The Leonids are here

Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight: How to See It

The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky. (Credit: Wiki)

The November path of the radiant of the 2014 Leonids. Credit: Starry Night Education Software.

The Leonid meteor shower is forecasted to peak Monday afternoon (Nov. 17) in the U.S. eastern time zone, so stargazers in the United States are advised to look to the skies between midnight and dawn on Monday and Tuesday morning for the best view, astronomers say. This year, the Leonid meteor shower should treat skywatchers to beween 10 and 15 meteors per hour, NASA meteor expert Bill Cook, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, told Space.com. For some meteor showers, that’s considered a decent rate.

Leonids Radiant Star Chart(PDF)

NASA’s live stream will include a sky view from a telescope at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. That stream will begin on Monday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. EST (0030 GMT Tuesday) and will continue until sunrise on Tuesday Nov. 18.

A meteor during the peak of the 2009 Leonid Meteor Shower. The photograph shows the meteor, afterglow, and wake as distinct components.(Credit: Wiki)

The Slooh live stream will begin on Monday, Nov. 17 at 8:00 p.m. EST (0100 GMT Tuesday) and will include more than just shots of the sky: Slooh will also broadcast audio of the “ionization sounds” created by the meteors. As the meteors streak through the sky, they briefly ionize the atmosphere. For a few seconds, the ionized region reflects short-wavelength radio waves, creating short blips and beeps of sound. Slooh’s broadcast will also include interviews with astronomers. (Credit: Calla Cofield and Spacce.com)

Skymap November 2014 (PDF)

The waning-crescent moon will increase chances of a better view of the spectacle, according to NASA. This type of moon will create skies that are dark enough to view the meteors, which are characteristically bright and colorful.

Leonids Viewing Conditions Photo courtesy of AccuWeather.com — Leonids Viewing Conditions (Credit: AccuWeather.com)

“Widespread cloud cover across the eastern third of the U.S. will make it difficult to see the meteor shower Monday before dawn, except perhaps in central and south Florida. Skies should be much clearer Tuesday morning, though it may take until late at night for New England to clear out, and there will be clouds in south Florida and in the lake-effect snow belts of the Great Lakes. Clear skies will be the rule across the central and western U.S. both mornings, with only a few minor exceptions,” said Digital Meteorologist, Nick Wiltgen, from weather.com. (Credit: Carolyn Williams, weather.com)

This diagram maps the data gathered from 1994-2013 on small asteroids impacting Earth's atmosphere to create very bright meteors, technically called "bolides" and commonly referred to as "fireballs". Sizes of red dots (daytime impacts) and blue dots (nighttime impacts) are proportional to the optical radiated energy of impacts measured in billions of Joules (GJ) of energy, and show the location of impacts from objects about 1 meter (3 feet) to almost 20 meters (60 feet) in size. Image (Credit: Planetary Science) — This diagram maps the data gathered from 1994-2013 on small asteroids impacting Earth’s atmosphere to create very bright meteors, technically called “bolides” and commonly referred to as “fireballs”. Sizes of red dots (daytime impacts) and blue dots (nighttime impacts) are proportional to the optical radiated energy of impacts measured in billions of Joules (GJ) of energy, and show the location of impacts from objects about 1 meter (3 feet) to almost 20 meters (60 feet) in size. Image (Credit: Planetary Science)

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Physics in the News

Monday, October 6, 2014

Princeton scientists observe elusive particle that behaves both like Matter and Antimatter discovered

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Turn your smart phone into a cosmic ray telescope

Professor Justin Vandenbroucke leads the development of the DECO app. (Credit: Jeff Miller/UW-Madison)

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Physicists succeed in compressing quantum data for the first time

if we have a system of qubits all in the same state (with the same probability distributions), we have identical qubits, even though we might get different results upon measuring the individual qubits. Strangely enough, particles in the quantum world can be both identical and distinct at the same time. (Credit: M. Byrne)

