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<ul><li><strong>ISRO will export technology from the US for mass production of <keyword id="6732656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="space-solar-cells">space solar cells</keyword> to power Indian <keyword id="41530" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="satellites">satellites</keyword>. <br /></strong></li><li><strong>Until now, <keyword id="3658" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> was procuring the solar cells from private American companies.<br /></strong></li><li><strong>This will make India more independent and will also reduce the expenses incurred because of the expensive exports.<br /><br /></strong></li></ul>ISRO has recently purchased technology for <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/soon-desi-solar-cells-to-power-satellites-in-space/articleshow/65096319.cms">space solar cells</a> from the US. Mass production of these solar cells is expected to start taking place in Bangalore soon and these cells will be used to power satellites in space and keep it functional. Unlike the conventional solar cells, these new ones are expected to be highly sophisticated and efficient. <br /><br />Before the country decided to buy this technology, India was procuring solar cells from private American companies at rather expensive rates. Furthermore, there were restrictions on buying them in bulk. Our satellite programmes were completely dependant on these cells and without the tech to make more indigenously, there was little else to do but to count wholly on the transaction. <br /><br />Producing a small remote-sensing satellite requires about 1,500 solar cells, while big satellites like <keyword id="483986" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="GSAT">GSAT</keyword> or geosynchronous satellites, which are communication satellites, needs 10,000 to 15,000 cells. Each of these cells had to be imported and therefore the whole process cost a lot. However, the cost is expected to go down several times once mass production begins in India.<br /><br /><keyword id="6425802" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="bharat-electronics">Bharat Electronics</keyword> Limited has been given the contract to mass-produce solar cells at an ISRO facility in Bengaluru under the supervision of the organisation’s scientists. <br /><br />These satellites, once launched in space, open up their wings, that have the solar cells, to absorb sunlight and turn solar power to electricity. The satellite is kept up and functioning by these cells and will maintain power and working capacity unless the cells last. Once the cells die out, the satellite powers down, stops functioning and becomes space debri. <br />

ISRO exports tech from US to produce solar cells for satellites in space

<p><div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source on-image"><a href="http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-media/press-releases/presseinformationen-2013/world-record-solar-cell-with-44.7-efficiency">Fraunhofer Institute</a></p></div></div>A German-French research team has created a <keyword id="45681" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Solar">solar</keyword> cell that can convert 44.7% of the sunlight it receives into energy. </p>
<p>That's a new world record (though as CleanTechnica points out <a href="http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/24/new-solar-cell-efficiency-record-of-44-7-set/">some places measure efficiency differently</a>).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-media/press-releases/presseinformationen-2013/world-record-solar-cell-with-44.7-efficiency">According to a release from team co-leader the Fraunhofer Institute in Munich</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the group created a solar unit made up of four solar cells stacked on top of one another.</span></p>
<p>The cells were made of<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> nitrogen- and boron-based compounds that enjoy high conductivity or electron mobility - basically, it's easier for charged particles to move through the cells.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That technology was originally used in space applications. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The team also came up with a new way of binding the cells that further increased efficiency:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>"Besides improved materials and optimization of the structure, a new procedure called wafer bonding plays a central role. With this technology, we are able to connect two semiconductor crystals, which otherwise cannot be grown on top of each other with high crystal quality. In this way we can produce the optimal semiconductor combination to create the highest efficiency solar cells." </span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The new cell would eventually be used in concentrated photovoltaic installations, <a href="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2013/03/how-solar-pv-is-winning-over-csp">which happens to be the fastest-growing type of solar power.</a></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Fifty percent efficiency is considered the holy grail within the solar world</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Given <a href="http://optics.org/news/4/5/37">this same team already had a world record of 43.6% in May</a> before surpassing it with this new cell, that now seems to be within reach.</span></p>

Scientists Break The World Record For The Most Efficient Solar Cell

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Japan successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon for the first time in the nation's history.</li><li>But the spacecraft isn't generating solar energy to power is suite of scientific instruments.</li></ul><p>On Friday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced that its SLIM spacecraft had successfully <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">landed on the moon</a>.</p><p>It's a momentous day for the nation as the landing marks the first time Japan has ever softly touched down on the lunar surface.</p><p>The feat makes Japan the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jaxas-slim-spacecraft-japan-first-moon-landing-attempt-2023-12">third nation to land on the moon</a> in the 21st century, behind China and India, and the fifth nation to ever do so.</p><p>But the spacecraft isn't generating solar power. It's running on batteries, which are rapidly depleting and only have a few hours left of life, JAXA said in a <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/JAXA_en/status/1748345554655228118">press conference</a> following the touchdown.</p><p>So JAXA is racing against the clock, trying to extract as much data from the spacecraft as possible before the batteries run out.</p><p>The spacecraft snapped pictures of the lunar surface as it descended, which JAXA hopes to beam back to Earth. The agency also hopes to obtain data on what happened during the descent to assess the spacecraft's status.</p><h2>The mission isn't over yet</h2><div type="image" title="Photo of Shioli crater taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter." height="3000" width="3000" msid="106998451" hostid="261" sizebytes="628492"></div><p>SLIM, short for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon," was scheduled to touch down near a small impact crater, called Shioli crater, on the near side of the moon — the side that faces Earth.</p><p>It has a suite of scientific instruments and two tiny rovers. But many of these instruments may go unused if the spacecraft can't generate solar energy to power them.</p><p>It's unclear why the solar cells on SLIM aren't working. One reason could be that they are angled in the wrong direction, Hitoshi Kuninaka, the head of JAXA's space lab, said during the press conference.</p><p>If that's the case, then there's still a possibility that, as the moon moves through space, the angle of the sun will change and could strike the panels, powering them up, Kuninaka added.</p><p>JAXA said the solar cell issue doesn't mean the end of the mission but that it needs to reassess the state of the spacecraft to determine its next steps.</p><p>Even though the mission didn't go exactly according to plan, Kuninaka said that JAXA considers it a success since the spacecraft successfully touched down on the moon.</p>

Japan has landed a spacecraft on the moon for the first time, but the mission didn't go exactly according to plan

