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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All Posts published on »June, 2011«
Telescope Shows Flaws in Quantum Gravity Theory
One of the main strides in the field of physics is to unite the nature of space proposed by Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity with the one proposed by quantum theory. Readings collected by a telescope in Earth’s orbit are now making this effort even harder. The INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) is a […]
Five-Year Search leads to Discovery of the Most Distant Known Quasar Powered by a Black Hole Two Billion Times Mass of the Sun
June 30, 2011
A team of astronomers has discovered the most distant quasar to date — a development that could help further our understanding of the universe when it was still in its infancy following the Big Bang. This brilliant and rare beacon, powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun, […]
Sunrise View of Tycho Crater’s Peak
June 30, 2011
On June 10, 2011, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft angled its orbit 65° to the west, allowing the LRO Camera NACs to capture a dramatic sunrise view of Tycho crater. A very popular target with amateur astronomers, Tycho is located at 43.37°S, 348.68°E, and is about 51 miles (82 km) in diameter. The summit of […]
The Tibetan singing bowl : an acoustics and fluid dynamics investigation
June 29, 2011
We present the results of an experimental investigation of the acoustics and fluid dynamics of Tibetan singing bowls. Their acoustic behavior is rationalized in terms of the related dynamics of standing bells and wine glasses. Striking or rubbing a fluid-filled bowl excites wall vibrations, and concomitant waves at the fluid surface. Acoustic excitation of the […]
Alex Bellos: Tell me all about your favourite number
June 29, 2011
What’s your favourite number and why? A mathematics writer wants to know the answer. Yes, really Why are you interested in favourite numbers? I give popular talks about mathematics and I’m often asked about my favourite number. I don’t have an emotional reaction to numbers and so don’t have a favourite. So at first I […]
Dark matter may solve ‘radio filaments’ mystery
June 29, 2011
Unexplained “filaments” of radio-wave emission close to our galaxy’s centre may hold proof of the existence of dark matter, researchers have said. Dark matter is believed to make up most of the mass of our Universe, but it has yet to be definitively spotted. A report now suggests the filaments’ emission arises from dark matter […]
Nobelist Weinberg Ponders Higgs Boson, Dark Matter: Interview
June 28, 2011
Interview by Zinta Lundborg June 28 (Bloomberg) — Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg was in New York to talk about the future of big science. Making new discoveries is expensive. The Large Hadron Collider built by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, lies in a circular tunnel 17 miles in circumference under the Franco-Swiss […]
World record: The strongest magnetic fields created
June 28, 2011
On June 22, 2011, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf set a new world record for magnetic fields with 91.4 teslas. To reach this record, Sergei Zherlitsyn and his colleagues at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory Dresden (HLD) developed a coil weighing about 200 kilograms in which electric current create the giant magnetic field – for a period […]
Edwin Hubble in translation trouble
June 28, 2011
Amateur historians say famed astronomer may have censored a foreign rival. Amateur historians and astronomers are buzzing with intrigue over allegations that the legendary US astronomer Edwin Hubble, after whom NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is named, may have actively censored the work of a competitor to advance his own career. Professional historians are demanding further […]
‘Tau day’ marked by opponents of maths constant pi
June 28, 2011
The mathematical constant pi is under threat from a group of detractors who will be marking “Tau Day” on Tuesday. Tau Day revellers suggest a constant called tau should take its place: twice as large as pi, or about 6.28 – hence the 28 June celebration. Tau proponents say that for many problems in maths, […]
Join NASA in Measuring an Asteroid
June 28, 2011
On the evening of July 3 at 11:05:30 p.m. EDT — at a distance of 280 millon miles into space that poses no threat to Earth – 52 Europa will pass in front of star TYC 0292-00339-1 in the constellation Virgo. The asteroid will eclipse the star’s light for 17.9 seconds in a process known as occultation. Here […]
Famous black hole confirmed after 40 years
June 28, 2011
Using a vast array of radio telescopes, astronomers in North America are the first to make a direct measurement of the distance to Cygnus X-1, allowing them to conclude that the mass of its dark star is so great it can only be a black hole. They have also discovered that the black hole spins […]
