Space / Astronomy

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Sandia physicist accepts first joint faculty appointment with Washington State University
September 3, 2015 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories physicist Marcus Knudson is the first joint faculty appointee to serve both Sandia and Washington State University (WSU). In the position, Knudson will enhance fundamental research into the compression of materials under extreme conditions, using Sandia’s unique Z machine. “The science of dynamic material...
Categories: Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Marcus Knudson

Sandia’s Z machine helps solve Saturn’s 2-billion-year age gap
June 26, 2015 • Research supports 80-year-old prediction ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Planets tend to cool as they get older, but Saturn is hotter than astrophysicists say it should be without some additional energy source. The unexplained heat has caused a two-billion-year discrepancy for computer models estimating Saturn’s age. “Models that correctly predict Jupiter to...
Categories: Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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True Saturn

Iron rain fell on early Earth, new Z machine data supports
March 18, 2015 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine have helped untangle a long-standing mystery of astrophysics: why iron is found spattered throughout Earth’s mantle, the roughly 2,000-mile thick region between Earth’s core and its crust. At first blush, it seemed more reasonable that iron arriving from collisions between...
Categories: Materials Science, Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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An artist's concept shows a celestial body about the size of our moon slamming at great speed into a body the size of Mercury.

‘Iron Sun’ is not a rock band, but a key to how stars transmit energy
January 6, 2015 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Working at temperatures matching the interior of the sun, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine have been able to determine experimentally, for the first time in history, iron’s role in inhibiting energy transmission from the center of the sun to near the edge of its radiative...
Categories: Physics, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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3-D codes yield unprecedented physics, engineering insights
August 4, 2014 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry in 2002, sophisticated computer models were key to determining what happened. A piece of foam flew off at launch and hit a tile, damaging the leading edge of the shuttle wing and exposing the underlying structure. Temperatures soared to...
Categories: Computing, Space / Astronomy
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Sandia National Laboratories researchers Steve Plimpton, left, and Michael Gallis look at a projection of a model of the Russian MIR space station, which fell out of orbit several years ago and disintegrated, with the remains ending up at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Using Sandia's 3-D code SPARTA, the calculation is simulating an instance of the process of de-orbiting.

Study rebuts hypothesis that comet attacks ended 13,000-year-old Clovis culture
January 30, 2013 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Rebutting a speculative hypothesis that comet explosions changed Earth’s climate sufficiently to end the Clovis culture in North America about 13,000 years ago, Sandia lead author Mark Boslough and researchers from 14 academic institutions assert that other explanations must be found for the apparent disappearance. “There’s no...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Boslough

Alaskan North Slope climate: hard data from a hard place
August 13, 2012 • Researchers examine clouds (from both sides now) and the structure of the atmosphere BARROW, Alaska — Sandia National Laboratories’ researcher Mark Ivey and I (science writer Neal Singer)  are standing on the tundra at an outpost of science at the northernmost point of the North American continent. We are five miles northeast...
Categories: Biology, Chemistry, Energy / Environment / Water, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy
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Sandia experiments may force revision of astrophysical models of the universe
March 15, 2012 •  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The idea of compressing water is foreign to our daily experience. Nevertheless, an accurate estimate of water’s shrinking volume under the huge gravitational pressures of  large planets is essential to astrophysicists trying to model the evolution of the universe. They need to assume how much space is...
Categories: Computing, Science / Technology / Engineering, Space / Astronomy

MTI satellite continues to serve after 10 years in orbit
April 19, 2010 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – For engineers and scientists at Sandia, the evening of Friday, March 12, marked a proud moment in exceptional service to the nation. Hundreds of miles above the Earth, the Multispectral Thermal Imager satellite reached its 10th anniversary of service as it completed its 55,000th orbit — far...
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Brian Post stands under an antenna at the ground station at Sandia National Labs during the MTI satellite’s 55,000th orbit (photo by Randy Montoya).
Results 26–37 of 37