28/09/2007

NASA's Ion Engine Breaks Performance Record

An ion engine prototype developed at NASA's Glenn Research Center has now accumulated more than 12,000 hours of operation and processed over 245 kilograms of xenon, setting a record for most propellant throughput ever demonstrated ...

'Dead time' limits quantum cryptography speeds

Quantum cryptography is potentially the most secure method of sending encrypted information, but does it have a speed limit" According to a new paper by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and ...

Measurements from the edge: magnetic properties of thin films

Materials researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, together with colleagues from IBM and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have pushed the measurement of thin films to the edge—literally—to ...

Mysterious energy burst stuns astronomers

Astronomers studying archival data from an Australian radio telescope have discovered a powerful, short-lived burst of radio waves that they say indicates an entirely new type of astronomical phenomenon.