<p>Nature, one of the most important scientific journals out there, just announced the winners of its <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/1.14367" target="_blank">2013 Most Important People of the Year</a>. You've probably never heard of many of them.</p>
<p>The winners were chosen based on their work and connections to some of the biggest stories of the year, including the Russian Meteor and the infant who was "functionally cured" of HIV.</p>
<p>You can read the full descriptions of <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/1.14367" target="_blank">the winners' work in this week's Nature</a>. Here's our synopsis.</p>
<p><strong>Feng Zhang, MIT - For editing DNA.</strong></p>
<p>Zhang is a biologist, but his big development this year is more biochemical in nature. He adapted the RNA sequences that bacteria use to edit DNA to make it easier for scientists to manipulate it cheaply, easily, and precisely in the lab. His finding that this system works in mammalian cells was <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6121/819.full" target="_blank">published Jan.3 in Science.</a></p>
<p><strong>Tania Simoncelli, The American Civil Liberties Union - Defending the freedom of human genes.</strong></p>
<p>After years of battle, the ACLU finally reached the highest court in the land - the U.S. Supreme Court - to defend the right of human genes to be free. They went up against Myriad Genetics, which had patented the human BRCA gene to use in their breast cancer risk test kit. The ACLU <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-says-dna-cant-be-patented-2013-6" target="_blank">won the case on June 13</a> of this year.</p>
<p><strong>Deboarah Persaud, Johns Hopkins University - "Functionally" curing a toddler of HIV.</strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Johns Hopkins Medicine</span></p><p class="caption">Deboarah Persaud, of Johns Hopkins University, "functionally cured" an infant of HIV.</p></div><p></p></div> A first in the anti-HIV field, a baby that was infected with HIV when born was "functionally cured" of the virus when doctors started anti-retroviral therapy very early on during its life. It was found to be free of the virus even after five months off of drugs. The find was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/doctors-say-they-have-cured-baby-of-hiv-2013-3">published in the New England Journal Of Medicine in March</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Michel Mayor, University of Geneva - Finding a sister Earth.</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Cristina Sanchis Ojeda</span></p><p class="caption">Kepler 78b is a very Earth-like exoplanet found this year.</p></div><p></p></div>After thousands of exoplanets have been found circling stars out there in the night sky, what's one more? It's the most important when that one more is Kepler 78b - the first Earth-like planet found. Mayor and his team found the planet, which is so close to its star that its surface is molten. Mayor found the first exoplanet in 1995, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/exoplanet-kepler-78b-earth-twin-2013-10">discovered this latest in October</a>, just before he'd planned to retire.</p>
<p><strong>Naderev Saño, Philippines delegate to the U.N. - Fasting for climate change.</strong></p>
<p>When Typhoon Haiyan ravaged his home country of the Philippines, Saño was at the United Nations climate talks in Warsaw. After a tearful and moving speech, he fasted for 14 days until the delegates reached a deal to keep climate negotiations on track.</p>
<p><strong>Viktor Grokhovsky, Ural Federal University - Hunting down the Russian Meteorite.</strong></p>
<p>After the Chelyabinsk meteor exploded over Russia in February, Grokhovsky spent weeks tracking down individual pieces of the space rock. He worked to analyze the meteor's trajectory as it entered the atmosphere, and analyzed how big it might have been when it exploded.</p>
<p><strong>Hualan Chen, of China's National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory - For tracking the new H7N9 bird flu virus.</strong></p>
<p>Less than two days after confirming a new and deadly bird flu virus was infecting people in China, Chen's team set to work to find out where it was coming from - the live poultry markets in Shanghai. The quick (and transparent) reaction to the emerging virus has been widely appreciated by the world's infectious disease community. She also published a paper describing what mutations it would take to make the virus jump between mammals better.</p>
<p><strong>Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Oregon Health &amp; <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> University - For cloning cells from an embryo.</strong></p>
<p>Embryonic stem cells made with a person's own DNA would hold the potential to cure any number of diseases. After years of fighting red tape to do this cloning experiment in humans, Mitalipov created a stem cell line with all the properties of an embryonic stem cell but also all the DNA of the donor "adult" skin cell. His work was published <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/human-clone-embryonic-stem-cell-lines-2013-5">in the journal Cell in May</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Kathryn Clancy, University of Illinois, Champaign - Unearthing sexual harassment in the field.</strong></p>
<p>After hearing stories of women being sexually assaulted while doing fieldwork, Clancy took action and started polling colleagues about their experiences. She found that 59% of people responding to their survey had experienced inappropriate sexual comments, and 18% reported physical harassment.</p>
<p><strong>Henry Snaith, Oxford Photovalics - For making better solar panels.</strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Oxford Photovoltaics</span></p><p class="caption">Henry Snaith, of Oxford Photovalics developed a new type of solar cell that's cheap and efficient. </p></div><p></p></div><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Snaith used a special type of semiconductor to make cheaper and more efficient solar cells. His work pushed this new type of solar cell to the forefront of the field. It was published in the </span><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/344.abstract" target="_blank">journal Science in October</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>

