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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All Posts published on »February, 2012«
We Are the Explorers
Why do we explore? Simply put, it is part of who we are, and it is something we have done throughout our history. In NASA’s new video, “We Are the Explorers,” we take a look at that tradition of reaching for things just beyond our grasp and how it is helping us lay the foundation […]
Seti Live website to crowdsource alien life
February 29, 2012
A website has been launched that aims to get the public involved in the search for extraterrestrial life. Announced at the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Los Angeles, the site will stream radio frequencies that are transmitted from the Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Allen Telescope Array. Participants will be asked to search […]
Ultra-fast Outflows Help Monster Black Holes Shape Their Galaxies
February 28, 2012
curious correlation between the mass of a galaxy’s central black hole and the velocity of stars in a vast, roughly spherical structure known as its bulge has puzzled astronomers for years. An international team led by Francesco Tombesi at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., now has identified a new type of black-hole-driven […]
Can The Human Brain See Quantum Images?
February 28, 2012
Nobody knows whether humans can access exotic images based on quantum entanglement. Now one physicist has designed an experiment to find out The strange rules of the quantum world lead to many weird phenomena. One of these is the puzzling process of quantum imaging, which allows images to form in hitherto unimagined ways. Researchers begin […]
Planetary Conjunction Over Los Angeles
February 28, 2012
Matt Hartman captured Venus, Jupiter and the Moon on the move in this time-lapse. Recorded on February 25th, 2012. http://youtu.be/aB87RUd_E_E
Video: Orion Nebula
February 28, 2012
The Orion Nebula is quite “piddly” – but it happens to be in our neck of the galaxy. In this video Meghan Gray (University of Nottingham), Paul Crowther (University of Sheffield) and Nik Szymanek (ccland.net) http://youtu.be/KOXm7W8f6wo
Other Neutrino Anomalies
February 27, 2012
Many a time I have stressed on this blog that neutrinos are boring, though I should specify that they are boring from the point of view of a theoretical physicist. For experimentalists, on the other hand, neutrinos are first of all annoying. Indeed, taking part in a neutrino experiment seems the shortest path to trouble, […]
Scientists image the charge distribution within a single molecule for the first time
February 27, 2012
IBM scientists were able to measure for the first time how charge is distributed within a single molecule. This achievement will enable fundamental scientific insights into single-molecule switching and bond formation between atoms and molecules. Furthermore, it introduces the possibility of imaging the charge distribution within functional molecular structures, which hold great promise for future […]
Video: What is Matter?
February 27, 2012
What is matter, anyway? What does it have to do with math? And why aren’t you made of Jesus? Delving deeper into the theory of (almost) everything – the Standard Model of particle physics. http://youtu.be/Fxeb3Pc4PA4
How likely is an asteroid strike?
February 26, 2012
David Spiegelhalter A report suggests that there should be 91 deaths every year from asteroid strikes, but what are the chances of that actually happening? Buy insurance. Tick. Health check. Tick. Drive sensibly. Tick. As a general rule, we humans like to control our lives. But let’s face it, all of this caution is a […]
How Much Would it Cost to build the Death Star?
February 26, 2012
Star Wars fans hoping to build a real Death Star had better get saving – economists have worked out it would cost more than £541,261 trillion just for the raw materials. By Richard Gray - telegraph.co.uk Is seems that while you should never underestimate the power of the Dark Side, you should also pay attention to […]
From Cosmos to Intelligent Life: The Four Ages of Astrobiology
February 26, 2012
Marcelo Gleiser The history of life on Earth and in other potential life-bearing planetary platforms is deeply linked to the history of the universe. Since life as we know it relies on chemical elements forged in dying heavy stars, the universe needs to be old enough for stars to form and evolve. Current cosmological theory […]
The Mandela particle
February 25, 2012
In the middle 1970s a team of scientists announced their discovery of a new fragment of matter and named it “Mandela Particle” (in honor of Nelson Mandela). The “discovery” was later found to be a mistake, due to faulty equipment…. Read also: adsabs.harvard.edu
Primordial seeds of supermassive black holes
February 25, 2012
Masahiro Kawasaki, Alexander Kusenko, Tsutomu T. Yanagida Supermassive black holes exist in the centers of galaxies, including Milky Way, but there is no compelling theory of their formation. Furthermore, observations of quasars imply that supermassive black holes have already existed at some very high redshifts, suggesting the possibility of their primordial origin. In a class […]
Preview of a Forthcoming Supernova
February 24, 2012
NASA’s Hubble Telescope captured an image of Eta Carinae. This image consists of ultraviolet and visible light images from the High Resolution Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The field of view is approximately 30 arcseconds across. The larger of the two stars in the Eta Carinae system is a huge and unstable star […]
The Relativity of Existence
February 24, 2012
Despite the success of physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of experiments, we have made remarkably little progress towards answering some of the most basic questions about our existence, such as: why does the universe exist? Why is the universe apparently fine-tuned to be able to support life? Why are the […]
Pluto Stamp Watch
February 24, 2012
Stamp Petition Gains Nearly 6,000 Signatures The dwarf planet Pluto may be at the edge of our solar system, but an effort on Earth is seeking to put the icy world in mailboxes across the country — in stamp form. An online petition backed by scientists with NASA’s New Horizons mission is pushing for new postage […]
Twenty-five years after supernova 1987A
February 24, 2012
While primitive humans of the Middle Paleolithic hunted prey and sheltered in caves in Africa, a distant star eighteen times more massive than the Sun, located faraway in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) endured a catastrophic collapse as it reached the end of its life. As the star caved in, its outer layers rebounded off […]
Axion Dark Matter and Cosmological Parameters
February 23, 2012
Blame dark matter underdog for mystery missing lithium by David Shiga AN UNDERDOG dark-matter particle could explain why the universe seems strangely low on lithium. If the idea holds up, it will be a boon in the hunt for dark matter, the stuff needed to account for 80 per cent of the universe’s matter. In the […]
Journey to the Center of the Earth
February 23, 2012
Un voyage au centre de la Terre Les trois satellites européens de la constellation Swarm, fabriqués par l’industriel franco-allemand, Astrium, seront lancés cet été depuis la base russe de Plesetsk par une fusée Rockot. Une fois déployés sur leur orbite définitive, à 530 kilomètres d’altitude pour l’un et à 460 kilomètres pour les deux autres, ces […]
Error Undoes Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results
February 22, 2012
by Edwin Cartlidge It appears that the faster-than-light neutrino results, announced last September by the OPERA collaboration in Italy, was due to a mistake after all. A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame. Physicists had detected neutrinos travelling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso […]
NASA Telescope Finds Elusive Buckyballs in Space
February 22, 2012
For the first time, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected little spheres of carbon, called buckyballs, in a galaxy beyond our Milky Way galaxy. The space balls were detected in a dying star, called a planetary nebula, within the nearby galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud. What’s more, huge quantities were found — the equivalent in […]
Playing Games with Quantum Mechanics
February 22, 2012
Simon J.D. Phoenix, Faisal Shah Khan We present a perspective on quantum games that focuses on the physical aspects of the quantities that are used to implement a game. If a game is to be played, it has to be played with objects and actions that have some physical existence. We call such games playable. […]
Distant ‘waterworld’ is confirmed
February 21, 2012
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a new class of planet: a waterworld with a thick, steamy atmosphere. The exoplanet GJ 1214b is a so-called “Super Earth” – bigger than our planet, but smaller than gas giants such as Jupiter. Observations using the Hubble telescope now seem to confirm that a large fraction of its mass […]
NASA’s Chandra Finds Fastest Wind From Stellar-Mass Black Hole
February 21, 2012
Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole. This result has important implications for understanding how this type of black hole behaves. The record-breaking wind is moving about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light. This […]
Dead for 32,000 Years, an Arctic Plant Is Revived
February 20, 2012
A plant that last flowered when woolly mammoths roamed the plains is back in bloom. Biologists have resurrected a 30,000-year-old plant, cultivating it from fruit tissue recovered from frozen sediment in Siberia. The plant is by far the oldest to be brought back from the dead: the previous record holder was a sacred lotus, dating […]
Stars containing dark matter should look different from other stars
February 20, 2012
Finding evidence for dark matter – the unknown substance that theoretically makes up 23% of the universe – has been one of the biggest challenges in modern cosmology. Several experiments are underway to detect dark matter candidates known as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) as they travel through the Earth. And experiments at the Large […]
NASA Spacecraft Reveals Recent Geological Activity on the Moon
February 20, 2012
New images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon’s crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon’s age of more than 4.5 billion years. […]
Scattered Light Could Reveal Alien Atmospheres
February 20, 2012
The light scattered off distant worlds could help reveal details about their atmospheres that no other method could uncover, scientists find. Nearly all the information astronomers have of the atmospheres of alien planets or exoplanets comes from worlds whose orbits happen to be precisely aligned from our vantage point. Once per orbit, these exoplanets go […]
John Glenn’s 1962 Orbital Space Flight
February 20, 2012
Universal Newsreel Fifty years ago, on February 20th, 1962 John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the earth. This is a 1962 Universal Newsreel about his historic flight. http://youtu.be/qY87RTXzA04 Read also: A Salute to John Glenn, 50 Years of American Manned Spaceflight
Pulsars: The Universe’s gift to physics
February 20, 2012
Pulsars, superdense neutron stars, are perhaps the most extraordinary physics laboratories in the Universe. Research on these extreme and exotic objects already has produced two Nobel Prizes. Pulsar researchers now are poised to learn otherwise-unavailable details of nuclear physics, to test General Relativity in conditions of extremely strong gravity, and to directly detect gravitational waves […]
