2014

Orbital Sciences Cygnus spacecraft atop an Antares rocket right after lift-off (Image NASA TV)

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A little while ago, Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus spacecraft lifted off on an Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), part of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) on Wallops Island, Virginia. After about 15 minutes it successfully separated from the last stage of the rocket and started its journey. This is its first official mission, Orbital-1 or simply Orb-1, of transport of supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.

Coyote by Allen Steele

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The novel “Coyote” by Allen Steele was published for the first time in 2002 fixing-up some stories published separately between 2001 and 2002 in versions that sometimes a little different. It’s the first novel in the Coyote series.

Coyote is a moon of a gas giant planet type in the system 47 Ursae Majoris, 46 light years from Earth and can support life. In 2070, the regime of the nation built after the fall of the USA decides to send to Coyote the URSS Alabama, a spaceship capable of interstellar travel carrying a crew in suspended animation.

The star Beta Pictoris and its planet Beta Pictoris b observed by the Gemini Planet Imager (Image Gemini/Christian Marois, NRC Canada)

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After nearly a decade needed for its development, construction and testing, in recent days the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) officially came into operation. It’s a huge camera built to take pictures of exoplanets. It was deployed on the Gemini South telescope in Chile, one of the two large twin telescopes with a diameter of 8.1 m (26.9 ft) each that form the Gemini – which means twins – Observatory.

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Google has announced the creation of the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA), a coalition that aims to bring you the Android platform in cars. This alliance includes the car manufacturers Audi, GM, Honda and Hyundai but also the processors manufacturer NVIDIA. The OAA intends to bring together the know-how of the various companies that form it to create a common platform to drive innovation to make technology in the car more secure and intuitive for everyone.

Queen of Candesce by Karl Schroeder

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The novel “Queen of Candesce” by Karl Schroeder was published for the first time in 2007. It’s the second novel of Virga and and the sequel to “Sun of Suns”.

Lady Venera Fanning ended up in Spyre, an ancient cylindrical habitat that’s decaying, in all senses. Over the centuries the local society has fragmented into a myriad of micro- states with an unstable political and social balance. The habitat is slowly going to pieces too and now no one is able to repair it.