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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All Posts published on »November, 2011«
On the invariance of the speed of light
Harihar Behera, Gautam Mukhopadhyay The invariance of the speed of light in all inertial frames – the second postulate of special theory of relativity (STR) – is shown to be an inevitable consequence of the relativity principle of special theory of relativity taken in conjunction with the homogeneity of space and time in all inertial […]
Visions of Revolutions: Microphysics and Cosmophysics in the 1930s
November 30, 2011
Helge Kragh By 1930, at a time when the new physics based on relativity and quantum theory had reached a state of consolidation, problems of a foundational kind began to abound. Physicists began to speak of a new “crisis” and envisage a forthcoming “revolution” of a scale similar to the one in the mid-1920s. The […]
Dark matter particles may be heavyweights after all
November 30, 2011
by Lisa Grossman - newscientist.com Dark matter is slowly running out of places to hide. Two new looks at the gamma-ray sky suggest that if the mysterious matter is a particle, it is heavier than 40 gigaelectronvolts, about 44 times the mass of a proton. That contradicts hints from three experiments on Earth that pointed to a lightweight dark matter […]
Putting Scientists on Mars in Permanent Colonies
November 30, 2011
By Ted Greenwald - www.wired.com Eminent physicist Paul Davies has a proposal for you: a one-way ticket to the Red Planet. As it’s typically conceived, a round-trip Mars mission would take about two years and cost at least $80 billion. But you could cut 80 percent of the expense, Davies says, by nixing the return and […]
Orbit-raising commands fail to budge Phobos-Grunt probe
November 30, 2011
BY STEPHEN CLARK SPACEFLIGHT NOW Plagued by an undiagnosed problem that stranded it in Earth orbit, Russia’s Phobos-Grunt Mars mission remained quiet Tuesday after renewed attempts to coax the craft back into contact with ground controllers. European Space Agency officials transmitted signals to raise Phobos-Grunt’s orbit Tuesday in hopes it would allow greater communications opportunities […]
The ChemCam system of Curiosity rover
November 29, 2011
Light on Mars? Curiosity rover to fire ‘million bulb torch’ at planet’s surface to see if it’s habitable The Mars lander will fire a laser beam with the energy of a million lightbulbs at the surface of the red planet to see whether or not it could have supported life. The international team of space […]
The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes …
November 29, 2011
… and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth Keith B. Wiley It has been widely acknowledged that self-replicating space-probes (SRPs) could explore the galaxy very quickly relative to the age of the galaxy. An obvious implication is that SRPs produced by extraterrestrial civilizations should have arrived in our solar system millions of years ago, and furthermore, that […]
Quantum vacuum and dark matter
November 28, 2011
Dragan Slavkov Hajdukovic Abstract Recently, the gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum was proposed as alternative to the dark matter paradigm. In the present paper we consider four benchmark measurements: the universality of the central surface density of galaxy dark matter haloes, the cored dark matter haloes in dwarf spheroidal galaxies, the nonexistence of dark […]
Santa and the moon
November 28, 2011
Peter Barthel Happy end-of-the-year evening and night events provide good opportunities to explain the phases of the moon. The need for such moon phase education is once again demonstrated, through an investigation of illustrations on Santa Claus and Christmas gift wrap and in children’s books, in two countries which have been important in shaping the […]
Neutrinos and multiverses: a new cosmology beckons
November 28, 2011
You wait decades for discoveries that could revolutionise physics, then three come along at once “THE universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose,” as geneticist J. B. S. Haldane once remarked. In recent decades, physicists have done their best to prove Haldane wrong, by supposing some very queer […]
Experimental tests of Coulomb’s Law and the photon rest mass
November 27, 2011
Liang-Cheng Tu and Jun Luo Abstract Coulomb’s Law is a fundamental principle describing the electric force between isolated charges, and represents the first quantitative law achieved in electromagnetism. The degree of confidence with which the law is experimentally known to hold was investigated after the law was put forth by Coulomb in 1785. The electrodynamics […]
The Pale Blue Dot
November 27, 2011
A video tribute to Carl Sagan — and to Earth, our one and only home … Upon seeing the above image of planet Earth, photographed from 4 billion miles away by Voyager 1, astronomer Carl Sagan was so moved that he wrote out his thoughts about the deeper meaning of this photograph. He later read […]
Curiosity Rover – Mars Science Laboratory Lifts Off for Red Planet
