in a young, star-forming cluster known as Sharpless 140 that is roughly 3,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cepheus. One light-year is equal to about 6 trillion miles.
“Observing the birth of stars in our own galaxy is critical because planetary systems form at the same time that a central star is formed,” said Harvey. “In addition, some of the most luminous galaxies in the universe appear to be powered by extreme bursts of star formation.”
Harvey flew on several hundred flights of SOFIA’s predecessor, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, but will not be aboard the first science flight of SOFIA. The second set of observations on this week’s SOFIA science flight will be led by Mark Morris of UCLA, who will be targeting star-forming regions in the Orion nebula.
Harvey said the FORCAST camera on the telescope has large, two-dimensional array detectors that are similar to charge-coupled devices found in digital cameras. The goal is to obtain a sequence of images of the star cluster with the telescope, which will move almost imperceptibly between each image in order to sample “sub-pixels.”
One advantage of the SOFIA observatory is that scientists can make changes and improvements to the craft’s instruments between flights as well as change observing techniques, said Harvey. “These are impossible tasks for orbiting telescopes that have very fixed procedures for the instruments and observations.”
He also is working with the FORCAST team to interpret data gathered during the first science flight in order to carefully characterize SOFIA’s imaging capabilities for future users.
Harvey said he hopes to build a long-term program of specialized observations on SOFIA that eventually will involve data analysis by CU-Boulder students.
NASA hopes SOFIA will continue to fly astronomical science observations for the next two decades, with research flights expected to ramp up to two or three flights a week by 2015. SOFIA’s suite of instruments are expected to gather new information on a wide variety of astronomical targets, including black holes, distant galaxies, the formation of stars and planets, and up close views of comets and asteroids.
SOFIA is a joint project between NASA and the German Aerospace Center. SOFIA’s science and mission operations are managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association in Columbia, Md., and the Deutsches SOFIA Institut in Stuttgart, Germany.
SOURCE: CU PRESS RELEASE
CU-NASA RESEARCH CENTER TO STUDY SUN’S EFFECTS ON EARTH’S CLIMATE
Nov 30th
The center, called the Sun-Climate Research Center, or SCRC, will be co-directed by LASP Research Scientist Peter Pilewskie as well as Robert Cahalan, who heads Goddard’s Climate and Radiation Branch, and Douglas Rabin, head of Goddard’s Solar Physics Laboratory.
“The exciting thing about this collaboration is that we believe it will promote studies to help answer key questions about the climate system, including how Earth’s atmosphere responds to the sun’s variability and how that affects climate,” said Pilewskie, a faculty member in CU-Boulder’s atmospheric and oceanic sciences department. “This question is particularly important now as we seek to quantify the human-induced impact on Earth’s climate.”
Made possible by a Federal Space Act Agreement, SCRC will foster collaboration between Earth-atmosphere and solar sciences at the two institutions. Opportunities will include a scientist exchange program between the organizations and the ability for postdoctoral scientists and graduate students in science, engineering and mission operations to move between LASP and Goddard. The partnership also will include international research symposia on sun-climate interactions.
“In recent years Goddard and LASP have worked together on several Earth and sun missions,” said Cahalan. “Now we look forward to continuing to drive growth in this key interdisciplinary field of sun-Earth research, bringing new focus to the study of multiyear changes in the sun and its influence on Earth’s climate.”
According to the center’s co-directors, the SCRC represents a rare and innovative step that underscores LASP’s ability to take its high-caliber research and program opportunities to a new level with Goddard.
“LASP has developed some remarkable areas of expertise that are key to studying the sun and its effect on climate and on human activities,” said LASP Director Daniel Baker. “By working with our colleagues at Goddard, we can leverage our skills and help take an important step toward greater cooperation between NASA centers and leading university research teams.”
For more information on LASP visit http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/. For more information on NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html.
-CU-