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Composite image shows two black holes orbiting each other

his composite X-ray/radio image of Abell 400 shows radio jets (pink), immersed in a vast cloud of multimillion degree X-ray emitting gas (blue) that pervades the cluster. The jets emanate from the vicinity of two supermassive black holes (bright spots in the image) in the galaxy. Chandra and radio data confirm that the unusual structure is due to the merger of two large galaxies, whose supermassive black holes are bound together by their mutual gravity. The swept-back appearance of the radio jets is produced by the rapid motion of the galaxy through the hot gas of the cluster, in much the same way that a motorcyclist's scarf is swept back while speeding down the road.Credit: X-Ray: NASA/CXC/D. Hudson, T.Reiprich et al. (AIfA); Radio: NRAO/VLA/ NRL — This composite X-ray/radio image of Abell 400 shows radio jets (pink), immersed in a vast cloud of multimillion degree X-ray emitting gas (blue) that pervades the cluster. The jets emanate from the vicinity of two supermassive black holes (bright spots in the image) in the galaxy. Chandra and radio data confirm that the unusual structure is due to the merger of two large galaxies, whose supermassive black holes are bound together by their mutual gravity. (Credit: X-Ray: NASA/CXC/D. Hudson, T.Reiprich et al. (AIfA); Radio: NRAO/VLA/ NRL)

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NASA to put astronauts in deep sleep (therapeutic torpor) for Mars mission

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Jet activity at the neck of the Rosetta comet

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Pluto the “Unexplored Planet” Is it a Planet? Could it have astrobiological potential?

via dailygalaxy

Rat brains enlisted in quest for spatial certainty

Researcher will mash together the visual recognition skills of humans and the spatial memory system of rats to enable robots to navigate in any environmental conditions. (Credit: The Australian)

via theaustralian

Tiny fossil galaxies of first stars of the Universe found orbiting Milky Way

The image above shows a standard prediction for the dark matter distribution within about 1 million light years of the Milky Way galaxy, which is expected to be swarming with thousands of small dark matter clumps called `halos'. (Credit: Garrison, Kimmel, Bullock, UCI) — The image above shows a standard prediction for the dark matter distribution within about 1 million light years of the Milky Way galaxy, which is expected to be swarming with thousands of small dark matter clumps called `halos’. (Credit: Garrison, Kimmel, Bullock, UCI)

via dailygalaxy

Is the next supercollider a good investment?

cern-030308 — There is no doubt in my mind that society invests its billions well if it invests in theoretical physics. Whether that investment should go into particle colliders though is a different question. I don’t have a good answer to that, and I don’t see that the question is seriously being discussed. (Credit: Hossenfelder)

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Physics in the News

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Special relativity aces time trial

Few scientists doubt that Einstein was right. But the mathematics describing the time-dilation effect are “fundamental to all physical theories”, says Thomas Udem, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, who was not involved in the research. “It is of utmost importance to verify it with the best possible accuracy.” (Credit: A. Witze, Martin Poole/Getty)

via nature

Is Martian soil actually good for farming?

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Einstein makes an appearance in superheavy chemistry

Graphic representation of a seaborgium hexacarbonyl molecule on the silicon dioxide covered detectors of a COMPACT detector array. (Credit: Alexander Yakushev (GSI) / Christoph E. Düllmann)

via newscientist

A nano-sized hydrogen generator

A transmission electron microscopic image of titanium dioxide plates resting on a near-invisible sheet of graphene. (Credit: Rozhkova et. al.)

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Asteroids: between a rock and a hard place

There have been recent near misses – an explosion over Russia, a mysterious crater in Nicaragua. But what would we do in the event of an actual meteor strike? A simulated meteor strike at a training facility in Texas. (Credit: Nick Ballon)

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Astrophysicist sees positive signs science ‘is trendy’

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Enormous black hole resides at core of tiny galaxy

ITTY BITTY LIVING SPACE The tiny galaxy M60-UCD1 (circled in white) harbors a black hole with the mass of around 21 million suns. M60-UCD1 may be a remnant of a larger galaxy torn apart by the massive galaxy M60 (center), which is also pulling in a nearby spiral galaxy (upper right). (Credit: NASA, ESA)

via sciencenews

‘Solid’ light could compute previously unsolvable problems about the behavior of matter

