Two lighter than air systems in opposing flight regimes: An unmanned short haul, heavy load transport balloon and a manned, light payload airship

Lighter Than Air vehicles are generally defined or categorized by the shape of the balloon, payload capacity and operational flight regime. Two balloon systems that are classed as being in opposite categories are described. One is a cable guided, helium filled, short haul, heavy load transport Lighter Than Air system with a natural shaped envelope. The other is a manned, aerodynamic shaped airship which utilizes hot air as the buoyancy medium and is in the light payload class. While the airship is in the design/fabrication phase with flight tests scheduled for the latter part of 1974, the transport balloon system has been operational for some eight years

Discovery of an outflow of the very low-mass star ISO 143

We discover that the very young very low-mass star ISO143 (M5) is driving an outflow based on spectro-astrometry of forbidden [SII] emission lines at 6716A and 6731A observed in UVES/VLT spectra. This adds another object to the handful of brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars (M5-M8) for which an outflow has been confirmed and which show that the T Tauri phase continues at very low masses. We find the outflow of ISO143 to be intrinsically asymmetric and the accretion disk to not obscure the outflow, as only the red outflow component is visible in the [SII] lines. ISO143 is only the third T Tauri object showing a stronger red outflow component in spectro-astrometry, after RW Aur (G5) and ISO217 (M6.25). We show here that including ISO143 two out of seven outflows confirmed in the very low-mass regime (M5-M8) are intrinsically asymmetric. We measure a spatial extension of the outflow in [SII] of up to 200-300 mas (about 30-50 AU) and velocities of up to 50-70 km/s. We furthermore detect line emission of ISO143 in CaII (8498), OI (8446), HeI (7065), and weakly in [FeII] (7155). Based on a line profile analysis and decomposition we demonstrate that (i) the CaII emission can be attributed to chromospheric activity, a variable wind, and the magnetospheric infall zone, (ii) the OI emission mainly to accretion-related processes but also a wind, and (iii) the HeI emission to chromospheric or coronal activity. We estimate a mass outflow rate of ISO143 of ~10^{-10} Msol/yr and a mass accretion rate in the range of ~10^{-8} to ~10^{-9} Msol/yer. These values are consistent with those of other brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars. The derived Mout/Macc ratio of 1-20% is not supporting previous findings of this number to be very large (>40%) for very low-mass objects.Comment: Accepted for publication at A&A; 9 pages, 5 figures. Minor changes due to language editin

Muonic hydrogen and the proton radius puzzle

The extremely precise extraction of the proton radius by Pohl et al. from the measured energy difference between the 2P and 2S states of muonic hydrogen disagrees significantly with that extracted from electronic hydrogen or elastic electron-proton scattering. This is the proton radius puzzle. The origins of the puzzle and the reasons for believing it to be very significant are explained. Various possible solutions of the puzzle are identified, and future work needed to resolve the puzzle is discussed.Comment: Minor modifications, some references added, to appear in Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. Vol 63 (2013). 60 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl