Latest Science and technology in Europe Stories

The European Space Agency is awarding a prize of $44,200 as part of the sixth European Satellite Navigation Competition. The space agency said the competition, now in its sixth year, is designed to find the best quick-to-market innovative idea for the use of satellite navigation in a non-space sector. Satellite navigation is a good example of how Europe's space research can be used for commercial purposes, from more traditional applications in the automotive industry, to uses in the computer...

As part of the sixth European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC), the ESA Technology Transfer Program is awarding a special prize of €10,000 (roughly $16,400 USD) to the applicant with the best innovative business plan.Satellite navigation is a good example of how Europe's space research can be used for commercial purposes, from more traditional applications in the automotive industry, to uses in the computer games market. With its innovation prize, ESA's Technology Transfer...

European Space Agency technology used to monitor satellites also is being used in a system that can remotely monitor offshore oil and gas facilities. Our 'Remote Intuitive Visual Operations' system is based upon years of ESA experience in the monitoring of satellites and the handling of emergency situations, Alexandre Van Damme of the French-Dutch start-up company Ergonomics Applied to Operations said. It is an enhanced alarm monitoring system that sits on top of conventional distributed...

Solar cells have become almost as crucial an enabling technology for space as rockets themselves. The vast majority of satellites rely on solar power, for an obvious reason: space may be empty of just about everything else, but it has an endless abundance of sunshine.By happy accident the photovoltaic cell was invented in 1954, just three years before the Space Age began. Otherwise orbital exploration might have been delayed for decades by spacecraft needing power supplies that would have...

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said in a statement on Monday that he is overruling his science minister and the country will not be pulling out of the international particle physics laboratory, CERN, over rising costs, Reuters reported.The particle collider, which is being called the biggest machine ever created, is built under the French-Swiss border outside Geneva.The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) machine aims to recreate the conditions of the "Big Bang,"...

Austria has plans to pull out of the international particle physics laboratory CERN, due to its share of high costs eating up too much of the country's budget for international research .The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has invented a machine where particles collide under the French-Swiss border outside Geneva, which is suppose to make conditions that are like the origin of the universe, also known as the "Big Bang."So far, the project has cost about $9 billion...

The European Space Agency says the world premier of its digital show Touching the Edge of the Universe is planned this month at 30 European planetariums. Thursday's premier at planetariums in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is planned just days before the May 14 scheduled launch of the ESA's Herschel and Planck spacecraft -- two of the missions described in the program. Touching the Edge of the Universe tells the story of astronomy from the time of Galileo and his simple optical telescope...

Recycling is important not only on a global scale, but also at the cellular level, since key molecules tend to be available in limited numbers. This means a cell needs to have efficient recycling mechanisms. Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Heidelberg University, Germany, have now uncovered the first step in the recycling of a crucial molecular tag which ensures the instructions encoded in our genes are correctly carried out. The study, published this week...

ESA's Technology Transfer Program holds its second annual "˜SpaceTransfer' event at this year's Hanover Fair from 20 to 24 April. SpaceTransfer09 presents a number of impressive spin-offs, illustrating the potential of advanced space technology.The SpaceTransfer09 event in Hanover offers European industry access to innovative ideas which were originally developed and funded by European space programs. During this global economic crisis, industry should take advantage of the knowledge and...

Three educational experiments sponsored by ESA's Education Office blasted off to the edge of space on March 12 and 13 during the latest REXUS sounding rocket campaign from the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna, Sweden.First to fly was REXUS 6, which soared to an altitude of 88 km before returning its payload safely to the ground for subsequent recovery and analysis. On board was the ESA-sponsored Nordic Ionospheric Sounding Rocket Seeding Experiment (NISSE), which was developed by a student team...