NASA's Swift temporarily suspends science operations

On March 15, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory entered into safe mode, temporarily suspending science operations due to degrading performance from one of its three gyroscopes (gyros), which are used to point the observatory ...

NIST's compact atomic gyroscope displays new twists

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have upgraded their compact atomic gyroscope to enable multitasking measurement capabilities and measure its performance, important steps toward practical ...

Entangled-photon gyroscope overcomes classical limit

Fiber optic gyroscopes, which measure the rotation and orientation of airplanes and other moving objects, are inherently limited in their precision when using ordinary classical light. In a new study, physicists have experimentally ...

Spinning the light: The world's smallest optical gyroscope

Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. They are commonplace in just about every bit of technology we rely on every ...

Gyroscopic spin with petunia seeds helps them fly farther

A team of researchers from Pomona College and the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden has figured out how a wild petunia plant is able to fling its seeds so far. In their paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, ...

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Gyroscope

A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. The device is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation. This orientation changes much less in response to a given external torque than it would without the large angular momentum associated with the gyroscope's high rate of spin. Since external torque is minimized by mounting the device in gimbals, its orientation remains nearly fixed, regardless of any motion of the platform on which it is mounted. Gyroscope works in situations when using magnetic compass is not possible at all (as in Hubble telescope). Due higher precision it is used to maintain the direction in the tunnel mining [2].

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