Fractal Dimensions Should Modify The Casimir Effect
June 28, 2011
The effects of fractal dimensions could one day be observed if Casimir measurements can be made sensitive enough, according to theoretical physicist Back in the 1920s, Theodor Kaluza and Oskar Klein developed an idea that unified Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism with Einstein’s theory of relativity. That was an impressive feat but it had one small […]
Alien encounters ‘within twenty years’
June 28, 2011
A top Russian astronomer say he expects humans to encounter extraterrestrial civilisations within the next two decades Russian scientists expect humanity to encounter alien civilisations within the next two decades, a top Russian astronomer said on Monday. “The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms … Life exists on other planets […]
Solar wind sheds light on early solar system
June 27, 2011
In 2004 NASA’s Genesis space mission made an unplanned crash landing, damaging its precious cargo of solar-wind particles. Now, after years of painstaking work, two independent groups of scientists have managed to measure the relative abundances of nitrogen and oxygen isotopes in the solar wind. Their studies reveal that the isotopic compositions on Earth are […]
Astronomers to develop potential new cancer radiation treatment
June 27, 2011
Astronomers’ research on celestial bodies may have an impact on the human body. Ohio State University astronomers are working with medical physicists and radiation oncologists to develop a potential new radiation treatment – one that is intended to be tougher on tumors, but gentler on healthy tissue. In studying how chemical elements emit and absorb […]
When flower power met quantum theory
June 27, 2011
David Kaiser’s How the Hippies Saved Physics is a reminder of the unexpected influence a bunch of freewheeling 1970s physicists had on fundamental theories IT’S certainly a provocative title, but for the life of me I could not recall an era to which How the Hippies Saved Physicsmight have applied. Things made more sense, though, […]
Hiding in Plain Sight — the elusive Carina Dwarf Galaxy
June 27, 2011
It’s one of the closest galaxies to Earth, but the Carina Dwarf Galaxy is so dim and diffuse that astronomers only discovered it in the 1970s. A companion galaxy of the Milky Way, this ball of stars shares features with both globular star clusters and much larger galaxies. Astronomers believe that dwarf spheroidal galaxies like […]
A list of space telescopes
June 26, 2011
AGILE (Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini LEggero): Fermi: HETE 2 (High Energy Transient Explorer):
The trivial Higgs boson: first evidences from LHC
June 25, 2011
P. Cea, L. Cosmai We further elaborate on the triviality and spontaneous symmetry breaking scenario where the Higgs boson without self-interaction coexists with spontaneous symmetry breaking. The trivial Higgs boson is rather heavy with mass m_H = 754 +/- 20 (stat) +/- 20 (syst) GeV and total width \Gamma(H) \simeq 320 GeV. We briefly discuss […]
JPL Release Amazing Video of Curiosity on Mars
June 25, 2011
Officials at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California, have just released a new video, depicting how the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity will reach and explore the Red Planet. The video shows the orbital maneuvers that the MSL and its related components will perform when they reach Earth orbit, and how the vehicle […]
Globular Clusters and the Age-Metallicity Relation
June 25, 2011
Globular Clusters have a story to tell. These dense clumps of thousands of stars are relics of the early history of our galaxy, preserving information of the galaxy’s properties from their formation. Knowing this, astronomers have used globular clusters for nearly 30 years to probe how our galaxy has evolved. New observations from Hubble, add […]
Supernovae, Neutrinos, and the Chirality of the Amino Acids
June 25, 2011
Abstract: A mechanism for creating an enantioenrichment in the amino acids, the building blocks of the proteins, that involves global selection of one handedness by interactions between the amino acids and neutrinos from core-collapse supernovae is described. The chiral selection involves the dependence of the interaction cross sections on the orientations of the spins of […]
Top 3 Questions People Ask an Astrophysicist (and Answers)
June 24, 2011
Introduction Whether he’s teaching class, socializing at a cocktail party or talking to visitors at the planetarium where he works, Charles Liu knows that sooner or later he’s going to get asked at least one of three questions: • Is there a God? • Are there aliens? • What would happen if I fell into […]
Nanoparticles play at being red blood cells
June 24, 2011
Nanoparticles disguised as red blood cells could be used to deliver anti-cancer drugs directly to a tumour. So say researchers at the University of California at San Diego, whose new technique is unique in its approach to harnessing nanoparticles…..
