Uma apresentação em flash interessante sugerida pelo doutorando do Grupo de Materiais Fotônicos do IQ - UNESP, Araraquara: Robson Rosa da Silva.

This is the first laser spectrum from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover, sent back from Mars on August 19, 2012. The plot shows emission lines from different elements present in the target, a rock near the rover's landing site dubbed "Coronation" .

The plot is a composite of spectra taken over 30 laser shots at a single 0.016-inch (0.4-millimeter) diameter spot on the target. An inset on the left shows detail for the minor elements titanium and manganese in the 398-to-404-nanometer range. An inset at the right shows the hydrogen and carbon peaks. The carbon peak was from the carbon dioxide in Mars' air. The hydrogen peak was only present on the first laser shot, indicating that the element was only on the very surface of the rock. Magnesium was also slightly enriched on the surface. The heights of the peaks do not directly indicate the relative abundances of the elements in the rock, as some emission lines are more easily excited than others. 

A preliminarily analysis indicates the spectrum is consistent with basalt, a type of volcanic rock, which is known from previous missions to be abundant on Mars. Coronation is about three inches (7.6 centimeters) across, and located about 5 feet (1.5 meters) from the rover and about nine feet (2.7 meters) from ChemCam on the mast. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16089.html

Natural structural color materials, especially those that can undergo reversible changes, are attracting increasing interest in a wide variety of research fields. Inspired by the natural creatures, many elaborately nanostructured photonic materials with variable structural colors were developed. These materials have found important applications in switches, display devices, sensors, and so on. In this critical review, we will provide up-to-date research concerning the natural and bio-inspired photonic materials with variable structural colors. After introducing the variable structural colors in natural creatures, we will focus on the studies of artificial variable structural color photonic materials, including their bio-inspired designs, fabrications and applications. The prospects for the future development of these fantastic variable structural color materials will also be presented. We believe this review will promote the communications among biology, bionics, chemistry, optical physics, and material science.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has fired its laser for the first time on Mars. On Aug. 19th the mission's ChemCam instrument hit a fist-sized rock named "Coronation" with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.

The energy from the laser creates a puff of ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam catches the light with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the rock. The spectrometers record 6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light.

"We got a great spectrum of Coronation -- lots of signal," said ChemCam Principal Investigator Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M. "Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it's payoff time!"

ChemCam recorded spectra from each of the 30 pulses. The goal of this initial use of the laser on Mars was to serve as target practice for characterizing the instrument, but the activity may provide additional value. Researchers will check whether the composition changed as the pulses progressed. If it did change, that could indicate dust or other surface material being penetrated to reveal different composition beneath the surface.

"It's surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio," said ChemCam Deputy Project Scientist Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France. "It's so rich, we can expect great science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in the next two years."

The technique used by ChemCam, called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, has been used to determine composition of targets in other extreme environments, such as inside nuclear reactors and on the sea floor, and has had experimental applications in environmental monitoring and cancer detection. Today's investigation of Coronation is the first use of the technique in interplanetary exploration.

More information about ChemCam is available at www.msl-chemcam.com .

fonte: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/

If you watched the Olympics over the past few weeks, one of the recurring advertisements was for a luxury car (Cadillac or Lexus, I believe) that featured the car’s heads-up night vision system. I’ve always thought that night vision/thermal camera systems were a nifty idea—especially after experiencing some frighteningly foggy days—but, the truth is that such an option would not be extremely high on my list of desired accessories if I were in the market for a new car.

One factor is that, because these systems have solely been offered on high-priced vehicles, I have tended to assume, I think correctly, that these systems are very pricey. Although the systems have been offered on some vehicles since 2000, carmakers have been ambivalent about whether consumers wanted to pay for these systems and have acknowledged in years past that price has been a factor.

In 2005, discussion began about forming a European consortium project to develop a low-cost effective automotive far infrared camera for driver-vision applications. According to a story from that year on theOptics.org website, one project’s target was going to be the creation of an FIR microbolometer detector. At that point, one of the consortium members, Umicore, said it had developed a process for a chalcogenide glass that could be directly molded into a final lens shape as an alternative to grinding, polishing or diamond turning lenses for the microbolometer. (Previously, the materials of choice were crystalline materials, such as germanium, zinc selenide or zinc sulfide.)

However, it looks as though the project and funding (three years) didn’t come together until 2008 when the Infrared Imaging Components for Use in Automotive Safety Applications (ICU) was formed (pdf). It’s not clear to me what the status of the ICU is now, and the most recent information on the project’s website is dated 2010 (when the funding would have run out). They did, however, produce this video about the technology:

None of Germany’s Fraunhofer institutes were a part of the ICU group, however the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials stuck to the goal of developing low-cost chalcogenide glass-based IR lenses and now the institute says it has pretty much perfected the technology and cut costs 70 percent.

In a new press release from Fraunhofer IWM, one of the scientists working on lenses, Helen Müller, says, ”Instead of crystalline materials, we use the amorphous chalcogenide glass. Its softening temperature—that is, the temperature at which it can be formed—is low. Therefore, we can form it using non-isothermic hot stamping.” The institute already has a reputation for developing processes to mold high-quality glass surfaces.

Müller likens the new process of making the lenses to making waffles, with the chalcogenide glass being placed between two pressing tools. These tools are heated and, after a few minutes, cooled to below the softening temperature. The shape of the press surfaces determines the final lens configuration. The researchers assert that no additional processing is needed to get an optical imaging quality equal to polished crystal.

Fraunhofer IWM says the next steps involve tweaking the process so that it can be adapted to cost-effective mass production.

The institute also has in mind markets beyond the auto industry. If the production can be scaled up and the total price driven down, Fraunhofer IWM projects that the technology could be used for such things as monitoring the movements of health-fragile populations (e.g., older people in danger of falling or being too sedentary), monitoring industrial production (by tracking manufacturing temperatures and employee heat exposure) and continuous energy auditing of buildings.

fonte: http://ceramics.org/ceramictechtoday/2012/08/14/

Câmeras marcianas: são nada menos do que 17 câmeras de curiosidade.

Este gráfico mostra as localizações das câmeras do robô Curiosity, da NASA, que chegou a Marte dia 6 de agosto.

A Mastcam esquerda tem uma lente de 34 milímetros, e a Mastcam direita tem uma lente de 100 milímetros.

Há nove câmaras fixas montadas no robô marciano: dois pares de câmeras preto-e-branco de navegação, para evitar choques com qualquer coisa marciana (Hazard Avoidance Cameras), outro par montado na parte traseira do robô (indicadas pelas setas tracejadas) e a MARDI (Mars Descent Imager), também colorida.

Há ainda uma câmara na extremidade do braço robótico, que ainda está retraída, não podendo ser vista neste gráfico. Ela se chama MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager).

As primeiras imagens liberadas pela NASA foram feitas pelas câmeras de navegação, que fazem fotos de um megapixel e, como são fixas, não conseguem evitar a escuridão ou a saturação provocada pela luz do Sol.

Os engenheiros já estão trabalhando na liberação do mastro principal do Curiosity, um processo que poderá levar vários dias.

Só então será possível ter uma ideia melhor das imediações do local de pouso do robô.

As imagens de Marte feitas pelo Curiosity - no formato conhecido como raw, ainda sem qualquer processamento - estão sendo disponibilizadas pela NASA no endereço http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/.


fonte: http://www.inovacaotecnologica.com.br