As a powerful X-ray light hits a molecule, the heaviest atom absorbs a few hundred times more X-rays than all the other atoms and strips away most of its electrons. This creates a large positive charge that steadily pulls electrons from the other atoms in the molecule to fill vacancies like a short-lived black hole.
Enceladus – a large icy, oceanic moon of Saturn – may have flipped, the possible victim of an out-of-this-world wallop. While combing through data collected by NASA's Cassini mission during flybys of Enceladus, astronomers from Cornell University, the University of Texas and NASA have found the first evidence that the moon’s axis has reoriented, according to new research published in Icarus.
When scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory focused the full intensity of the world’s most powerful X-ray laser on a small molecule, they got a surprise: A single laser pulse stripped all but a few electrons out of the molecule’s biggest atom from the inside out, leaving a void that started pulling in electrons from the rest of the molecule, like a black hole gobbling a spiraling disk of matter.
A new citizen science project, led by astronomers at the University of Minnesota, is asking volunteers to help them with web classifications of galaxy spectra to find “baby” galaxies that are giving birth to new stars.
A giant gas planet – up to fifty times the mass of Jupiter, encircled by a ring of dust – is likely hurtling around a star more than a thousand light years away from Earth, according to new research by an international team of astronomers, led by the University of Warwick.
By teasing out signatures of particles that decay just tenths of a millimeter from the center of a trillion-degree fireball that mimics the early universe, nuclear physicists smashing atoms at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are revealing new details about the fundamental particles that make up our world.
UNLV undergraduate and NASA intern Amber Turner shares her remarkable research journey, which may someday lead to human civilizations on other planets.
A research group in Singapore has used computer simulations to further probe the behaviors of skyrmions, gaining insight that can help scientists and engineers better study the quasi-particles in experiments. The new results, published this week in AIP Advances, could also lead to skyrmion-based devices such as microwave nano-oscillators, used in a range of applications including wireless communication, imaging systems, radar and GPS.
A team of researchers has now developed a magnetoelectric random access memory (MELRAM) cell that has the potential to increase power efficiency, and thereby decrease heat waste, by orders of magnitude for read operations at room temperature. The research could aid production of devices such as instant-on laptops, close-to-zero-consumption flash drives, and data storage centers that require much less air conditioning. The research team reported their findings this week in Applied Physics Letters.
Research led by the University of Portsmouth has identified a new way to improve how we measure the age of planetary evolution in our solar system.
For the first time in history, astronomers have been able to watch as a dying star was reborn as a black hole. It went out with a whimper instead of a bang.
Astronomers have watched as a massive, dying star was likely reborn as a black hole. It took the combined power of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to go looking for remnants of the vanquished star, only to find that it disappeared out of sight.
A team of researchers led by Boise State assistant professor Neil Carter have been awarded a $529,000 grant from NASA to study the effects of human-made light and noise on wildlife in the U.S. Carter and his team will be collaborating closely with the National Park Service's Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division.
Astronomers using the VLA found that a bright new object near a distant galaxy’s core is either a very rare type of supernova explosion or, more likely, an outburst from a second supermassive black hole closely orbiting the galaxy’s primary, central supermassive black hole.
A University of Washington-led international team of astronomers has used data gathered by the Kepler Space Telescope to observe and confirm details of the outermost of seven exoplanets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1.
Scientists behind XENON1T, the largest dark matter experiment of its kind ever built, are encouraged by early results, describing them as the best so far in the search for dark matter.
Astronomers have constructed the first map of the Universe based on the positions of supermassive black holes, which reveals the large-scale structure of the Universe.
An international team of astronomers have uncovered a moon around a dwarf planet by using the combined power of three space observatories, including archival images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Called 2007 OR10, it is the third-largest dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt.
Astronomers using ALMA have made the first complete millimeter-wavelength image of the ring of dusty debris surrounding the young star Fomalhaut.
Adrian Melott has examined the effects of the supernovae on Earth’s biology. In new research to appear in Astrophysical Journal, the KU researcher and colleagues argue the estimated distance of the supernova thought to have occurred roughly 2.6 million years ago should be cut in half.
On April 12, one of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's instruments – the Large Area Telescope (LAT), which was conceived of and assembled at SLAC – detected its billionth extraterrestrial gamma ray.
Astronomers produced this dramatic new, highly-detailed image of the Crab Nebula by combining data from telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum, from the long waves seen by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to the extremely short waves seen by the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
Astronomers have produced a highly detailed image of the Crab Nebula, by combining data from telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves seen by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to the powerful X-ray glow as seen by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. And, in between that range of wavelengths, the Hubble Space Telescope's crisp visible-light view, and the infrared perspective of the Spitzer Space Telescope.
More than a decade ago, researchers discovered that when they added boron to the carbon structure of diamond, the combination was superconductive. Since then, growing interest has been generated in understanding these superconducting properties. With this interest, a research group in India focused on a Fano resonance in a heavily boron-doped diamond (BDD) that involves the vibrational mode of diamond. The researchers report their findings this week in Applied Physics Letters.
Whether you are a researcher who inveterately reads journals or someone who occasionally glides through the realms of science writing, your looking through scientific publications might well feel like a bumpy flight. Some articles require subscriptions, while others are “open access.” This month’s Physics Today should help you understand the turbulence. Journalist David Kramer explains the changes and markets of science publishing in “Steady, strong growth is expected for open-access journals.”
Like the quirky characters in the upcoming film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing galaxies across time and space. One stunning example is galaxy cluster Abell 370, which contains a vast assortment of several hundred galaxies tied together by the mutual pull of gravity. That's a lot of galaxies to be guarding, and just in this one cluster!
