* Astronomy

New Mexico State University researchers are developing a new technology that may lead to greater understanding of meteoric events in the Earth's atmosphere by recording images of events that occur in the night sky while most of us sleep.
In the autumn of 2009, associate professor David Voelz and research assistant professor Laura Boucheron, both of the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a three-year award from the National Nuclear Security Administration. The $825,000 award will fund the development of a field network of an all-sky camera system intended to monitor, track and analyse atmospheric meteors and other events.
Read more

Differential elemental ablation of micrometeoroids
Space is not empty. This close to a star like the Sun, even after billions of years, space is filled with junk. Tiny bits of rock, ice, and metal are everywhere, the leftover shrapnel from asteroid collisions, or detritus sloughed off of comets. Every day, the Earth ploughs through many tons of such material, which mostly burns up in our atmosphere.
Scientists have now detected for the first time that as a particle enters our atmosphere, the different materials in it burn off at different times. They found that sodium and potassium burn off first, when temperatures are still low in the meteoroid. As the little chunk of cosmic fluff penetrates deeper into our atmosphere, the air thickens and the meteoroid heats up. When it hits about 1800 K (1500 C or 2800 F) materials like silicon, iron, and magnesium that have a higher vaporisation energy - that, is, need to get hotter to vaporise - start to burn off. At 2500 K (2200 C or 4000 F) the calcium, titanium, and aluminium finally boil away.

Read more