Important Innovations Collection

Moon Forming Disk 370 Light Years Away Source:  Rice University World First Astronomers from Rice University have just spotted a moon-forming disk around a very distant exoplanet.  The disk, as seen in the color enhanced millimeter wave radio signal on the left, is made of gas and dirt.  Scientists say it is similar to the one that is believed to have created the moons around Jupiter four billion years ago.  This is a first time ever observation of the moon forming disk. World's Most Powerful Telescopes The Rice University team made the discovery by using the most powerful array of telescopes on Earth.  They are located at the ALMA Observatory in Chile. Exoplanet PDS 70c The exoplanet is named PDS 70 c.  It is a still forming gas giant that's located 370 light years from the Earth.  The exoplanet was discovered just a month ago.  For a free Kindle borrow of my latest book "Big Space News 2019", go to  amazon.com/author/ekane AS...

Flexible, Organic Solar Cells Developed Source:  Rice University Valuable for Constant, Low Power Generation A team of scientists led by Rice University along with Brookhaven National Lab have developed  organic, flexible solar cells.  The photovoltaics are valuable for constant, low power generation.  The scientists accomplished this breakthrough by adding a chemical reagent that provides flexibility to the material while maintaining its efficiency. Organic Value Organic solar cells are inexpensive, lightweight, semitransparent and thin.  They use carbon based material like polymers to capture sunlight as opposed to hard inorganics like silicon.  The team built in the flexibility by using the sulfur based additive thiol-ene.  They found at 20% thiol-ene the cells retained their efficiency and gained flexibility.  The results were just published in the journal Chemistry of Materials.  For more on the latest in renewable energy ...