nasa Archives – The Green Optimistic

NASA Gets New Eye to Watch Earth’s Ice Melt

Matthew Fiala — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 16:33:17 +0000

If everything goes as planned today, climate scientists will have a new satellite in the sky to keep a close watch on the melting of Earth’s ice. The new satellite, called ICESat-2, is scheduled to launch in California at 5:46 a.m. Pacific time. The launch will be shown live on nasa.gov. The satellite’s predecessor, ICESat, […]

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Mini-Carb – NASA’s Greenhouse Gas Measuring Instrument

Arsenij Percov — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 06:12:51 +0000

NASA has developed a novel instrument that will attempt to measure atmospheric greenhouse gases from an occultation-viewing, low-Earth-orbiting CubeSat mission, called Mini-Carb. The instrument has already proven its mettle on field campaigns. Emily Wilson, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, will try to fly a smaller version of her patented mini-Laser […]

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Study: How the Arctic Carbon Cycle is Being Disrupted

Arsenij Percov — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 18:32:59 +0000

According to a study led by NASA, using data from the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment shows that carbon in Alaska’s North Slope tundra ecosystems spends about 13 percent less in frozen soil compared to what it did 40 years ago. The carbon cycle is close to the levels of American boreal forest. Studies using Landsat […]

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“Maxwell”: Meet NASA’s Faster, More Efficient Electric Airplane

Courtney Lepping — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 14:04:52 +0000

Airplanes are a great convenience to society but not to the environment. Luckily, NASA is constructing an electric airplane designed to be more efficient and quiet. The new airplane, which was deemed X-57 by the Air Force, is expected to hold at most 9 passengers at a speed up to 175 miles per hour. It […]

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Solar Powered Travel Record Broken by NASA

Samantha Joe — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 08:48:02 +0000

A NASA spacecraft has set a new record for longest distance traveled when using solar power. Juno, the first solar powered spacecraft, was launched in 2011. On Wednesday, it was around 493 million miles away from the sun. Juno was specifically designed to be able to operate at such a far distance away, with a […]

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NASA’s New Wi-Fi Reflector Chip Boosts the Speed of Wearables

Satya Sivani — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 09:21:06 +0000

The Wi-Fi Reflector Chip, which has been developed for wearable devices by the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), together with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), reflects wireless signals instead of using regular transmitters and receivers. While wearable gadgets are finding their way into many sectors like health, security and entertainment, many new developments are […]

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NASA’s Origami Solar Panels

Satya Sivani — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 20:41:43 +0000

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers engineered solar panels inspired by the Japanese paper folding art, Origami. They are light, foldable and easily deployable. As far as I remember, a paper girl made out of a chocolate wrapper was my first origami artwork (though I came to know of the name ‘Origami’ only in my late teens). […]

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NASA Using Distributed Propulsion for Electric Airplane

Satya Sivani — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 12:22:51 +0000

An announcement made by NASA changes our perspective of Airplane wings and propulsion system. NASA announced its distributed propulsion design on which it was working since last year. The project, named Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller Technology (LEAPTech) was taken up by NASA in cooperation with Joby Aviation and Empirical Systems Aerospace (ESAero). To build electric planes, […]

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NASA’s New Solar Powered Space Travel Device Violates Laws of Physics

Benji Jerew — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 17:35:34 +0000

NASA just discovered that science classes nowadays are actually obsolete. A principle that violates any rule of physics known to man has recently been demonstrated to work in a solar powered device, by NASA themselves. Just to get off the planet requires a lot of energy, which means some sort of propellant must be expended. […]

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Megadrought Across Southwest U.S. Inevitable, NASA Predicts

Mila Luleva — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 13:01:55 +0000

NASA predicts a mega drought that is highly likely to alter the landscape of southwest America, if the world does not put an end to carbon emissions right now. Brace yourselves, you climate change deniers. It is all happening, and it actually seems to be worse than anyone have ever thought. A new study conducted […]

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NASA is Greening Up Airplanes, Making Them Quiet and Efficient

Mila Luleva — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 17:13:01 +0000

Emissions from air travel have been a topic of intense discussion over the past couple of years. The number of flights has risen greatly, while not much has been done on cutting down the amount of emissions. In their search for a solution to this pressing problem, NASA is looking into redesigning components of the airplanes […]

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NASA’s Latest Mission ARISE Determines Rates of Arctic Ice Melts

Mila Luleva — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 07:29:40 +0000

NASA’a quest to complete world’s knowledge and understanding of climate change continues with their latest mission ARISE. As of now until the end of October, various high-tech instruments placed on board of a C-130 plane will be measuring radiation levels and Arctic sea ice thickness. Climate change has an influence on every aspect of our lives– […]