Scientists are a step closer to creating quantum computers after making light behave like crystal. At first, photons in the experiment flow easily between two superconducting sites, producing the large waves shown at left. After a time, the scientists cause the light to 'freeze,' trapping the photons in place. (Credit: Stanford) — The illustration shows how oscillating photons create an image of frozen light. At first, photons in the experiment flow easily between two superconducting sites, producing the large waves shown at left. After a time, the scientists cause the light to ‘freeze,’ trapping the photons in place. Fast oscillations on the right of the image are evidence of the new trapped behavior. (Credit: James Raftery et al.)

via princeton

Pakistan to join the CERN club

Pakistan is a signing ceremony away from becoming the associate member of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Above photo is of CERN Labs on the Swiss-French border. (Credit: CERN) — Pakistan is a signing ceremony away from becoming the associate member of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Above photo is CERN Labs on the Swiss-French border. (Credit: CERN)

via dawn

Quasicrystals and the Whimsy of Nature

The quasicrystals formed 4.5 billion years ago in a violent collision between two rocks, among the asteroids that coalesced into planets. The rock with the quasicrystals landed in Chukotka as a meteorite. “They’re part of the primal stuff that formed our solar system,” Dr. Steinhardt said. The above is A penteract (5-cube) pattern using 5D orthographic projection to 2D using Petrie polygon basis vectors overlaid on the diffractogram from an Icosahedral Ho-Mg-Zn quasicrystal. (Credit: NYTimes)

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Physics in the News

Friday, September 19, 2014

An anomaly in satellites’ flybys confounds scientists

An artist's rendition of Rosetta probe during a flyby. (Credit: ESA/C.Carreau) — When space probes, such as Rosetta and Cassini, fly over certain planets and moons, in order to gain momentum and travel long distances, their speed changes slightly for an unknown reason. A researcher has now analyzed whether or not a hypothetical gravitomagnetic field could have an influence. However, other factors such as solar radiation, tides, or even relativistic effects or dark matter could be behind this mystery. An artist’s rendition of Rosetta probe during a flyby. (Credit: ESA/C.Carreau)

via sciencedaily

Particle detector finds hints of dark matter in space

The starboard truss of the International Space Station while Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with the station. The newly installed Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is visible at center left. (Credit: NASA)

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Finding dark energy in the details

The dome of the Blanco Telescope, which houses DECam, the 570-megapixel CCD camera used for the Dark Energy Survey, at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. (Credit: Reidar Hahn)

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The lonely landscape of Rosetta’s comet

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Miranda: An icy moon deformed by tidal heating

Mosaic of southern hemisphere of Miranda, the innermost regular satellite of Uranus, with radius of 236 km. Projection is orthographic, centered on the south pole. Visible from left to right are Elsinore, Inverness, and Arden coronae. (Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Ted Stryk)

via science2.0

Physical constant is constant even in strong gravitational fields

Picture of the laser system with which the hydrogen molecules were investigated on earth. (Credit: LaserLaB VU University Amsterdam/Wim Ubachs) — An international team of physicists has shown that the mass ratio between protons and electrons is the same in weak and in very strong gravitational fields. Pictured above is the laser system with which the hydrogen molecules were investigated on earth. (Credit: LaserLaB VU University Amsterdam/Wim Ubachs)

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NASA’s Maven spacecraft will arrive at Mars this weekend

via nypost

Shrink-wrapping spacesuits

The MIT BioSuit, a skintight spacesuit that offers improved mobility and reduced mass compared to modern gas-pressurized spacesuits. (Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT)

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Physics in the News

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Have physicists just disproved string theory?

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New measurements from the AMS experiment unveil new territories in the flux of cosmic rays

Upper plot shows the slope of positron fraction measured by AMS (red circles) and a straight line fit at the highest energies (blue line). The data show that at 275±32 GeV the slope crosses zero. Lower plot shows the measured positron fraction as function of energy as well as the location of the maximum. (Credit CERN)

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Nuclear spins control current in plastic LED: Step toward quantum computing, spintronic memory, better displays

An organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, glows orange when electrical current flows through it. University of Utah physicists used this kind of OLED -- basically a plastic LED instead of a conventional silicon semiconductor LED -- to show that they could read the subatomic 'spins' in the center or nuclei of hydrogen isotopes and use those spins to control current to the OLED. It is a step toward 'spintronic' devices such as faster computers, better data storage and more efficient OLEDs for TV, computer and cell phone displays. (Credit: Andy Brimhall, University of Utah) — An organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, glows orange when electrical current flows through it. It is a step toward ‘spintronic’ devices such as faster computers, better data storage and more efficient OLEDs for TV, computer and cell phone displays. (Credit: Andy Brimhall, University of Utah)

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New technology that guides light through glass, developed by researchers from Polytechnique Montréal, could make our smartphones even smarter (PDF)

his revolutionary work could open up new real estate in the phone by embedding the glass with layer upon layer of sensors, including ones that could take your temperature, assess your blood sugar levels if you're diabetic or even analyze DNA. — This revolutionary work could open up new real estate in the phone by embedding the glass with layer upon layer of sensors, including ones that could take your temperature, assess your blood sugar levels if you’re diabetic or even analyze DNA. (Credit: Jerome Lapointe, Mathieu Gagné, Ming-Jun Li, and Raman Kashyap)

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Milky Way mysteries mapped

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this finely detailed image of the beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6384. This galaxy lies in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer), not far from the centre of the Milky Way on the sky. The positioning of NGC 6384 means that we have to peer at it past many dazzling foreground Milky Way stars that are scattered across this image. In 1971, one member of NGC 6384 stood out against these bright foreground stars when one of its stars exploded as a supernova. This was a Type Ia supernova, which occurs when a compact star that has ceased fusion in its core, called a white dwarf, increases its mass beyond a critical limit by gobbling up matter from a companion star. A runaway nuclear explosion then makes the star suddenly as bright as a whole galaxy. While many stars have already come to the ends of their lives in NGC 6384, in the centre, star formation is being fuelled by the galaxy’s bar structure; astronomers think such galactic bars funnel gas inwards, where it accumulates to form new stars. This picture was created from images take with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. An image taken through a blue filter (F435W, coloured blue) was combined with an image taken through a near-infrared filter (F814W, coloured red). The total exposure times were 1050 s through each filter and the field of view is about 3 x 1.5 arcminutes. (Credit NASA) — The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this finely detailed image of the beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6384. This galaxy lies in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer), not far from the centre of the Milky Way on the sky. The positioning of NGC 6384 means that we have to peer at it past many dazzling foreground Milky Way stars that are scattered across this image. (Credit NASA/ESA)

via nationalgeographic

Very large telescope findings could force physicists to rethink the Big Bang

he problem was first identified some time ago. Dubbed the “cosmological lithium discrepancy,” the issue is very simple: everything we know about the Big Bang, supernovae, and the dynamics of stars, tells us that we should find a very specific concentration of lithium in the universe at large — but the universe actually seems to contain far less than that amount. (Credit: NASA, HUbble)

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Asteroid tracking program has only 10 percent chance of success

European Space Agency's Giotto probe returned 2333 images during the Comet Halley encounter of March 13-14, 1986. All were recorded before the closest approach of 596 km at 00:03:02 UTC on 14 March 1986; the last from a distance of 1180 km, 15 seconds before closest approach. (Credit: MPAE, Dr H.U. Keller. — European Space Agency’s Giotto probe returned 2333 images during the Comet Halley encounter of March 13-14, 1986. All were recorded before the closest approach of 596 km at 00:03:02 UTC on 14 March 1986; the last from a distance of 1180 km, 15 seconds before closest approach. (Credit: MPAE, Dr H.U. Keller.

via inquisitr

Mystery U.S. government satellite is now in orbit

av_clio_l3917201432422AM63-1552x1940 — An Atlas V rocket lifts off with the mysterious CLIO satellite. The rocket was carrying a satellite known only as CLIO, which it delivered into an unidentified (though probably geosynchronous) orbit. (Credit: ULA)

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Physics team uses pixel sensitivity of smartphone as a random generator for encryption

: Random number generator setup: a camera is fully and homogeneously illuminated by a LED. The raw binary representation of pixel values are concatenated and passed through a randomness extractor. This extractor outputs quantum random numbers. (Credit: arXiv:1405.0435 [quant-ph])

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