10 People You've Never Heard Were Just Named The Most Important Scientists Of The Year 

<p><em><a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng" target="_blank">Policy Horizons Canada</a> worked with futurist and data visualizer <a href="http://www.michellzappa.com/" target="_blank">Michell Zappa</a> of <a href="http://envisioningtech.com/" target="_blank">Envisioning</a> to produce a report called <a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/metascan-3-emerging-technologies-0" target="_blank">MetaScan 3: Emerging Technologies</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/emerging-technologies-that-will-change-the-world-2014-4">accompanying infographics</a>. We are reproducing the summary for <a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/energy-technology">emerging energy technologies.</a></em></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p><p class="caption">Space-based solar power could be scientifically viable by 2025.</p></div><p></p></div>Below are technologies related to energy under three key areas of accelerating change: Storage, Smart grid and Electricity generation. Energy storage involves new, cost-effective ways of storing energy, either in improved batteries, as new fuels or other ways. A smart grid is a set of technologies that pairs information with moving electricity around, enabling more efficient generation and use of energy. Electricity generation is characterized by technologies that generate power from unused sources and that more efficiently produce electric power or fuels from sources in use today.</p>
<p>We have included predictions based on consultation with experts of when each technology will be scientifically viable (the kind of stuff that Google, governments, and universities develop), mainstream (when VCs and startups widely invest in it), and financially viable (when the technology is generally available on Kickstarter).</p>
<h2>Storage</h2>
<p><strong>Fuel cells:</strong> Unlike batteries, fuel cells require a constant source of fuel and oxygen to run, but they can produce electricity continually for as long as these inputs are supplied. They inherently displace the need for natural gas turbines, and are ideally used for stationary power generation or large passenger vehicles such as buses (especially at energy-dense future iterations of the technology).</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream in 2015; and financially viable in 2016.</p>
<p><strong>Lithium-air batteries:</strong> Advances in materials technology is enabling the advance of high energy Li-air batteries which promise an energy density that rivals gasoline, offering a five-fold increase compared to traditional Li-Ion batteries. By using atmospheric oxygen instead of an internal oxidizer, these batteries could dramatically extend electric vehicle range.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream in 2018; and financially viable in 2020.</p>
<p><strong>Hydrogen energy storage &amp; transport:</strong> Hypothetical evolution of existing power grids, transporting and storing hydrogen instead of electricity. Could be used in combination with various kinds of energy transformation methods, minimizing loss and maximizing storage capacity.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2019; mainstream in 2021; and financially viable in 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Thermal storage:</strong> Often accumulated from active solar collector or from combined heat and power plants, and transferred to insulated repositories for use later in various applications, such as space heating, domestic or process water heating.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2022; mainstream in 2024; and financially viable in 2027.</p>
<h2>Smart Grid</h2>
<p><strong>First-generation smart grid: </strong>Electrical meters that record consumption of electric energy in real time while communicating the information back to the utility for monitoring and billing purposes. Can be used for remote load-balancing such as disabling non-essential devices at peak usage</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2014; mainstream in 2015; and financially viable in 2016.</p>
<p><strong>Distributed generation: </strong>Generates electricity from many small energy sources instead of large centralized facilities. Centralized power plants offer economies of scale, but waste power during transmission, and are inefficient in rapidly adapting to grid needs.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream in 2021; and financially viable in 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Smart energy network:</strong> Speculative global energy &amp; power infrastructure and set of standards which can be used interchangeably. Could theoretically mimic characteristics of the Internet in channeling heat, energy, natural gas (and conceivably hydrogen) from local and distant sources depending on global demand.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2019; mainstream and financially viable in 2020.</p>
<h2>Electricity Generation</h2>
<p><strong>Tidal turbines:</strong> A form of hydropower that converts tidal energy into electricity. Currently used in small scale, with the potential for great expansion.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2015; mainstream and financially viable in 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Micro stirling engines:</strong> Micrometer sized power generators that transform energy into compression and expansion strokes. Could hypothetically be 3D-printed on the fly and cover entire heat-generating surfaces in order to generate power.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2020; mainstream in 2026; and financially viable in 2027.</p>
<p><strong>Solar panel positioning robots:</strong> Small-scale robots able to re-position solar panels depending on weather conditions. More efficient than attaching each panel to motorized tracking assemblies.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2014; mainstream in 2016; and financially viable in 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Second-generation biofuels:</strong> New biofuel technologies, such as cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel from microalgae, promise to produce conventional fuel-compatible energy at low or zero greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2016; mainstream in 2017; and financially viable in 2021.</p>
<p><strong>Photovoltaic transparent glass:</strong> Glass with integrated solar cells which converts IR and some visible light into electricity. This means that the power for an entire building can be supplemented using the roof and façade areas.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream in 2020; and financially viable in 2021.</p>
<p><strong>Third-generation biofuels:</strong> Moving beyond today's organisms, 3rd generation biofuels involve genetic modification of organisms to produce new fuels by unconventional means. Examples include direct production of hydrogen from highly efficient algae, and production of energy-dense furans for automotive use.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2022; mainstream in 2024; and financially viable in 2025.</p>
<p><strong>Space-based solar power: </strong>Collecting solar power in space, beamed back as microwaves to the surface. A projected benefit of such a system is much higher collection rates than what is possible on earth. In space, transmission of solar energy is unaffected by the filtering effects of atmospheric gasses.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2025; mainstream in 2027; and financially viable in 2028+.</p>
<p><strong>Micro-nuclear reactors:</strong> A small, sealed version of a nuclear reactor (approximately a few tens of meters in length) capable of being shipped or flown to a site. Currently able to provide 10 MW of power, plans are for 50 MW capacity in the near future.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2022; mainstream and financially viable in 2023.</p>
<p><strong>Inertial confinement fusion (break-even):</strong> An approach to fusion that relies on the inertia of the fuel mass to provide confinement. To achieve conditions under which inertial confinement is sufficient for efficient thermonuclear burn, a capsule (generally a spherical shell) containing thermonuclear fuel is compressed in an implosion process to conditions of high density and temperature.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream and financially viable in 2021.</p>
<p><strong>Thorium Reactor:</strong> Thorium can be used as fuel in a nuclear reactor, allowing it to be used to produce nuclear fuel in a breeder reactor. Some benefits are that thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste and comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2025; mainstream in 2026; and financially viable in 2027.</p>

17 Emerging Energy Technologies That Will Change The World

Washington, An astronomer has spotted a <keyword id="10464386" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="little-tiny-speck">little tiny speck</keyword> flying past the Sun which is a recently discovered <keyword id="10464385" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="rare-comet">rare comet</keyword>, as the world witnessed the <keyword id="1450436" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="total-solar-eclipse">total solar eclipse</keyword> this month.<br /><br />This comet was first spotted in satellite data by Thai amateur astronomer Worachate Boonplod on the NASA-funded <keyword id="10464387" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="sungrazer-project">Sungrazer Project</keyword>, as Chile and Argentina witnessed the total solar eclipse on December 14, reports NASA.<br /><br />Around the time the eclipse image was taken, the comet was travelling at roughly 7,24,205 kms per hour, about 4.3 million kms from the Sun's surface.<br /><br />The comet was around 50 feet in diameter -- about the length of a semi truck. It then disintegrated to dust particles due to intense solar radiation, a few hours before reaching its closest point to the Sun.<br /><br />Sungrazer is a citizen science project that invites anyone to search for and discover new comets in images from the joint <keyword id="59844" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="European-Space-Agency">European Space Agency</keyword> (ESA) and NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO.<br /><br />Boonplod discovered the comet a day before the eclipse.<br /><br />"He knew the eclipse was coming, and was eager to see whether his new comet discovery might appear in the Sun's outer atmosphere as a small speck in eclipse photographs," the US space agency said in a statement late on Saturday.<br /><br />The comet, named C/2020 X3 (SOHO) by the Minor Planet Center, is a "Kreutz" sungrazer.<br /><br />This family of comets originated from a large parent comet that broke up into smaller fragments well over a thousand years ago and continues to orbit around the Sun today.<br /><br />Kreutz sungrazing comets are most commonly found in SOHO images.<br /><br />To date, 4,108 comets have been discovered in SOHO images, with this comet being the 3,524th Kreutz sungrazer spotted, according to NASA.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/wistron-apple-iphone-manufacturer-could-face-these-penalties-if-found-guilty/articleshow/79790319.cms">If investigators find Wistron management guilty, here's what is at stake for the company</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/heres-what-analysts-say-if-you-should-subscribe-or-not-to-the-300-crore-ipo-of-antony-waste-handling-cell/articleshow/79790998.cms">Antony Waste Handling Cell ₹300-crore IPO will open on Monday— these are the risks and opportunities</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/ikea-india-cfo-says-she-still-has-3500-crore-to-be-spent-in-india-the-pandemic-has-changed-targets-but-not-the-investment-plan/articleshow/79790938.cms">INTERVIEW: Ikea CFO says she still has ₹3,500 crore to be spent in India⁠— the pandemic has changed targets but not the investment plan</a></strong><br />

Astronomer discovers rare comet near the sun during total solar eclipse

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A new terminal at New York's JFK will be partly powered by a microgrid, batteries, and fuel cells.</li><li>AlphaStruxure, the project developer, said that would produce 38% less greenhouse-gas emissions. </li></ul><p>A massive transformation of New York City's largest airport is underway, and developers are touting its sustainability credentials. </p><p>John F. Kennedy International Airport's $9.5 billion New Terminal One will be partly powered by a microgrid with 11.34 megawatts of electricity from rooftop solar, gas fuel cells, and battery storage. A system that captures waste heat from the fuel cells will chill and warm water.</p><p>AlphaStruxure, a joint venture of the private equity firm Carlyle Group and France's Schneider Electric, announced Thursday that it would construct and operate the energy project after winning a contract from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, and <a href="https://www.anewjfk.com/projects/the-new-terminal-one/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the New Terminal One consortium</a>, a privately financed group of labor, operating, and financial partners.</p><p>"Solving our energy challenge really comes down to three things: electrifying, digitizing, and decarbonizing by getting more electricity from renewable sources. Microgrids are key to achieving all of this," Annette Clayton, the CEO of Schneider Electric North America, said during a press briefing.</p><p>The rooftop solar array — made up of more than 13,000 panels — will be the largest in New York City and at any US airport terminal, AlphaStruxure said.</p><div type="image" title="Rendering of a microgrid equipment at JFK airport" height="2000" width="2666" msid="97358544" hostid="261"></div><p>The microgrid is expected to generate about what 3,570 average US homes would use in a year. Each "power island," with fuel cells and battery storage, will be digitized and automated. The islands can operate independently, though they'll be interconnected as one system. Three are set to be completed by 2026, with the final power island coming online by 2029, AlphaStruxure said.</p><p>The microgrid will allow New Terminal One to operate independently of the city's power grid — maybe indefinitely — in case of an emergency like extreme weather, Juan Macias, the CEO of AlphaStruxure, said. The system will also produce 38% less greenhouse-gas emissions compared with sourcing all electricity from the grid, according to AlphaStruxure. </p><p>Installing fuel cells, instead of diesel generators, is estimated to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, a toxic air pollutant, by 98%, Macias added. The fuel cells will use natural gas from the power grid but are designed to accommodate greener fuels as those are commercialized, such as hydrogen made from renewable energy. </p><p>The terminal will feature large, naturally lit public spaces and amenities designed to enhance travelers' experiences, <a href="https://www.anewjfk.com/projects/the-new-terminal-one/#1597669533779-ff1ad7fc-2093" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the New Terminal One consortium</a>.</p><p>Construction began in September. The first of 23 gates are expected to open in 2026, and the work is set to be completed by 2030.</p><div type="image" title="rendering of New Terminal One at JFK airport" height="1080" width="1440" msid="97358547" hostid="261"></div>

JFK airport's new terminal will be powered by a microgrid and the largest rooftop solar array in New York City

<p align="left">The editors of the journal <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> have chosen cancer immunotherapy - using the body's immune system to attack tumors instead of targeting the tumor itself - as the biggest breakthrough of <keyword id="133644" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="2013">2013</keyword>.</p>
<p align="left">"Cancer immunotherapy clinched the #1 spot because it's causing such a paradigm shift among researchers in how they tackle cancer," the journal's editorial team wrote in a statement.</p>
<p align="left">The technique involves training immune cells to recognize the characteristics of cancer cells, and then fight back. There's still a lot of work ahead since the treatment has only worked for a few patients and some types of cancers so far, but the results from clinical trials offer hope for a new weapon against cancer.</p>
<p align="left">Nine other groundbreaking achievements that were chosen from this year are detailed below.</p>
<h3>Scientists discover the first real reason we need sleep</h3>
<p>By studying a newfound pathway in mice, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-real-reason-we-need-to-sleep-2013-10">scientists identified the first major mechanical reason we need to sleep</a>: to clean the brain. When the brain is sleeping, channels between cells grow. This allows cerebrospinal fluid into the depths of the brain tissues to flush out toxic proteins that build up during the day, including the kind that are responsible for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.</p>
<h3><div class="image-container full"><div class="image"><p class="source">Xie, et. al, Science, 2013.</p><p class="caption">When mice sleep, ?uid-filled channels (pale blue) between neurons expand and flush out waste.</p></div></div>A gene-editing tool called <strong>CRISPR soars in popularity</strong></h3>
<p>CRISPR, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, was discovered in bacteria where it operates like an immune system against invading viruses. The structure is made up of a series of repeated stretches broken up by short "spacer" sequences. The short sequences come from viruses that infected the bacterial cell. Researchers use CRISPR as a gene-editing tool to "cut DNA at precise locations - and at several sites at once, if desired - so that they can test the effects of mutations inside a cell," <a href="http://www.genengnews.com/insight-and-intelligence/crispr-madness/77899947/" target="_blank">Patricia Fitzpatrick explains in Genetic Engineering &amp; Biotechnology News</a>. This year, dozens of teams of researchers have used the revolutionary technique to "manipulate the genomes of various plant, animal and human cells," the editors of Science write.</p>
<p class="full"><div class="image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source">K. SUTLIFF/ SCIENCE</p><p class="caption">To home in on the right DNA, the Cas9 protein links up with guide RNA that  has a target-speci?c sequence. Once attached, Cas9 has two active sites that cut the DNA in the  right place. </p></div></div></p>
<h3><strong>Scientists Succeed In Growing A Variety Of Mini-Organs</strong></h3>
<p><strong></strong>Mini organs grown in the lab, called "organoids," provide scientists with new ways to test drugs and examine diseases in a human context. This year, Austrian researchers grew <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-grew-mini-human-brains-from-stem-cells-2013-8">mini human brains</a>, three-dimensional blobs of tissue about the size of an apple seed. The tiny brains have no blood supply, but still provide a better biological model than, say, mice for researchers to understand how the brain develops and study disorders.</p>
<p class="full"><div class="image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source">Institute for Molecular Biotechnology</p><p class="caption">A cross-section of an entire organoid showing development of different brain regions.</p></div></div></p>
<h3>Researchers recognize the importance of microbes for our health</h3>
<p><strong></strong>Researchers are finally understanding that bacteria and other organisms that live in the human body can be good for us. The body hosts trillions of tiny organisms called microbes. Some microbes, or "germs," cause diseases, but the majority of them are harmless and others even benefit our immune and digestive systems, scientists have found. This year, gut microbes have been shown to influence anticancer therapies in humans and play a role in weight loss and protection again allergies and asthma in studies of mice.</p>
<h3><strong>Perovskite cells show promise for high-efficiency, inexpensive solar power</strong></h3>
<p>A <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/131112/ncomms3761/full/ncomms3761.html" target="_blank">new solar cell material called perovskite</a> showed great promise this year as a low-cost, more efficient alternative to traditional silicon-based cells. Within four years of development, perovskite cells reached efficiency levels that took more than a decade for technologies used today to reach. Researchers still have to find a way to make perovskite as durable as silicon and prove that it doesn't contain toxic elements that would make it unsafe for use.</p>
<p class="full"><div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source">Boshu Zhang, Wong Choon Lim Glenn &amp; Mingzhen Liu</p><p class="caption">A thin-film solar cell made of perovskite could soon replace expensive silicon-based solar cells.</p></div></div></div></p>
<h3>Researchers use structural <keyword id="6502723" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="biology">biology</keyword> to make a new vaccine</h3>
<p><strong></strong>For the first time scientists developed a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common childhood virus, using a technique called structural biology. Efforts to create a vaccine against RSV had stalled using traditional methods - exposing the body to dead virus or a weak strain and letting it make a random assortment of antibodies against it.</p>
<p>Instead, researchers used a different tactic - they aimed to get the body to make a special antibody that makes some people resistant to the virus. They did so by analyzing the structure of the RSV protein when it is bound to the antibody. They then made a mutated version of a RSV protein that was a slightly different shape than normal, but the change in shape made the part that binds this killer antibody more visible. That means that body makes more of these killer antibodies to fight off the virus.</p>
<h3>Scientists make human stem cells through cloning</h3>
<p><strong></strong>Researchers were <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/human-clone-embryonic-stem-cell-lines-2013-5">able to make embryonic stem cells by cloning human</a> skin cells, a feat that has been in the works for more than a decade. Since stem cells can turn into any tissue in the body - and in this case are an exact genetic match to the cloned cell - the technique may one day be used to develop replacement tissues and organs to treat diseases. It also takes us one step closer to producing cloned babies. The cloning technique is essentially the same one used to clone animals, including Dolly the sheep 17 years ago. After years of failed attempts, scientists realized that adding a bit of caffeine enabled them to produce stems cells from cloned human embryos.</p>
<h3 class="full"><div class="image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/56349.php?from=239436">Cell, Tachibana et al.</a></p><p class="caption"> The first step during SCNT is enucleation or removal of nuclear genetic material (chromosomal) from a human egg.</p></div></div></h3>
<h3>The CLARITY imaging technique makes it easier to see the brain</h3>
<p>CLARITY allows scientists to see through the entire intact brain without slicing it up, which was problematic because it severed connections between cells."Studying intact systems with this sort of molecular resolution and global scope - to be able to see the fine detail and the big picture at the same time - has been a major unmet goal in biology, and a goal that CLARITY begins to address," study leader Karl Deisseroth, a bioengineer and psychiatrist at Stanford University, <a href="http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/april/clarity.html">said in a statement</a>.</p>
<p class="full"><div class="image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source">Kwanghun Chung and Karl Deisseroth, Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Stanford University</p><p class="caption">A detailed glimpse of an intact mouse brain is seen using the CLARITY method.</p></div></div></p>
<h3>Scientists found the source of cosmic rays</h3>
<p><strong style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"></strong>The origin of cosmic rays, high-energy particles that speed through space and smash into Earth's upper atmosphere, has eluded scientists since they were detected 100 years ago. But this year, scientists found evidence that at least some <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-have-solved-the-mystery-of-cosmic-rays-2013-2">cosmic rays come from exploding stars</a>, or supernovas. Supernova remnants act like an "expanding shell of matter," <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/02/high-energy-cosmic-rays/" target="_blank">explains ScienceNow</a>. Protons that interact with gas surrounding the supernova get accelerated to almost the speed of light until they shoot off into space in all directions as cosmic rays.</p>
<p><div class="image-container full"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:STScl-2005-15.png">Wikipedia</a></p><p class="caption">Scientists believe some cosmic rays come from supernova remnants, or exploding stars like this one.</p></div></div></p>

The Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs Of 2013

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Say what you will about Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, there's no question that he's in it for humanity.</p><p>When he became hyper-rich after eBay bought PayPal, he didn't spend his millions to develop a social media app.</p><p>Rather, he bought into an electric car company, declared that he wanted to send astronauts to Mars, and invested in solar power.</p><p>On Thursday, Musk will reportedly reveal two new Tesla products: a "home" battery and a much bigger "utility scale" battery. Effectively, Tesla will offer customers the opportunity to buy (or lease) a Tesla battery without shelling out $100,000 for a Tesla vehicle.</p><p>If you're a cynic, you might say that Musk is just trying to create a new story for Wall Street, to counter some of the skepticism that's emerged over Tesla's immediate financial prospects. The stock has been trading higher ahead of the announcement, after dipping at the end of last year (it's still well down from its peak of $219, hit last September).</p><p>But that's not what Musk is doing. </p><p>You can't look at Musk's companies as ... well, companies. Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity (which is actually run by Musk's cousins) taken together are really a <em>system, </em>and Musk is a systems engineer, or designer, or architect (take your pick).</p><p>To prevent global warming, you need to completely change the <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="transportation">transportation</keyword> matrix, replacing the internal-combustion engine en masse. That's Tesla role in the Muskian system.</p><p>To power Tesla's cars, you need electricity that isn't generated by fossil fuels. That's where SolarCity comes into the picture. Musk wants to capture the free energy of the Sun.</p><p>And just is case it all goes to hell, the planet become uninhabitable, or an asteroid bears down on Earth, SpaceX is there to, as Musk puts it, make us "multi-planetary." We could use Mars as a lifeboat.</p><p>Musk's whole system runs on power gathered from the Sun, and if you want to do that at any kind of scale, you need to store the energy. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>That's where the batteries come in. Tesla wouldn't be Tesla without its innovative, idiosyncratic battery design - thousands of laptop-style lithium-ion cells, wired together. This design enabled Tesla to be the only electric car maker selling a vehicle that delivered range on par with the gas-powered competition.</p><p>Over the years since Tesla's founding and Musk's arrival, the company has steadily improved its power-management capabilities. With that has come reduced cost. Until now, those savings went mainly to Tesla owners, who were paying $100,000 for a battery <em>plus</em> a car. </p><p>But now Tesla wants to put the battery at the center of a save-the-Earth system - making it affordable to acquire one and encouraging at least the beginnings of a major revolution in how customers store and use energy. That's why Musk tweeted about the Thursday event by referring to the batteries as the "missing piece."</p><p>The point is that Musk has been thinking this way all along. It wasn't like he woke up a year ago and said "Let's do a better job of commercializing our batteries!" The batteries have been a driving force in the Tesla story for its entire history.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In case you have any doubt about that, just look at the <em>$5 billion battery factory -</em> the Gigafactory - that Tesla and Panasonic are building in Nevada. Musk wants to be delivering 500,000 cars by 2020. But he's going to need million of li-ion battery cells to power them.</p><p>This is how big thinking works. So while Thursday's Tesla announcement might not be quite as sexy as pulling the cover off a hot new car, in the long run, it could matter far more to life on Earth.</p><p>At least if Musk is thinking big enough.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-after-black-widow-spider-bite-poison-2015-4">Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="5wdGFndDqN2zqp8TnWPghhDHfhDWYD_r" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

If you think Elon Musk only does cars and rockets, you're not thinking big enough

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>The Economist</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>This is a picture of the smallest satellite yet to be launched into orbit around Earth.</p>
<p>If all goes well, it and 103 identical siblings, known as sprites, will be scattered into space on May 4 from a mother ship (itself a mere 10cm by 10cm by 30cm) that rode shotgun on a rocket put up last month by SpaceX, a private rocketry firm, to resupply the International Space Station.</p>
<p>These sprites, which weigh 5 grams and cost $25 a pop, are the creation of Zac Manchester of Cornell University. Each has a microprocessor, a radio powerful enough to transmit a message to Earth, two aerials, a solar cell, a magnetometer and a gyroscope to tell the satellite in which direction it is pointing.</p>
<p>Though this is just a test, paid for by a campaign on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website, and launched gratis by NASA, SpaceX's customer for the resupply mission, Mr Manchester thinks clouds of sprites could have real applications. Swarms of magnetometer-armed sprites might, for example, be a cheaper and more comprehensive way than existing satellites of monitoring the ebb and flow of charged particles that constitute space "weather," which sometimes interferes with telecommunications back on Earth.</p>