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NASA Grants Proposals for Next-Generation Energy Storage Technologies

Mila Luleva — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 09:07:14 +0000

The need for advanced energy storage technologies is growing by the minute as new incredible developments in the field of electronics and renewable energy emerge continuously. The world on Earth (and beyond) is tired of waiting for the next best thing, so NASA has decided to put a full stop to this. The agency granted four innovative […]

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NASA’s MOXIE Makes Oxygen for Rocket Fuel from CO2 on Mars

Mila Luleva — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 09:06:32 +0000

If NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover has not managed to impress you already, the upcoming Mars 2020 Rover will definitely make your head spin. Among the seven super cool new instruments that will be carried on-board to Mars, the engineers are sending the ultimate machine that converts carbon dioxide into oxygen– the MOXIE. Short for Mars Oxygen […]

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Solar Power Space Engine Uses No Propellant

Benji Jerew — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 03:55:17 +0000

Once in space, unobstructed views make solar power the perfect source of continuous energy, but to move around still requires propellant. One common aspect of all space flight, whether sending microbes, monkeys, men, or machines, into space, is the exorbitant fuel expenditures just to get the stuff up there. Currently, to get any material to […]

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NASA Launches OCO-2 Satellite to Monitor Carbon After Two Failed Attempts

Mila Luleva — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 14:46:54 +0000

Third time is a charm, people say, and they are not wrong. After two failed attempts, a devastating one back in 2009, and another just a day before the actual take-off, NASA finally sent to space the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) Satellite. The mission will provide frequent measurements of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere and […]

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Scientists Recycle Urine to Produce Fresh Drinking Water and Energy

Mila Luleva — Wed, 21 May 2014 15:16:18 +0000

New renewable energy sources are being explored by scientists constantly. Inventions and discoveries flood the scientific journals, unfortunately often the experiments and findings do not materialize and remain only as a nicely formatted print. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, and one might well have just made it into the news. The new […]

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Climate Change – West Antarctic Ice Sheet Melt Won’t Stop Anytime Soon

Benji Jerew — Wed, 14 May 2014 16:17:23 +0000

According to a recent NASA study, climate change is showing its effects on the West Antarctic ice sheet, and it won’t stop. Watching the West Antarctic ice sheet disappear won’t be something worth a month-long trip, but perhaps take a couple hundred years. Even watching the annual ice breakup is a few weeks, but the […]

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NASA Cuts Down Car Fleet Emissions by Making It 100% Electric

Mila Luleva — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:55:58 +0000

NASA is constantly supporting and encouraging cool research, there is no doubt about that. But their latest experiment is one that can raise quite a few eyebrows- in a good way. The guys at the Kennedy Space Center decided to replace speculations and guesses with real numbers on how much carbon dioxide can be reduced […]

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NASA: Ozone Holes Have Not Begun To Recover

Mila Luleva — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 11:23:14 +0000

Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center established that the ozone layer has not begun to recover despite the ban on the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. With the help of satellite data, the team was able to monitor changes in size of the second largest ozone hole located over Antarctica, and found that meteorological conditions […]

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Lethal Air Pollution Mapped by NASA’s Earth Observatory

Benji Jerew — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:08:30 +0000

Air pollution has been linked with many detrimental health effects, and we’ve long known that we need to clean up our act if quality of life is going to be maintained. Cleaning up air pollution, of course, has been a long and difficult road, oftentimes mistaken for an expensive and economically detrimental path by the […]

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NASA One Step Closer to Using Efficient Greener Spacecraft Fuel

Mila Luleva — Sun, 14 Jul 2013 09:45:53 +0000

NASA plans to introduce the Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM), a safe and clean alternative to the toxic satellite fuel hydrazine. The green propellant will be first introduced on a test flight in 2015. During a briefing with aerospace industry officials held in Colorado earlier this week, the space agency announced the successful completion of the initial […]

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NASA and the Environment: 10 Eco-Projects They’re Involved In

Mila Luleva — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 19:04:49 +0000

With climate change becoming one of the most widely discussed and pressing problems in recent years, protecting and caring about the environment has become the main goal of many major organizations and governmental agencies. One such agency is NASA. Opposite to common beliefs that exploration of the Earth surface is their main aim, NASA has […]

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NASA Says Nuclear Power Saved Millions of Lives

Mila Luleva — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:57:39 +0000

Nuclear power has been found to have saved millions of lives by being an alternative source of energy to fossil fuels, according to a recent study by scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute. Quantifying health damage caused by burning of fossil fuels has always been a challenge to researchers. Nuclear power is often considered as […]