The first experimental result has been published from the newly upgraded Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The result demonstrates the feasibility of the experiment that is designed to study quark confinement: why no quark has ever been found alone.
NASA announced the selection of ArkSat-1 as one of 34 satellites from 19 states and the District of Columbia that will be launched into space between 2018 and 2020. Arkansas’ first CubeSat will observe the Earth’s climate and help measure the composition and concentration of atmospheric gases.
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego has been granted a supplemental award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to double the number of graphic processing units, or GPUs, on its petascale-level Comet supercomputer in direct response to growing demand for GPU computing across a wide range of research domains.
Astronomers have confirmed a nearby star's planetary system contains separate belts of asteroids, similar to our own solar system. The star is also about one-fifth the age of our sun. All this makes the star a good model of the early days of our solar system.
A mysterious gamma-ray glow at the center of the Milky Way is most likely caused by pulsars. The findings cast doubt on previous interpretations of the signal as a potential sign of dark matter.
Current drilling and fracturing methods can't extract oil and natural gas very well, recovering an estimated 5 percent of oil and 20 percent of gas from shale. That's partly due to a poor understanding of how fluids flow through these small pores, which measure only nanometers across. But new computer simulations, described this week in the Physics of Fluids, can better probe the underlying physics, potentially leading to more efficient extraction of oil and gas.
When spacecraft and satellites travel through space they encounter tiny, fast moving particles of space dust and debris. If the particle travels fast enough, its impact appears to create electromagnetic radiation (in the form of radio waves) that can damage or even disable the craft’s electronic systems. A new study published this week in the journal Physics of Plasmas, from AIP Publishing, uses computer simulations to show that the cloud of plasma generated from the particle’s impact is responsible for creating the damaging electromagnetic pulse. They show that as the plasma expands into the surrounding vacuum, the ions and electrons travel at different speeds and separate in a way that creates radio frequency emissions.
Heating the core of fusion reactors causes them to develop sheared rotation that can improve plasma performance.
In "Minority Report,” the protagonist uses gloves that give him the power of virtual manipulation. The light seems to allow him to control the screen as if it were a touchscreen, but he's touching nothing but air. That technology is still science fiction, but a new study may bring it closer to reality. Researchers report in Applied Physics Letters that they have discovered the photodielectric effect, which could lead to laser-controlled touch displays.
New surveys with the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, of the element silicon may mean that the Milky Way is more efficient at mixing its contents than previously thought, thereby masking the telltale signs of chemical aging.
Elizabeth Wille learned crystal growth techniques from Ames Laboratory senior physicist Paul Canfield as Ames Laboratory's first Office of Science Graduate Student Research program participant.
Quantum electrodynamics is a lot like baking a cake. At least, that is what physicist Dr. Ulrich Jentschura equates to the process of creating an equation that can couple particles’ and antiparticles’ predicted masses at the same time.
University of California, Irvine students will “shoot for the moon” thanks to a $1 million gift from Base 11, a nonprofit STEM workforce development and entrepreneur accelerator. The “Moonshot Initiative” will establish a rocketry program at The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, with the intent of making UCI the first academic institution to launch a liquid-fuel rocket into space.
Researchers in South Korea have quantitatively deconstructed what they describe as the “ingenious mobility strategies” of seeds that self-burrow rotationally into soil. Seeds maneuvered to dig into soil using a coiled appendage, known as an awn, that responds to humidity. The team investigated this awn’s burrowing and discovered how the nubile sprouts seem to mimic a drill to bury themselves. Their findings, published in Physics of Fluids, could have dramatic implications for improving agricultural robotics.
Violent winds and shockwaves would account for more than 60 per cent of lives lost if an asteroid were to hit the Earth, according to a new University of Southampton-led study.
In a newly published Science paper, Argonne and Temple University researchers reveal new knowledge about the behavior of metal nanoparticles when they undergo oxidation, by integrating X-ray imaging and computer modeling and simulation. This knowledge adds to our understanding of fundamental processes like oxidation and corrosion.
Christopher Edwards, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northern Arizona University, just opened the new Mars Rover Operations and Analysis Laboratory on the NAU campus, where faculty researchers and students will use sophisticated equipment to help command the day-to-day activities of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover (MSL) currently operating on the surface of Mars.
Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 27th birthday with a striking pair of very different looking spiral galaxies. The edge-on galaxy (left) is called NGC 4302, and the tilted galaxy (right) is called NGC 4298. Although the pinwheel galaxies look quite different because they are angled at different positions on the sky, they are actually quite similar in terms of their structure and contents.
In a live webcast on May 3, physicist and author Janna Levin will discuss the landmark detection of gravitational waves and what it means for our understanding of our universe.
Approximately 10-20 percent of white dwarfs exhibit strong magnetic fields, some of which can reach up to 100,000 tesla. In comparison, on Earth, the strongest magnetic fields that can be generated using nondestructive magnets are about 100 tesla. Therefore, studying the chemistry in such extreme conditions is only possible using theory and until now has not provided much insight to the spectra accompanying white dwarfs. Researchers in Germany describe their work modeling these systems this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
The study of jet disintegration in particular focuses on fuel breakup and mixing within the combustion chamber of propulsion devices. A team of researchers at the University of Florida applied spectroscopic diagnostics techniques to learn more about the fundamentals of sub- and supercritical jet disintegration, and reports their new findings this week in the journal Physics of Fluids.
Agostino “Ago” Marinelli first met pioneering accelerator physicist Claudio Pellegrini as an undergraduate student at the University of Rome. It was 2007, a couple of years before the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) came online at SLAC, and people were abuzz about free-electron laser physics.
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