Here's A Picture Of The Smallest Earth-Orbiting Satellite Ever 

<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/saving-our-world-2018-4"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>NASA, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/spacex">SpaceX</a>, and other groups are talking about sending people to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/mars">Mars</a>.</strong></li><li><strong>However, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/radiation">radiation</a> in deep space and on the surface of the red planet poses a major threat.</strong></li><li><strong>Understanding and addressing the threats posed by radiation will be essential to visiting Mars, let alone <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/mars-colonization">colonizing</a> the planet.</strong></li><li><strong>Here's how a trip to Mars compares to dental X-rays, radiation-worker exposure limits, and more.</strong></li></ul><p>Space may look like a vast and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-photos-earth-moon-from-deep-space-2017-3">empty void</a>.</p><p>But the cosmos teems with invisible, high-energy radiation - particles traveling near light-speed that can pummel human travelers and the surfaces of worlds like tiny bullets.</p><p>Addressing the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/martian-radiation-levels-crewed-mission-2017-7">threats</a> posed by space radiation is growing all the more necessary: Elon Musk is dedicating thousands of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-locations-maps-texas-california-florida-washington-2018-3">SpaceX employees</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-locations-maps-texas-california-florida-washington-2018-3">facilities</a> to the task of&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-colonization-human-survival-radiation-food-biosphere-2018-4">colonizing Mars</a> with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-colonies-human-survival-2015-10">1 million people</a>, while NASA pushes to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-crewed-exploration-plans-sls-2017-4">set up an outpost</a> at the red planet.</p><p>NASA recently <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/in-effort-to-overcome-radiation-challenge-nasa-to-launch-stemrads-astrorad-radiation-protection-vest-on-orion-em-1-mission-around-the-moon-680020053.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signed on</a> to test a new polymer-based radiation-blocking vest for astronauts, called <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-mars-astronaut-radiation-shield-set-for-moon-mission-trial-developer-2017-3">AstroRad</a>, on its next mission around the moon.</p><p>Musk, meanwhile, has said his new <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-iac-2017-transcript-slides-2017-10">Big Falcon Rocket</a> will use water to block radiation, though only during emergencies.</p><p>"Ambient radiation damage is not significant for our transit times," Musk said during an Oct. 2017 <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/76e79c/i_am_elon_musk_ask_me_anything_about_bfr/dodhe6f/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">chat on Reddit</a>. "Just need a solar storm shelter, which is a small part of the ship."</p><h2>But just how bad is the problem of radiation in space?</h2><p>The graphic below - created using data provided by <a href="https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/factsheets/pdfs/radiation.pdf)" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA</a>, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-sources-and-doses" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EPA</a>, <a href="https://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/MedicalImaging/MedicalX-Rays/ucm115329.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FDA</a>, <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/health-effects/info.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NRC</a>, <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6169/1244797" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scientific journals</a>, and other sources - compares various exposure levels in scenarios both familiar and far-flung. Hover over a category box to see how it compares.&#xa0;</p><p><br>Musk has "aspirational" hopes to launch a round-trip mission to the red planet with humans&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-colony-details-new-space-study-2018-3">in 2024</a>, but the trip could total a year, and astronauts may spend about 500 days on Mars' surface.</br></p><p>The whole journey would expose astronauts to about 1,000 millisieverts - depending on how many <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/solar-storm-risk-map-united-states-2016-9">solar storms</a> belch high-energy particles toward Mars, and whether the first entity to reach the planet actually&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-crewed-exploration-plans-sls-2017-4">lands on it</a>.</p><p>This means the first Martian explorers could get roughly eight times the amount of radiation that a radiation worker's annual exposure is limited to each year. The space travelers would get about one-third of the way toward hitting a NASA astronaut's maximum lifetime exposure limit (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/284277main_Radiation_MS.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2,500-3,250 mSv</a>).</p><h2>Where the radiation comes from - and why cancer isn't the only danger</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Two main types of radiation in space are extremely harmful to humans: protons spewed out by the sun and cosmic rays. These high-energy particles and the secondary radiation they create penetrate deep into cells, promoting chronic and sometimes deadly diseases such as cancer.</p><p>Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere protect us by deflecting and absorbing most of this energy.</p><p>"The background radiation rates on the ground are 100 times to 1,000 times smaller than they would be above the atmosphere in free space," Edward Semones, a radiation health officer at NASA's Johnson Space Center, previously told Business Insider.</p><p>Cancer is a major risk of radiation exposure, but there are more immediate and surprising symptoms. Deep-space radiation might promote cataracts and impair eyesight. Even high-flying <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/flying-airplane-cancer-radiation-risk-2017-12">commercial-airline workers face that risk</a> because of the thinner atmosphere.</p><p>Animal-based experiments also suggest radiation could damage the nervous system, including the brain, which might impair astronauts' focus and memory.</p><p>"You're somehow losing cognitive ability," Semones said, adding that, over the years, this "may impact conducting the mission."</p><h2>Doing battle with deep-space radiation</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>NASA's potential use of AstroRad vests and Musk's solar-storm shelter would just be a starting point for Mars adventurers and colonists.</p><p>The more thick and heavy shielding there is between a person and the vacuum, the better. Semones said about 20 centimeters of water can soak up most space radiation. Yet water is dense and expensive to launch from Earth into space.</p><p>One solution is for Mars colonization missions to use <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-moon-phobos-is-dying-2015-11">Phobos</a>, the planet's largest moon, as a pit stop since it likely harbors water ice just below its ruddy surface. Probes drilled into Phobos could heat and melt the ice, pump the water into elastic cells that surround a spacecraft, and shield a crew from radiation.</p><p>More radical solutions for radiation have also been proposed. Christopher Mason, a geneticist and biomedical researcher, suggests creating transgenic humans as part of a 10-phase, "500-year plan" to colonize space. His concept is to use a technology like CRISPR to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gene-editing-could-help-us-survive-on-mars-and-in-space-2016-4">edit a space flier's genome</a> to constantly repair, as Mason put it, "do not disturb" regions that lead to cancers and other problems.</p><p>"You can't dismiss it as an idea, but right now but we don't know the mechanisms," Semones said of that far-fetched plan. (About 1,000 genes are estimated to be involved in cancer alone.)</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Ultimately, colonists may try to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-first-steps-to-terraforming-mars-2017-10">terraform Mars</a> - a deliberate and unprecedented act of climate change.</p><p>Frozen carbon dioxide at the Martian poles could be turned into greenhouse gases in order to create a radiation-absorbing atmosphere that would insulate the surface. Plants could then convert the thin air into oxygen and, over hundreds of years, temperatures may warm enough to melt hidden water and make it again flow on Mars' surface. One day, that could even permit spacesuit-free excursions.</p><p>Jim Green, the former head of NASA's planetary <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> division, has proposed building an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-giant-magnetic-shield-could-terraform-mars-2017-3">artificial magnetic shield for Mars</a> to protect a hypothetical nascent atmosphere from the sun's proton radiation, which might otherwise blow the air into space.</p><p>"This may sound 'fanciful' but new research is starting to emerge revealing that a miniature magnetosphere can be used to protect humans and spacecraft," Green and other researchers wrote in <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/V2050/pdf/8250.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a brief study of the concept</a> in 2017. "If this can be achieved in a lifetime, the colonization of Mars would not be far away."</p><p><em>Read more about the challenges of colonizing Mars: "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-colonization-human-survival-radiation-food-biosphere-2018-4">Life in a bubble: How we can fight hunger, loneliness, and radiation on Mars</a>."</em></p><div><div style="position:relative;width:auto;padding:0 0 63.41%;height:0;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;margin:0;border:0 none" data-break-on="414" data-lg-id="experience-5ad4f7f957e66" data-lg-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/radiation-levels-on-earth-and-in-space-desktop" data-lg-padding="63.41%" data-sm-id="experience-5ad4f8055a4d6" data-sm-src="//view.ceros.com/business-insider/radiation-levels-on-earth-and-space-mobile-1" data-sm-padding="103.45%">    </div></div></hr>