Single atom transistor gets precise position on chip
February 19, 2012
In a remarkable feat of micro-engineering, UNSW physicists have created a working transistor consisting of a single atom placed precisely in a silicon crystal. http://youtu.be/ue4z9lB5ZHg Read more here
Newton calculated that the world would end in 2060
February 18, 2012
Read also: Peek into Isaac Newton’s theology papers APOCALYPSE – Isaac Newton a prophétisé la fin du monde pour 2060 La controverse fait rage depuis des décennies : sir Isaac Newton, l’un des plus grands scientifiques de l’histoire, mort en 1727, était-il versé dans la théologie et le mysticisme ? Aux yeux de tous, Newton est […]
Physicists discover evidence of rare hypernucleus
February 17, 2012
…. a component of strange matter Physicists in Italy have discovered the first evidence of a rare nucleus that doesn’t exist in nature and lives for just 10-10 seconds before decaying. It’s a type of hypernucleus that, like all nuclei, contains an assortment of neutrons and protons. But unlike ordinary nuclei, hypernuclei also contain at […]
How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole
February 17, 2012
First, build a telescope the size of planet Earth ….. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is an international project aimed at taking the first picture of a black hole, specifically of Sagittarius A*, the site of the black hole that is believed to be lurking at the center of our Milky Way galaxy….. ….. Getting there will […]
Physicists Predict The Existence of Time Crystals
February 16, 2012
Read also: Time crystals could behave almost like perpetual motion machines If crystals exist in spatial dimensions, then they ought to exist in the dimension of time too, says Nobel prize-winning physicist One of the most powerful ideas in modern physics is that the Universe is governed by symmetry. This is the idea that certain […]
Mathematical Model Computes Snow Flake Shapes for the First Time
February 16, 2012
John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg Facetted growth of snow crystals leads to a rich diversity of forms, and exhibits a remarkable sixfold symmetry. Snow crystal structures result from diffusion limited crystal growth in the presence of anisotropic surface energy and anisotropic attachment kinetics. It is by now well understood that the morphological stability […]
Rhea Before Titan
February 16, 2012
Craters appear well defined on icy Rhea in front of the hazy orb of the much larger moon Titan in this Cassini spacecraft view of these two Saturn moons. Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemispheres of Rhea and Titan. North on the moons is up and rotated 13 degrees to the left. […]
Observation of eight-photon entanglement
February 15, 2012
The creation of increasingly large multipartite entangled states is not only a fundamental scientific endeavour in itself, but is also the enabling technology for quantum information. Tremendous experimental effort has been devoted to generating multiparticle entanglement with a growing number of qubits. So far, up to six spatially separated single photons have been entangled based […]
Snow-bound Italy
February 15, 2012
Captured by Envisat’s MERIS instrument on 13 February, this image shows an unusual view of Italy: almost all of the country is covered with snow. Credits: ESA - badastronomy
Space Diamonds Reveal Supernova Origins
February 15, 2012
Collisions in space may be behind mysterious diamonds found in meteorites. By Brian Jacobsmeyer, ISNS Contributor Inside Science News Service Space diamonds may now be an astrophysicist’s best friend. For years, scientists have found DNA-sized diamonds in meteorites on Earth. New research suggests that these diamonds spring from violent cosmic collisions, which may help scientists […]
Black hole came from a shredded galaxy
February 15, 2012
This spectacular edge-on galaxy, called ESO 243-49, is home to an intermediate-mass black hole that may have been stripped off of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy. The estimated 20,000-solar-mass black hole lies above the galactic plane. This is an unlikely place for such a massive back hole to exist, unless it belonged to a small galaxy […]
LHC energy boost will aid hunt for Higgs boson
February 14, 2012
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will increase the energies of the bunches of subatomic particles called protons that it smashes together. The boost should improve the collider’s chances of discovering “new physics” and definitively confirming or denying the existence of Higgs boson particle. The proton beams’ energies will be increased by 14%, for […]
Planck All-Sky Images Show Cold Gas and Strange Haze
February 13, 2012
All-sky image of molecular gas and three molecular cloud complexes seen by Planck This all-sky image shows the distribution of carbon monoxide (CO), a molecule used by astronomers to trace molecular clouds across the sky, as seen by Planck. Molecular clouds, the dense and compact regions throughout the Milky Way where gas and dust clump […]
Seven equations that rule your world
February 13, 2012
Video: Equations that rule the world Read more: newscientist.com
Jon Butterworth – Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and the LHC
February 13, 2012
Professor Jon Butterworth, member of the High Energy Physics group on the Atlas experiment, provides an overview of his work at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Time to give SETI a chance
February 12, 2012
by Jill Tarter - newscientist Earth 2.0 is in our sights. Checking it for signs of life will be the next big issue THE thousands of probable worlds discovered in orbit around other stars are making our corner of the universe appear a lot friendlier to life these days. The Kepler space telescope, which has its […]
February 29, 2012
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