UIC researchers have shown, under funding from NASA, that the tiny recoil force of bubbles leaving a heated surface can be harnessed to mix liquid coolant around high-power microelectronics -- in space or on Earth.
Mars may have been a wetter place than previously thought, according to research on simulated Martian meteorites conducted, in part, at Berkeley Lab.
A new citizen science project, led by astronomers at the University of Minnesota, is asking for help from the public to identify and categorize hundreds of thousands of ring patterns within images produced by VERITAS gamma-ray observatory cameras.
Under a collaborative partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy, a new automated measurement system developed at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory will ensure quality production of plutonium-238 while reducing handling by workers.
A habitation system designed by Ohio State College of Engineering students could make deep space living more healthy and efficient for astronauts on the Journey to Mars. The project is part of NASA’s eXploration Systems and Habitation (X-Hab) Academic Innovation Challenge series.
Twenty years ago, astronauts on the Hubble telescope's second servicing mission installed the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) aboard Hubble. This pioneering instrument combines a camera with a spectrograph, which provides a "fingerprint" of a celestial object's temperature, chemical composition, density, and motion. STIS also reveals changes in the evolving universe and leads the way in the field of high-contrast imaging.
Limitations of the piezoelectric array technologies conventionally used for ultrasonics inspired a group of University College London researchers to explore an alternative mechanism for generating ultrasound via light, also known as the photoacoustic effect. Coupling this with 3-D printing, the group was able to generate sounds fields with specific shapes for potential use in biological cell manipulation and drug delivery. As the group reports in this week’s Applied Physics Letters, their work focuses on using the photoacoustic effect to control ultrasound fields in 3-D.
A Florida State University researcher will lead a joint U.S.-Russia project that will examine the effect of space travel on astronauts’ vision, an ongoing problem that NASA has been eager to solve.
Hunting for habitable exoplanets now may be easier: Cornell University astronomers report that hydrogen pouring from volcanic sources on planets throughout the universe could improve the chances of locating life in the cosmos.
Three decades ago, astronomers spotted one of the brightest exploding stars in more than 400 years. The titanic supernova, called Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A), blazed with the power of 100 million suns for several months following its discovery on Feb. 23, 1987. To commemorate the 30th anniversary of SN 1987A, new images, time-lapse movies, a data-based animation, and a three-dimensional model are being released. By combining data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, as well as the international Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers -- and the public -- can explore SN 1987A like never before.
Northwestern University physicists William P. Halperin and James A. Sauls have been awarded the prestigious international Fritz London Memorial Prize for 2017. Awarded every three years, the London Prize recognizes scientists who have made outstanding experimental and theoretical contributions to the field of low-temperature physics.
After losing its first match of the day to the defending champions, The Harker School’s team won 10 consecutive rounds to claim victory in the annual SLAC Regional DOE Science Bowl on Saturday, Feb. 11.
In a live webcast March 1, astrophysicist Amber Straughn will discuss the development and construction of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and the important scientific questions it will help answer.
Plumbing a 90 million-year-old layer cake of sedimentary rock in Colorado, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University has found evidence confirming a critical theory of how the planets in our solar system behave in their orbits around the sun. The finding, published Feb. 23, 2017 in the journal Nature, is important because it provides the first hard proof for what scientists call the “chaotic solar system.”
For the first time, scientists have measured quantum criticality by developing a thin membrane suspended in air by very narrow bridges, thereby forming a "nano-trampoline". This enabled specific heat measurements of thin films through a quantum phase transition from a superconducting state to an electrically insulating state close to absolute zero temperatures.
Sound travels more slowly than light. Then why do sounds of meteors entering earth's atmosphere precede or accompany the sight of them? Sandia researchers believe they have an answer.
Nicholas Warner, assistant professor of geology, was among planetary geologists recently presenting evidence to NASA scientists on the best Mars landing sites for the next rover mission, scheduled to launch in 2020.
Alien subatomic particles raining down from outer space are wreaking low-grade havoc on your smartphones, computers and other personal electronic devices.
An international team of scientists used an X-ray laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to determine the structure of an insect virus’s crystalline protein “cocoon.”
In the mid 1990s, when NASA built two identical Lightning Imaging Sensors (just in case), Dr. Hugh Christian planned all along to send the flight spare into space. He just didn't expect it to take almost 20 years for that to happen.
University of Iowa students have built a device to recreate Earth’s auroras and other space phenomena in miniature. The planeterrella is the only one of its kind in Iowa and one of just a handful in the United States.
Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a patch of land in an ancient valley on Mars that appears to have been flooded by water in the not-too-distant past. In doing so, they have pinpointed a prime target to begin searching for past life forms on the Red Planet.
