Wed Tech News
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on December 14, 2005 at 2:33:51 PM
Sirius B imaged.
Hubble 'sees' dark matter.
Virgin Galactic strikes deal to build New Mexico spaceport.
Yonah offers battery life and performance increase.
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The small star has a surface temperature of about 25,200 °C - hotter than Sirius, which is about 10,500 °C. It is also so dense that its gravity slows down the light leaving its surface, stretching it into longer, redder wavelengths. STIS measured this "gravitational redshift" to calculate the white dwarf's mass, which is about the same as the Sun's.
Hubble 'sees' dark matter.
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The trick is to look for subtle distortions in the images caused by gravitational lensing, in which the shapes of very distant galaxies are warped by dense concentrations of matter between us and the galaxies. The matter, which is not visible, bends the light with its gravity, and that reveals its presence.
Virgin Galactic strikes deal to build New Mexico spaceport.
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According to an Associated Press (AP) account of today’s press event, Branson has worked a deal with New Mexico that involves a 20-year lease on the spaceport, a facility that is price tagged at $225 million to build. Virgin would make yearly payments of $1 million for the first five years, putting in more money in following years to cover the cost of the project by the end of the lease, the AP reported.
Yonah offers battery life and performance increase.
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The twin cores mean users can perform several tasks at the same time. For instance, one core could update a spreadsheet while the other displays a graphics-heavy presentation without slowing down. Meanwhile, lower power usage is becoming more important as users demand longer battery life and ever-slimmer laptops, which pose an engineering challenge since smaller machines are less able to dissipate the processor's heat.