November 26, 2011
NASA began a historic voyage to Mars with the Nov. 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket occurred at 10:02 a.m. EST (7:02 a.m. PST). http://youtu.be/qmJO449R_5g “We are very excited about sending the world’s most advanced […]
New NASA rover to scout for life’s habitats on Mars
November 25, 2011
Watch live streaming video from spaceflightnow at livestream.com http://youtu.be/P4boyXQuUIw Mars rover Curiosity poised for Nasa’s ‘most ambitious’ mission to planet The rover, part of the Mars Science Laboratory, will probe the Red Planet’s secrets with a wide array of scientific instruments Richard Luscombe A vehicle the size of a small 4×4,is about to embark on a one-way 350m-mile trip […]
Video: Astronaut Plays Baseball in Outer Space
November 25, 2011
Satoshi Furukawa plays a little ball on his own when he has free time. http://youtu.be/kmnVrW7vGeQ
Most liveable alien worlds ranked
November 24, 2011
A Two-Tiered Approach to Assessing the Habitability of Exoplanets EARTH SIMILARITY INDEX Earth – 1.00 Gliese 581g – 0.89 Gliese 581d – 0.74 Gliese 581c – 0.70 Mars – 0.70 Mercury – 0.60 HD 69830 d – 0.60 55 Cnc c – 0.56 Moon – 0.56 Gliese 581e – 0.53 PLANET HABITABILITY INDEX Titan – […]
Time Lapse From Space – Literally. The Journey Home
November 23, 2011
Producing time-lapse video onboard the International Space Station while orbiting 250 miles above the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour helps people follow along on our missions, not as spectators, but as fellow crewmembers. — Ron Garan, NASA Astronaut, Expedition 27 & 28 For the whole story: fragileoasis.org Photography from the International Space Station: Expedition […]
It’s Alive! Russia’s Phobos-Grunt Probe Phones Home
November 23, 2011
Contact has finally been made with Russia’s troubled Mars mission, says the European Space Agency (Esa)……….. Read more: www.bbc.co.uk and www.space.com
The Orbit of Asteroid 1994 PC1
November 23, 2011
Sophia Jane Balkoski, Laksh Bhasin, Milly KeQi Wang Near-Earth Asteroids can be hazardous to the Earth, due to their orbital characteristics and proximity to inner Solar System planets. Using three sets of CCD images collected in June and July 2011, the orbital elements of asteroid 1994 PC1 were determined at solar opposition. The body’s specific […]
A tiny flame shines light on supernovae explosions
November 22, 2011
Starting from the behavior of small flames in the laboratory, a team of researchers has gained new insights into the titanic forces that drive Type Ia supernova explosions. These stellar explosions are important tools for studying the evolution of the universe, so a better understanding of how they behave would help answer some of the […]
Soyuz Landing Highlights from Kazakhstan
November 22, 2011
The landing and post-landing activities in Kazakhstan of the Soyuz spacecraft and its crew of Mike Fossum, Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov are highlighted. http://youtu.be/fORo5XeK4DU www.bbc.co.uk
A Double Green Flash
November 21, 2011
At sunset, the sky is often painted with an array of oranges, reds and yellows, and even some shades of pink. There are, however, occasions when a green flash appears above the solar disc for a second or so. One such occurrence was captured beautifully in this picture taken from Cerro Paranal, a 2600-metre-high mountain […]
Pulsars Are Giant Permanent Magnets
November 21, 2011
A controversial new explanation for the powerful magnetic fields inside neutrons stars could solve several outstanding problems in astrophysics Pulsar are among the most exotic things in the Universe. These objects are rotating neutron stars emitting radiation from their magnetic poles. They appear to pulse because the magnetic axis is not aligned with the axis […]
Theory of Brain Function, Quantum Mechanics and Superstrings
November 20, 2011
D. Nanopoulos Abstract Recent developments/efforts to understand aspects of the brain function at the subneural level are discussed. MicroTubules (MTs), protein polymers constructing the cytoskeleton, participate in a wide variety of dynamical processes in the cell. Of special interest to us is the MTs participation in bioinformation processes such as learning and memory, by possessing […]
Universe’s first stars were more suns than supergiants
November 20, 2011
THE earliest stars may have been less than half as large as previously thought. The new size limit could resolve one of astronomy’s oldest mysteries: why some elements are more abundant than theory predicts. In the first hundreds of millions of years after the big bang, the earliest stars formed from atomic hydrogen, helium and […]
Quantum theorem shakes foundations
November 20, 2011
The wavefunction is a real physical object after all, say researchers. Eugenie Samuel Reich At the heart of the weirdness for which the field of quantum mechanics is famous is the wavefunction, a powerful but mysterious entity that is used to determine the probabilities that quantum particles will have certain properties. Now, a preprint posted online on […]
Profumo di SUSY ….