There are several important gases that are detectable with mid-infrared light, having wavelengths between 3-4 micrometers. Application-grade Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), however, aren’t yet available for this wavelength range, but the increasing need for compact, portable and affordable gas sensors is spurring demand for energy-efficient semiconductor sources of mid-IR light. Addressing this demand, a group of researchers set out to develop a concept to extend the wavelength coverage of VCSELs into this important regime.
For use in quantum sensing, the bulk nanodiamond crystal surrounding the point defect must be highly perfect. Any deviation from perfection will adversely affect the quantum behavior of the material. Highly perfect nanodiamonds are also quite expensive and difficult to make. A cheaper alternative, say researchers, is to take defect-ridden, low-quality, commercially manufactured diamonds, and then “heal” them. In APL Materials, they describe a method to heal diamond nanocrystals under high-temperature conditions.
Astronomers using ALMA have discovered a surprising connection between a supermassive black hole and the galaxy where it resides.
New research in Nature Physics demonstrates that machine learning algorithms might play an important role in identifying different phases of condensed matter.
The race is on to build the most sensitive U.S.-based experiment designed to directly detect dark matter particles. Department of Energy officials have formally approved a key construction milestone that will propel the project toward its April 2020 goal for completion.
The University of Utah announced the Consortium for Dark Sky Studies, the first academic center in the world dedicated to discovering, developing, communicating and applying knowledge of the quality of the night skies. The consortium will research light pollution and the public health, economic and environmental impacts of the disappearing dark.
Team discovers object in the constellation Boötes with carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen.
Jason Steffen, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UNLV, discusses the ways in which exoplanet research have shaken up the theoretical models.
For the first time, theoretical physicists from the University of Basel have calculated the signal of specific gravitational wave sources that emerged fractions of a second after the Big Bang.
Researchers in Singapore and China have collaborated to develop a self-powered photodetector that can be used in a wide range of applications such as chemical analysis, communications, astronomical investigations and much more.
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found the best evidence yet of the remains of a comet-like object scattered in the atmosphere of a white dwarf. The icy object, which has been ripped apart, is similar to Halley's Comet in chemical composition, but it is 100,000 times more massive.
Superconductivity is one of modern physics’ most intriguing scientific discoveries. However, practical exploitation of superconductivity also presents many challenges. The challenges are perhaps greatest for researchers trying to integrate superconductivity in small, portable systems. Researchers demonstrate this week in Applied Physics Letters, that a portable superconducting magnetic system, which is, in essence, a high performance substitute for a conventional permanent magnet, can attain a 3-tesla level for the magnetic field.
An exotic binary star system 380 light-years away has been identified as an elusive white dwarf pulsar – the first of its kind ever to be discovered in the universe – thanks to research by the University of Warwick.
A giant black hole ripped apart a nearby star and then continued to feed off its remains for close to a decade, according to research led by the University of New Hampshire. This black hole meal is more than 10 times longer than any other previous episode of a star’s death.
KATRIN project achieves transmission of electrons through completed apparatus, opening new doors to understanding the universe.
Comet, the petascale supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), an Organized Research Unit of UC San Diego, has easily surpassed its target of serving at least 10,000 researchers across a diverse range of science disciplines, from astrophysics to redrawing the “tree of life”.
Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research has joined NASA's Advanced Composite Consortium (ACC), a public-private partnership focused on advancing knowledge about composite materials and improving the performance of future aircraft.
In April last year, billionaire Yuri Milner announced the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. He plans to invest 100 million US dollars in the development of an ultra-light light sail that can be accelerated to 20 percent of the speed of light to reach the Alpha Centauri star system within 20 years. The problem of how to slow down this projectile once it reaches its target remains a challenge.
Using advanced imaging techniques, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have been able to observe what exactly happens inside a cathode particle as lithium-ion batteries are charged and discharged.
For the first time in more than 50 years, a door that is opened at the western end of the historic linear accelerator at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory casts light on four empty walls stretching as far as the eye can see. This end of the linac – a full kilometer of it – has been stripped of all its equipment both above and below ground.
MRIs before and after space missions reveal that astronauts' brains compress and expand during spaceflight, according to a University of Michigan study.
Galaxies in the universe trace patterns on very large scales; there are large empty regions (called "voids") and dense regions where the galaxies exist. This distribution is called the cosmic web. The most massive concentrations of galaxies are clusters. The formation of the cosmic web is governed by the action of gravity on the invisible mysterious "dark matter" that exists throughout the universe.
A light-sensing protein from a salt-loving, sulfur-forming microbe has proved key to developing methods essential to advanced drug discovery, understanding human vision and other biomedical applications. In a review published this week in Structural Dynamics, by AIP Publishing, physicist Marius Schmidt of the University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee presents a history of decades of research of this microbe and the many new technologies that have enabled these applications.
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