Innovations from the wild world of optics and photonics

Traditional computers manipulate electrons to turn our keystrokes and Google searches into meaningful actions. But as components of the computer processor shrink to only a few atoms across, those same electrons become unpredictable ...

OPALS project uses laser beams for Earth-space communications

(Phys.org) —You may know opals as fiery gemstones, but something special called OPALS is floating above us in space. On the International Space Station, the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) is demonstrating ...

Several NASA spacecraft track energy through space

(Phys.org) —Scientists have provided the most comprehensive details yet of the journey energy from the sun takes as it hurtles around Earth's magnetosphere. Understanding the changes energy from the sun undergoes as it ...

Google loses appeal in Street View snooping case (Update)

A U.S. appeals court said Google wrongly collected people's personal correspondence and online activities through their Wi-Fi systems as it drove down their streets with car cameras shooting photos for its Street View mapping ...

Space laser to prove increased broadband possible

When NASA's Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) begins operation aboard the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission managed by NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., it will ...

The heart of space weather observed in action

Two NASA spacecraft have provided the most comprehensive movie ever of a mysterious process at the heart of all explosions on the sun: magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection happens when magnetic field lines come together, ...

Lightning strokes can probe the ionosphere

(Phys.org) —Thunderstorms, and the resulting partially ionized plasma of the ionosphere, can distort radio signals traveling to satellites important to communications, navigation or national security

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