November 19, 2011
…. Suggestive Correlations in the ATLAS and CMS High Jet Multiplicity Data Tianjun Li, James A. Maxin, Dimitri V. Nanopoulos, Joel W. Walker We present persistently amassing evidence that the CMS and ATLAS Collaborations may indeed be already registering supersymmetry events at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our analysis is performed in the context of […]
To Mars by Sky Crane
November 18, 2011
Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration
Incredible high-resolution video of Jupiter
November 18, 2011
Jupiter map realised in 2011, between October 10th and October 15th at the Pic du Midi Observatory Jupiter observed with the 1 meter Telescope at the Pic du Midi observatory, and a Basler Scout Camera. Crédit : S2P / IMCCE / OPM / JL Dauvergne / Elie Rousset / Eric Meza / Philippe Tosi / […]
Higgs boson’s moment of truth is fast approaching at the LHC
November 18, 2011
Tantalising hints of the Higgs boson will be confirmed or ruled out at the LHC in the coming months, say researchers by Ιan Sample Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva are edging ever closer to answering one of the most profound questions in particle physics: does the Higgs boson exist? Speaking at a […]
Neutrinos still faster than light in latest version of experiment
November 18, 2011
OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight time of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso UPDATE 18 November 2011 Following the OPERA collaboration’s presentation at CERN on 23 September, inviting scrutiny of their neutrino time-of-flight measurement from the broader particle physics community, the collaboration has rechecked many aspects of its analysis and taken into account valuable […]
NASA’s Chandra Contributes to Black Hole Birth Announcement
November 17, 2011
New details about the birth of a famous black hole that took place millions of years ago have been uncovered, thanks to a team of scientists who used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory as well as from radio, optical and other X-ray telescopes. Over three decades ago, Stephen Hawking placed — and eventually lost […]
China’s unmanned Shenzhou 8 capsule returns to Earth
November 17, 2011
http://youtu.be/kjxg6MgTH-s By Jonathan Amos A Chinese spacecraft has returned to Earth after completing the nation’s first docking manoeuvres in orbit. The Shenzhou 8 capsule landed in the Gobi desert late on Thursday (Beijing time), the final moments of its descent having being slowed by parachute. While in orbit, the unmanned Shenzhou mission had rendezvoused with […]
Chalmers scientists create light from vacuum
November 17, 2011
Scientists at Chalmers have succeeded in creating light from vacuum – observing an effect first predicted over 40 years ago. The results have been published in the journal Nature. In an innovative experiment, the scientists have managed to capture some of the photons that are constantly appearing and disappearing in the vacuum. The experiment is […]
Cosmic particle accelerators get things going
November 17, 2011
This composition shows a number of diverse astronomical sources where shocks have been detected. Shock waves arise when supersonic flows of plasma are faced with an obstacle, such as a planet or a star with a magnetic field, or when they encounter a slower moving flow. Depicted in the composition are: a bow shock around […]
Nasa ‘discovers’ liquid water on Jupiter moon
November 17, 2011
Nasa says it has found evidence of a vast salt water lake just under the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa – a potential location for alien life http://youtu.be/wt58KiJW2kk Lake of slush hidden under floating ice cap on Jupiter’s moon Europa ‘could harbour life’ By ROB WAUGH Slushy lake may be hidden by a ‘lid’ […]
Was The Sun Born In A Massive Cluster?
November 17, 2011
Donald Dukes, Mark R. Krumholz A number of authors have argued that the Sun must have been born in a cluster of no more than about 1000 stars, on the basis that, in a larger cluster, close encounters between the Sun and other stars would have truncated the outer Solar System or excited the outer […]
Video: View from Space
November 16, 2011
Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011. http://youtu.be/ls9yJTphLxg
Job Posting: Astronaut Candidate
November 16, 2011
Job Title:Astronaut Candidate Department:National Aeronautics & Space Administration Agency:Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Job Announcement Number:JS12A0001 SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year OPEN PERIOD: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 to Friday, January 27, 2012 SERIES & GRADE: GS-0801-11/14 POSITION INFORMATION: Full Time – Permanent PROMOTION POTENTIAL:15 DUTY LOCATIONS: Few vacancy(s) in the following locations: Houston, […]
Soyuz Docks to International Space Station
November 16, 2011
The Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and cosmonauts and fellow Expedition 29/30 members Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin hooks up with the International Space Station two days after their liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. http://youtu.be/9oW7noeV0dc Read also: Expedition 29 launched amid snowy conditions from Kazakhstan
Mystery of the Lunar Ionosphere
November 15, 2011
Lunar researchers have been struggling with the mystery for years, and they may have finally found a solution. But first, what is an ionosphere? Every terrestrial planet with an atmosphere has one. High above the planet’s rocky surface where the atmosphere meets the vacuum of space, ultraviolet rays from the sun break apart atoms of […]
Update on Phobos-Grunt: Might the LIFE Experiment be Recovered?
November 15, 2011
http://youtu.be/4xGscFj7j6k by DAVID WARMFLASH Editor’s note: With Russian engineers trying to save the Phobos-Grunt mission, Dr. David Warmflash, principal science lead for the US team from the LIFE experiment on board the spacecraft, provides an update of the likelihood of saving the mission, while offering the intriguing prospect that their experiment could possibly be recovered, […]
How Superconductors Can Detect Gravitational Waves
November 15, 2011
Superconducting metal bars could revolutionise the detection of gravitational waves, says physicists Gravitational waves are vibrations in the fabric of spacetime. They are among the most exciting phenomena in the universe because they are generated by exotic processes such as collisions between black holes and even in the moment of creation itself, the Big Bang. […]
Unusual levels of radioactivity (iodine-131) in France
November 15, 2011
Read also: Radioactivity in Europe (update17-11-2011) Selon l’Agence hongroise de l’énergie nucléaire, les très faibles concentrations d’iode 131 mesurées dans l’atmosphère de différents pays d’Europe, dont la France, proviennent d’un Institut spécialisé dans la production de produits radioactifs à usage médical ou industriel. L’AIEA qui vient de publier l’information rappelle que ces rejets ne présentent […]
LHC reveals hints of ‘new physics’ in particle decays
November 15, 2011
Read also: 1. LHCb uses charm to find asymmetry 2.LHCb has evidence of new physics! Maybe 3. New Physics at LHC? An Anomaly in CP Violation By Jason Palmer Large Hadron Collider researchers have shown off what may be the facility’s first “new physics” outside our current understanding of the Universe. Particles called D-mesons seem […]
The quantum state cannot be interpreted statistically
November 15, 2011
Matthew F. Pusey, Jonathan Barrett, Terry Rudolph Quantum states are the key mathematical objects in quantum theory. It is therefore surprising that physicists have been unable to agree on what a quantum state represents. There are at least two opposing schools of thought, each almost as old as quantum theory itself. One is that a […]
November 30, 2011
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