Items tagged with solar
Reflect Orbital aims to provide and sell sunlight in the dark of night by redirecting light with a giant mirror in space. CEO Ben Nowack presented his plan during the International Conference on Energy from Space in London this past April, and has now launched a website where people can sign up for a chance to access...
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An international collaboration of scientists has discovered the highest-energy light ever observed from the sun. These gamma rays also much brighter than scientists previously thought.
Humankind has been trying to figure out the bright orb in the sky since the beginning of time. In more recent years, scientists...
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NASA has begun qualification testing on what it calls "cutting-edge" solar electric propulsion (SEP) thrusters. The innovative thrusters will be showcased on the Gateway space station that will orbit the Moon and provide support for NASA's Artemis campaign.
NASA is preparing for the second Artemis launch, which...
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Astronomers watched as star EK Draconis ejected a massive burst of energy more powerful than anything scientists have viewed in our own solar system. The star is located dozens of lightyears from Earth, but it gives scientists a better idea of what is possible from our own Sun.
On December 7, NASA launched two new...
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The Parker Solar Probe is set to break its own impressive distance and speed records as it zips its way past the Sun. In its tenth of 24 planned trips around the Sun, the probe will again become the fastest human-made spacecraft to date.
NASA's Parker Solo Probe completed its swing past Venus on October 16th. It...
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Smartwatches are finally starting to gain some traction in the marketplace, but one of their biggest downsides compared to their more traditional counterparts is battery life. Devices like the Apple Watch Series 4 can last at most 2 days before a recharge is needed, while Samsung's Galaxy Watch will give up after...
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Tesla has just made it official that its much-anticipated Gigafactory will have its grand opening on July 29th. The company itself hasn't issued a public statement on this event, but invites have already been sent out to Tesla owners and others in Tesla's good graces.
To say that those who get invited by Tesla is...
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There are few who would disagree that solar energy is an amazing thing. It's not really "free" energy per se, in the grand scheme of things, given that absorbing solar rays requires expensive equipment to harvest energy from the sun. However, beyond that little barrier to entry, solar is becoming more practical as an...
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This past fall, we reported on a development with Google's Project Loon, which aims to deliver Internet via balloons to underserved countries. At some point in 2016, a bunch of balloons will take flight over Indonesia, and once that happens, it could very well spearhead what could become a common sight in...
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We have the feeling that the “personal power storage” market is about to really take off. Many environmentally-conscious homeowners are looking towards alternative power generation (like solar) in an effort to reduce their reliance on the traditional electric grid. As a result, there will be a need for complimentary...
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Three atoms thick. According to a paper published this week in the science journal Nature by a group of researchers from Cornell University, that is the breadth of the transistors that can now be produced using an experimental — and highly conductive — material called transition metal dichalcogenide (also called a...
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We learned some important details about Tesla's upcoming in-home batteries late last week, and now, thanks to analyst Trip Chowdhry, we now have a clearer idea of what it will cost.
Backing up what we learned earlier this month, Tesla's battery will cost $13,000 outright. There's also the option to shell out $1,500...
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Tesla is going to be announcing a brand-new "not a car" product at its Hawthorne Design Studio on April 30, and now the Web is abuzz with speculation of what it could be. What does seem likely at this point, though, is that it could be an in-home battery that's backed by solar energy.
Major new Tesla product line...
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Apple took an important step in making good on CEO Tim Cook’s promise to make Apple’s new campus “the greenest building on the planet.” The company announced that it plans to spend $850 million as part of a massive, 25-year solar power purchase agreement with a solar power farm in California.
The farm, which will...
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Sometimes, you just never know where technology is going to wind up next. Walking through a park, would you ever expect that a simple bench would be able to charge your phone? That's a reality that's soon to come to some Boston parks, thanks to "Soofas", solar-powered benches. Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh greatly...
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One has to wonder if Elon Musk if even human. When he's not busy working on electric supercars, he's launching satellites into space. And when he's not doing that, he's working to plant a massive solar field in New York. The latest news involving one of today's greatest innovators has arrived this week, with SolarCity...
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Google is kind of involved in everything, and the company is tackling clean energy with gusto, too. In conjunction with a White House push for renewable energy and agreements from some 300 organizations to pursue clean energy options that includes 1 billion square feet of buildings in the U.S. (and a $2 billion...
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Battery life has long been the bane of the mobile market, hamstringing laptops, tablets, and smartphones even as processors, graphics, and storage have increased in both performance and efficiency. Apple is reportedly tackling this problem head-on as it looks to other forms of power for its impending smartwatch...
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For as amazing as our mobile devices are, their battery life is a joke. Most of us can’t make it through a whole day (or in cases, more than a few hours) without having to plug in. Solar charger company Goal Zero, in collaboration with AT&T and Brooklyn-based design studio Pensa, are developing solar...
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In the midst of Google's Android growth, Chrome explosion, Chromebook entries and Fiber roll-outs, it's actually easy to forget that Google does other things as well. There's search, Glass, and energy. Yes, energy. Google has been dabbling in energy for some time now, which makes sense given the tremendous amount of...
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We hear about green construction practices all the time, but it’s often surrounding facilities such as data centers rather than retail stores. However, Walgreens is determined to go as green as possible, and to that end, the company announced plans for the first net zero energy retail store. The store is slated...
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One of the difficulties in using solar panels is that solar panels aren't exactly easy to install. Most are big, stiff, fragile, and inefficient. But now, engineers at Stanford have developed a peel-and-stick alternative that sounds more like a 3M Post-It note than a scientific invention. The goal was to create...
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