Heavens

An electronic device is an accurate technique for locating and avoiding nerves during spinal procedures, suggests a study by Henry Ford Hospital researchers.

The issue becomes important for patients as the demand for minimally invasive surgical techniques continues to grow, so does the need for effective methods for monitoring the location of nerves during surgery to avoid damage to them.

It is expected that Earth-based ESA stations will take part in controlling Phobos-Grunt, receiving telemetry and making trajectory measurements, including implementation of very long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). This cooperation is realized on the basis of the agreement on collaboration of the Russian Federal Space Agency and ESA in the framework of the 'Phobos-Grunt' and 'ExoMars' projects.

Menlo Park, Calif. — Desktop experiments could point the way to dark matter discovery, complementing grand astronomical searches and deep underground observations. According to recent theoretical results, small blocks of matter on a tabletop could reveal elusive properties of the as-yet-unidentified dark matter particles that make up a quarter of the universe, potentially making future large-scale searches easier.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity explains gravity in terms of the curvature of space by mass. Dating from the second decade of the 20th century, after more than 90 years it is still the basis of our understanding of how gravity works to shape the cosmos.

But gravity as we know it cannot account for an inflationary universe so theoretical physicists have postulated a universe filled with dark matter and dark energy, still undefined but, as they say, necessary unless gravity does not work.

Meet asteroid 1999 RQ36, a chunk of rock and dust about 1,900 feet in diameter that could tell us how the solar system was born, and perhaps, shed light on how life began. It also might hit us someday.

"This asteroid is a time capsule from before the birth of our solar system," said Bill Cutlip of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., one of the leaders of Goddard's effort to propose a mission called OSIRIS-REx that will return a sample from RQ36.

The second–ever known tropical cyclone in the South Atlantic Ocean can't escape satellite eyes, and today, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-12 captured a visible image of Tropical Storm 90Q now located off the coast of Argentina.

NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Ului during the morning hours (Eastern Time) on March 12 and noticed a large area of strong convection in the storm's center, indicating strengthening.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on Aqua captured an infrared image of Ului, formerly Tropical Depression 20P, on March 12 at 14:17 a.m. ET (9:17 a.m. ET). The infrared image showed a well –developed storm with a large cluster of high, cold (colder than minus 63 Fahrenheit), strong thunderstorms around the center of Tropical Storm Ului.

Tropical Storm Tomas is on a southern track in the South Pacific Ocean, and residents of Nadi, Fiji will be watching it as it approaches the eastern side of the island late this weekend. A tropical cyclone alert is in effect for all of Fiji this weekend.

Nadi is located on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu, Fiji. Fiji Standard Time is 17 hours later than Eastern Standard Time.

A team led by Princeton University scientists has tested Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity to see if it holds true at cosmic scales. And, after two years of analyzing astronomical data, the scientists have concluded that Einstein's theory, which describes the interplay between gravity, space and time, works as well in vast distances as in more local regions of space.

Space physicists from the University of Leicester are part of an international team that has identified the impact of the Sun on Mars' atmosphere.

Writing in the AGU journal Geophysics Research Letters, the scientists report that Mars is constantly losing part of its atmosphere to space.

The new study shows that pressure from solar wind pulses is a significant contributor to Mars's atmospheric escape.

The outer layers of Earth's atmosphere hold many secrets yet to be uncovered and three scientific instruments will fly soon on the FASTSAT-HSV01 satellite and seek to uncover them to benefit us here on Earth. Known as MINI-ME, PISA and TTI, these instruments recently passed a series of important final tests to prove their readiness for spaceflight.

These instruments were conceived and built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and were integrated to the satellite and tested at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

System 97P was looking pretty impressive on NASA satellite imagery early today, March 11, and by 10 a.m. ET, it strengthened into Tropical Storm Tomas.

Forecasters at the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) have posted a tropical cyclone alert for the South Pacific islands of Wallis and Futuna on March 11 at 05:53 UTC (12:53 a.m. ET). The FMS has also designated the storm as "Tropical Depression 14F."

Hubert may not be a tropical storm now that it has made landfall in southeastern Madagascar, but it's still a formidable and large storm system. NASA's Aqua satellite revealed that there are still some very high, strong thunderstorms in Hubert's remnants as it continues to bring rains and gusty winds to southeast and south-central Madagascar.

PHILADELPHIA –- Millions of people in both the developing and developed world may benefit from new immune-system research findings from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

The Penn Vet researchers, studying how the immune system operates, have discovered a previously unidentified cell population that may be the body's double-edged sword, fighting off parasitic infections but also causing the harmful immune responses that can lead to allergies and asthma.

Which waves are responsible? Both of them. "Both VLF and ULF waves accelerate electrons in Earth's radiation belts, but with different timescales. The ULF waves are much faster than the VLF, due to their much larger amplitudes," says Qiugang Zong from Peking University (China) and University of Massachusetts Lowell (USA), lead author of the paper describing this result.