Mars colonists will get blasted with radiation levels 8 times higher than government limits - here's what they're up against

<p>NASA will soon launch its Parker Solar Probe on a mission that will take it closer to the sun than any spacecraft in history. The probe will fly straight into the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, where violent storms erupt that could destroy our tech-driven way of life. If we want to avoid living like people did back in the Stone Age, we'll need Parker Solar Probe's data. Following is a transcript of the video.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">NASA is about to go where no one has gone before. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Sun. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">That's right. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">NASA is flying a </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05741-6"><span style="font-weight: 400;">1.5 billion-dollar</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> spacecraft into the hottest, most violent object in our solar system. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">All in the name of <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">NASA's unmanned Parker Solar Probe will come to within </span><a href="http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/index.php#Journey-to-the-Sun"><span style="font-weight: 400;">3.83 million miles</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of the solar surface. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Now, that might not sound very close </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">but it's about SEVEN TIMES closer than any spacecraft has gone before. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">And puts the probe smack inside one of the sun's most treacherous layers:  </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The corona. </span>The outermost layer of the Sun.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here, the temperatures fluctuate from </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/iris/multimedia/layerzoo.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">1 to 5 </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">million</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> degrees Fahrenheit</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">And solar flares exist that are so big they could swallow our planet whole. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">So, why are we going here, again? </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">It turns out, the sun poses a major threat to our modern way of life. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Powerful magnetic fields form near the sun's surface. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Where they sometimes spark violent eruptions called </span><strong>coronal mass ejections.</strong></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These ejections fire a surge of highly-charged particles into space</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that will fry any electronic circuits on impact. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">That includes circuits inside our satellites that control cell service, the internet, GPS, the stock exchange, and much more.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 2014, for example, astrophysicist</span> Daniel N. Baker<span style="font-weight: 400;"> explained what may happen if one of these powerful storms hit Earth directly, explaining that it could:</span></p><p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">"cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn't even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps."</span></em></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Such a strike could cost an estimated $2 trillion in damage - 10 times more than Hurricane Katrina. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Now luckily, space is a big place, which makes Earth a relatively small and tricky target. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">In fact, the last time a powerful storm like this struck our planet was more than 150 years ago, back in 1859. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">But the risk is there. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">And NASA predicts there's a </span><a href="https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm"><span style="font-weight: 400;">12% chance</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> we'll get hit within the next decade.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">That's where Parker Solar Probe comes in. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The probe can't prevent an ejection from happening. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">But it can study the corona so that we may better understand the warning signs of an impending storm. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">And with enough notice, we may be able to protect our satellites from harm.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In addition to spying on the sun, Parker Solar Probe has another very important job: </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Don't. Melt.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To that end, NASA has prepped the probe with four highly-tuned sensors</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and an impressive heat shield that will protect the probe's instruments. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The sensors are there to make sure the shield stays directed at the sun at all times. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The mission will involve not one, or two, but 24 dives into the sun. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Which are scheduled to take place up through the year 2025.</span></p>