Video: Asteroid 2011 MD – Earth Flyby
June 24, 2011
Asteroid 2011 MD imaged by Peter Birtwhistle (Galaxy Picture Library)- www.skymania.com A newly discovered (on 22nd June 2011) asteroid called “ASTEROID 2011 MD” will pass by earth at a distance of 17700 km on 27th June,2011 at 13.56 UTC (6.56 IST).Size of asteroid is expected to be 9 to 45 meters.There is no danger to earth. […]
Argon
June 24, 2011
Argon is a rare hermit among the many reactive and bond-forming elements Argon is element number 18 and has the atomic symbol Ar – renamed in 1959 from its original atomic symbol, which was simply A. As you can see in the image above, argon gas produces a lovely bluish-purple colour when excited with electricity. Argon is the […]
ARTEMIS Maneuvers into Lunar Orbit
June 24, 2011
This animation visualizes the maneuvers required to move the ARTEMIS spacecraft from their kidney-shaped paths on each side of the moon to orbiting the moon. It took one and a half years, over 90 orbit maneuvers, many gravitational boosts and surprisingly little fuel to move the two spacecraft. The spacecraft have been through orbits never […]
NASA Mission Suggests Sun And Planets Constructed Differently
June 23, 2011
WASHINGTON — Analysis of samples returned by NASA’s Genesis mission indicates our sun and its inner planets may have formed differently than scientists previously thought. The data revealed slight differences in the types of oxygen and nitrogen present on the sun and planets. The elements are among the most abundant in our solar system. Although […]
Quarks break free at two trillion degrees
June 23, 2011
Physicists in the US, India and China have calculated that quarks and gluons can break free from their confinement inside protons and neutrons at a temperature of around two trillion degrees Kelvin – the temperature of the universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. The researchers arrived at this figure by combining […]
Cassini Captures Ocean-Like Spray at Saturn Moon
June 23, 2011
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has discovered the best evidence yet for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft’s direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. Data from Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled […]
The Flames of Betelgeuse
June 23, 2011
New image reveals vast nebula around famous supergiant star Using the VISIR instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have imaged a complex and bright nebula around the supergiant star Betelgeuse in greater detail than ever before. This structure, which resembles flames emanating from the star, is formed as the behemoth sheds its material […]
Quantum magic trick shows reality is what you make it
June 22, 2011
Conjurers frequently appear to make balls jump between upturned cups. In quantum systems, where the properties of an object, including its location, can vary depending on how you observe them, such feats should be possible without sleight of hand. Now this startling characteristic has been demonstrated experimentally, using a single photon that exists in three […]
Pressure exerted by sunbeams harnessed for energy
June 22, 2011
Green Futures: Innovative design draws on the pressure light exerts as a driving force The force is with us, even if it is very small indeed. Scientists have long been aware that radiation of any kind exerts pressure, and light is no exception. In the 1920s, the Soviet rocket-designer Friedrich Zander suggested that a spaceship […]
Video: Pandora’s Cluster
June 22, 2011
The astronomy podcast exploring the cosmic frontier Galaxy clusters contain literally trillions of stars, and when these massive structures collide all manner of strange effects occur. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and a number of other top quality detectors, astronomers have been studying the colliding galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster because of the […]
Physicists break record for extreme quantum state
June 22, 2011
Physicists in China have broken their own record for the number of photons entangled in a “Schrödinger’s cat state”. They have managed to entangle eight photons in the state, beating the previous record of six, which they set in 2007. The Schrödinger’s cat state plays an important role in several quantum-computing and metrology protocols. However, […]
Proof That Stars Form When Clouds Collide
June 22, 2011
The discovery of stars being born in the maelstrom generated when giant gas clouds collide is good evidence for an old theory The birth of stars is one of wonders of the cosmos but it is also a puzzle. Astronomers have a rough idea of how it happens. Stars clearly form inside huge clouds of […]
Video: Cassini – Helene
June 22, 2011
Animation made using the raw images from Cassini’s flyby of Saturn’s moon, Helene on 18/6/2011
Magnetic properties of a single proton directly observed for the first time
June 22, 2011
German researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM), together with their colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg and the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, have observed spin quantum-jumps with a single trapped proton for the first time. The fact that […]
Can humans sense the Earth’s magnetism?