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Solar Wind Energy Source Determined by Astronomers

Leigh Hutchens — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 04:15:16 +0000

A group of astronomers attempting to determine what heats and accelerates solar wind discovered that data from an ageing NASA spacecraft might provide some clues. Justin Kasper of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his team of astronomers processed an old NASA spacecraft’s entire 19-year record of solar wind temperatures, magnetic field, and energy readings […]

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Tracks of Shipping Pollution Indicate Link to Nitrogen Dioxide

Leigh Hutchens — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:39:32 +0000

NASA has been using satellite imagery to collect data on the tracks ships leave when they cross bodies of water. Tracking this visible shipping pollution has demonstrated that a tremendous amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions has resulted. NASA collected the data using its Aura satellite from 2005 to 2012. Scientists are trying to figure […]

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NASA Uses World’s Largest Solar Sail for Asteroid-Exploring Missions

Leigh Hutchens — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:38:42 +0000

In 2014, NASA will be launching the world’s largest solar sail ever built. Sunjammer, the solar sail spacecraft, will act as a test bed for the new technology. If successful, the technology will be used in future missions to near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and maybe even missions beyond the solar system. The name Sunjammer was taken […]

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NASA Develops Better Airborne Wind Power System

Maria Reyes — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 15:19:03 +0000

NASA is developing an airborne wind-power system that is expected to be more efficient than land-based tower turbines. The system has two components. One is a set of turbines attached to a kite that generates electricity. The other is a ground-based generator connected to the kite and powered by the kite’s motion. The reeling phase […]

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NASA Seeking Green Fuels for Future Spaceships

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:43:13 +0000

In an effort to cut costs associated with maintenance and operational hazards, but to also green up their activities, NASA is actively seeking anyone who could give them a better, alternative fuel solution for flying their spacecraft. Hydrazine is currently used to propel the ships, and it does its job very well. On the other […]

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NASA Forward Osmosis Bag Transforms Urine Into Drinking Water

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:27:30 +0000

If you ever saw Bear Grylls and his gross pee-drinking desert adventure, then you know you shouldn't drink that liquid (mostly when it's hot like soup and stinks like nothing else on Earth). NASA has nevertheless discovered a solution to this "problem" by inventing a bag that filters anything, from pee to dirty water and transforms it into a drinkable liquid.

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NASA and U.S. Air Force Testing Recycled Chicken-Fat Fuel

Mike Sandru — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 18:57:54 +0000

It is not sure how the idea came about, but it is official: the US Air Force and even NASA are currently undergoing tests to see if recycled chicken fat could replace jet fuel.

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MIT Designs Fuel-Efficient Airplanes That Emit Less NOx for NASA

Mike Sandru — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:23:53 +0000

A team of engineers from MIT have designed fuel-efficient aircraft that are expected to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides and unlike conventional models, to consume 70 percent less fuel.

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NASA is Producing Biofuel from Algae Grown in Sewages

Cristi — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:41:12 +0000

NASA has recently been very interested not only in space exploration but as well in the rising energy costs and climate change. NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, has developed a system of growing algae in waste-water for the biofuel production.

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Lightnings Found to Produce 10% of Atmospheric NOx Greenhouse Gas

Cristi — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:49:26 +0000

Every year, scientists learn something new about the power of lightning. With the helps of the satellites they have created a lightning map for the globe, which shows that Rwanda has the most flashes per square kilometer, while the flashes at the polar regions occur rarely. Every year, 1,2 million flashes occur around the world.

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Hydrogenius Electric Airplane Competing for $1.65m NASA Prize

Mike Sandru — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:45:34 +0000

Researchers and designers at the University of Stuttgart's Institute of Aircraft Design (IFB) have announced that they'll begin the construction of a zero-emission electric aircraft powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The aircraft, called Hydrogenius will compete in NASA's Green Flight Challenge competition.

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A New "Open Rotor" Jet Engine That Could Reduce Fuel Consumption

Mike Sandru — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:04:40 +0000

NASA and GE Aviation are testing a new “open rotor” jet engine with a different design that puts the fan blades on the outside of the engine. The jet fuel consumption will be reduced by more than 30 percent. In the 80s, NASA and GE designed the engine named GE36, and developed it into a […]

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Animated CO2 Map of the United States

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:24:19 +0000

Some researchers from the Purdue University have made up a project revealing the CO2 emissions over the United States. They made a video showing the “hottest” areas in which CO2 is produced by several sources: power plants, factories, vehicle traffic. Kevin Gurney, the leader in the project, told The New York Times: “The resulting database […]

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