NASA is flying a $1.5 billion spacecraft into the sun - here's why

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting, and extreme weather is becoming the norm. The negative effects of man-made climate change are here to stay - and they're getting worse.</p><p>Luckily for the Earth, the world's supply of fossil fuels is limited. And for the past several decades, researchers have been looking for renewable energy resources to provide power to everyone without poisoning the Earth with atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal.</p><p><strong>Some scientists think humans could get clean power collected from solar panels in space and beamed back down to Earth in our lifetime.</strong> Not only would the energy source be continuous, it would also be clean and unlimited. The only thing standing in the way is the astronomical cost.</p><p>But that's finally changing, and space-based solar power entrepreneurs are starting to see interest from private investors and potential customers.</p><h2>Earth solar power versus space-based solar power</h2><p>Roof solar panels on buildings convert sunlight into energy during the daytime. Which is great, but Earth-based solar panels have big drawbacks. They don't work at night or if the sky is too cloudy. Plus, our atmosphere shields the Earth's surface from much of the sun's energy - bouncing some of the light back into space.</p><p class="p1">Now imagine if we could put a solar panel in Earth orbit - around 22,000 miles up.</p><p class="p1">"If you put the solar panel in space, it's going to be illuminated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 99% of the year," Paul Jaffe, a spacecraft engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, said.</p><p>At 22,000 miles above the Earth, the sun is much brighter, so space-based solar panels could collect way more solar energy. They'd deliver up to 40 times the annual amount of reliable 24/7 energy that the same cell would generate on the Earth.</p><p class="p1">Scientists are calling the technology "stellar energy," because it would return so much more power than regular Earth-based solar energy.</p><p>Jaffe predicts that individual space-based solar arrays would be able to produce from 250 megawatts to 5 gigawatts of energy. But since the sun is a continuous, renewable resource the "total amount of power that could be produced is effectively infinite," he says.</p><p>Abd 250 megawatts is a ton of energy New York City, for example, which requires 20 gigawatts of power. By Jaffe's calculation, as few as four arrays [see picture below] - if each provided 5 gigawatts - would be able to power the entire city.</p><h2><strong>The cost of 'stellar energy'</strong></h2><p class="p1">The energy crises of the 1970s propelled the government to look into alternative energy sources as it started to become clear that oil was a limited resource and that its supply could be subject to the whims of international politics.</p><p class="p1">According to Jaffe, the conclusion at the time by NASA and the Department of Energy regarding space-based solar power technology was that it could be possible, but it would be very, very expensive - likely hundreds of millions of dollars. That's the reason the technology is stalled.</p><p>The reason it's so expensive is that it costs about $4,600 for each kilogram launched into low orbit. Stellar power can't compete with other kinds of renewable energy unless that cost drops to around $400 per kilogram, <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2015/july-aug/19-stellar-energy">Discover Magazine reports</a>.</p><p class="p1">Billionaire Elon Musk and his rocket company SpaceX are doing just that. Musk is working on a <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/spacex-rocket-exploded-over-ocean-2015-4">reusable rocket</a> that would dramatically reduce the cost of launches - cut it about 100 fold. Instead of building an expensive rocket for every single launch and then throwing it away, you could use the same rocket over and over again.</p><p class="p1">Cheap rocket launches would bring down the overall cost of getting a solar panel into space. But that won't be enough if we don't figure out an efficient way to beam the solar energy back to Earth.</p><h2>How space solar panels would work</h2><p>While the technology needs some improvement, the basic idea is pretty clear: The sun sends out photons, energetic packets of light, in every direction. A regular solar panel <a href="http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/solar_basics/how.php" target="_blank">converts those photons into electrons</a> of direct current electricity. Then, in order to power an electronic device plugged into a wall outlet, the direct current is transformed into an alternating current and sent through the power grid.</p><p><strong>In space, the big issue is how we would get that power to the grid.</strong></p><p>With the solar farm in space, researchers needed to figure out the most efficient way to transfer the energy from the solar reflectors back to Earth. The answer: electromagnetic waves, like those used to transmit radio frequencies or heat up your food in the microwave.</p><p>"People might not associate radio waves with carrying energy because they think of them for communications, like radio, TV, or cellphones. They don't think about them as carrying usable amounts of power," <a href="http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/solar-power-when-its-raining-nrl-builds-space-satellite-module-to-try" target="_blank">Jaffe said in a statement</a>.</p><p>Though we do know that microwaves (another subset of electromagnetic waves) carry power - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-do-microwaves-work-2014-6" target="_blank">their energy heats up our food</a>!</p><p>Jaffe calls the technology he is working on the "sandwich" module. The image below shows mirror-like solar reflectors concentrating the sun's photons onto the array of sandwich modules. The top of the sandwich module array receives the solar energy. Antennas on the bottom side beam the radio waves to Earth.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The image above isn't to scale. The sandwich modules would be about 10 feet long on a side and about 80,000 would be needed. The array of sandwich modules would be about the length of nine football fields, or more than 1/2 a mile long. <strong>This is about nine times bigger than the International Space Station.</strong></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div></p><p>Back on Earth, the energy-containing radio frequencies from the space-based solar panels would be received by a special antenna known as a "rectenna," which could be as big as six miles in diameter.</p><p>"It would look like a field full of wires sticking up. The rectenna elements receive incoming radio waves and convert it back from that high frequency radio wave into electricity," Jaffe said.</p><p>The power beam of radio waves could be sent to a wide variety of locations on Earth, because the direction of the beam can be changed by a method called "retrodirective beam steering." According to Jaffe, "This works by sending up a small 'pilot signal' from the center of the ground receiving station. The satellite sees this signal and adjusts its transmitter to send the radio waves to the ground station." For example, the same beam would be able to provide power to Seattle and redirected to provide power to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.</p><p>An advantage for the military, as well as civilians, would be that they could build receivers at remote operating bases and locations where it is logistically difficult and incredible costly to deliver diesel fuel.</p><h2>A giant beam of energy from space</h2><p class="p1">A giant beam of radio waves coming down from space to Earth may sound a little scary and dangerous, like something an alien ship would use to explode our precious planet. But really, you wouldn't even be able to see the radio beam with the naked eye - radio signals are flowing around us at all times.</p><p class="p1">Though these radio signals contain more energy than an AM or FM signal you'd pick up in your car radio, the power density of the signal would still be quite low and wouldn't threaten people, airplanes, or birds that would fly through it. Of course, the technology hasn't actually been tested outside of the laboratory yet, so there's no real-world proof the installation would be problem-free.</p><p class="p1">The biggest impediment so far to space-based solar power isn't safety or regulation or design: It's cost. And this problem affects all parties involved, whether government-, private-, or commercial-funded research.</p><p class="p1">It's hard to say what exactly the full-scale implementation of a space-based solar power system would cost, but it would likely be hundreds of millions of dollars. There is a limit to how big of an object can be launched into space, and strapping the components to rockets doesn't come cheaply. For example, the International Space Station <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/International_Space_Station/Building_the_International_Space_Station2" target="_blank">had to be built in space part by part</a> because there wasn't a rocket big enough or strong enough to launch the completed apparatus into space.</p><p class="p1">Jaffe's research was funded by the Office of Naval Research, and he had funding to produce prototypes of one section: the sandwich module, but not to see the project to completion. He also tested the modules in space-like conditions to ensure they could withstand (and continue to work in) the incredible heat of the sun in space, which hadn't been done before. "The work that we did demonstrates the state of the art and suggests the path forward," said Jaffe.</p><p>He is trying to find sponsors to secure funding for continuation of his project. But he stressed that it is hard to sell long-term energy projects, especially when he can't show people the technology in action, aside from prototypes.</p><p>He thinks the real motivator will be foreign competition, like in the 1950s when the Russians developed Sputnik and launched the U.S. into the space race. This time it's likely that the Japanese government may launch the technology first.</p><h2 class="p1">The way forward</h2><p class="p1">But even without government funding, small startups like California-based Solaren are looking to make space-based solar power a reality in the next few years. Gary Spirnak, CEO of Solaren, had a long career in space engineering for both the government and private industry. He had watched for years as government funding for space-based solar power waxed and waned and private industry seemed to take little interest.</p><p>Spirnak told us that he saw a "system problem" he thought he could engineer his way out of by building lighter versions of the prototypes already being tested. And, in 2009, he <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30198977/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/pge-makes-deal-space-solar-power/#.U8UtIo1dXx8" target="_blank">convinced Pacific Gas &amp; Electric</a> that his design (which is different from Jaffe's explained above but based on similar concepts) for space-based solar power was viable, and they awarded him the "first power purchase agreement in the world for space solar power," meaning that the electricity company would buy the solar energy that he was collecting from space and deliver it to some of their California customers.</p><p>The original terms of the contract were to provide energy from space starting in 2016. The start date has now been pushed back because of funding issues.</p><p>Other companies have found an alternative way to get investors interested: creating satellites that can collect solar energy and beam TV, radio and telephone signals. The space energy plant would double as a giant communication satellite. This set up might get big investors like DirecTV or Verizon on board.</p><p>Then we'd finally see this unlimited energy technology take off.</p><p><em>Katie Jennings contributed to an previous version of this story.</em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bottled-water-facts-waste-2015-7">After you see these facts about bottled water, you may never buy it again</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="M3aG5mdjqtrO9CYIHaN1SgTB6daFQBBS" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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