June 22, 2011
For migratory birds and sea turtles, the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field is crucial to navigating the long-distance voyages these animals undertake during migration. Humans, however, are widely assumed not to have an innate magnetic sense. Research published in Nature Communications this week by faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School shows that a […]
Chromoscope
June 21, 2011
Chromoscope - View the Universe in the different wavelengths: Click here Chromoscope is an accessible, easy tool that anyone can use to explore and understand the sky at multiple wavelengths…..
Solstice Flare και CME
June 21, 2011
Late in the evening on June 20 the sun emitted a long lasting C7.7 class flare that peaked around 11:25p.m. EDT. A C-class flare is a relatively small flare. The flare was associated with a coronal mass ejection that bloomed off the sun at 11:09p.m. EDT (0412 UT). The movie shown above was captured by […]
The Challenge of Unconventional Superconductivity
June 21, 2011
M. R. Norman During the past few decades, several new classes of superconductors have been discovered. Most of these do not appear to be related to traditional superconductors. As a consequence, it is felt by many that for these materials, superconductivity arises from a different source than the electron-ion interactions that are at the heart […]
Universe’s highest electric current found
June 21, 2011
A COSMIC jet 2 billion light years away is carrying the highest electric current ever seen: 1018 amps, equivalent to a trillion bolts of lightning. Philipp Kronberg of the University of Toronto in Canada and colleagues measured the alignment of radio waves around a galaxy called 3C303, which has a giant jet of matter shooting from its […]
Largest cosmic structures ‘too big’ for theories
June 21, 2011
Space is festooned with vast “hyperclusters” of galaxies, a new cosmic map suggests. It could mean that gravity or dark energy – or perhaps something completely unknown – is behaving very strangely indeed. We know that the universe was smooth just after its birth. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the light emitted […]
Fermi Space Telescope Fails to See Evidence Of Dark Matter
June 21, 2011
If dark matter fills the universe, astronomers should see the gamma rays it produces. That evidence has so far failed to materialise Among the most dramatic events in the universe are the death of stars as they collapse into black holes and the collision of black holes themselves. These events are so violent that they […]
Are science teachers using experiments as props in lessons?
June 21, 2011
Pupils generally enjoy carrying out experiments – but do teachers overuse them when they should in fact be teaching more theory, asks Alom Shaha Remember burning magnesium in school? Doing this for the first time as an 11-year-old who has just started secondary school is one of those magical experiences that all students should have. But […]
Magnetic Fields Put the Brake on Stars’ Rotation Speeds
June 21, 2011
One of the most interesting conundrums in astronomy is related to why stars don’t fly apart at high speeds while they form. Theoretically, when they first condense from molecular hydrogen, they should be spinning out of control, and yet they don’t. A new study analyzes the potential explanations. Experts have been trying to figure out […]
The ATLAS3D Project: Calling A Different Tune
June 21, 2011
In 1926, astronomer Edwin Hubble gave us our first basic galaxy classification scenario – the Hubble Sequence. Using photographic plates, Hubble derived a simplistic system based on three visually known structures: elipitical, spiral and lenticular. This sequence, when plotted out, gave the appearance of a common object and eventually became known as the “Hubble Tuning […]
The case for primordial black holes as dark matter
June 21, 2011
M.R.S. Hawkins The aim of this paper is to present the case that stellar mass primordial black holes make up the dark matter component of the Universe. A near critical density of compact bodies implies that most lines of sight will be gravitationally microlensed, and the paper focuses on looking for the predicted effects on […]
June 30, 2011
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