A new map places the Milky Way (black dot) within a large supercluster of galaxies (white dots) by tracing the gravitational pull of galaxies toward one another. White filaments reveal the paths of galaxies moving toward a gravitational center in the new supercluster, dubbed “Laniakea.” (Blue, low galaxy density; green, intermediate; red, high.) (Credit: DP at CEA/Saclay, France)
via nationalgeographic
This three-dimensional map offers a first look at the web-like large-scale distribution of dark matter, an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the Universe’s imaginary mass. The map reveals a loose network of dark matter filaments, gradually collapsing under the relentless pull of gravity, and growing clumpier over time. The three axes of the box correspond to sky position, and distance from the Earth increasing from left to right. Note how the clumping of the dark matter becomes more pronounced, moving right to left across the volume map, from the early Universe to the more recent Universe. (Credit: NASA/ESA/Richard Massey)
via ku.edu
Cosmologists have revealed intruiging new ways to probe the mystery of whether dark energy exists and how it might be accelerating the universe’s growth. (Credit: Picturegarden/Getty)
via newscientist
As time ticks down to the restart of the Large Hadron Collider, scientists are making sure their detectors run like clockwork. (Credit: Antonio Saba, CERN)
via symmetrymagazine
Schematic representation of a spin-exchanging collision. Two atoms in different orbitals (blue and green) and different spin orientations (black arrows) collide. The two atoms exiting the collision have swapped their spins after interacting. Crucially, the process is independent of the two specific initial spin states. (Credit: LMU-München / MPQ, Quantum Many Body Systems Division)
via phys.org
The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is a ground-based extremely large telescope planned for completion in 2020.[5] It will consist of seven 8.4 m (27.6 ft) diameter primary segments,[6] with the resolving power of a 24.5 m (80.4 ft) primary mirror and collecting area equivalent to a 22.0 m (72.2 ft) one,[7] (which is about 368 square meters) (Credit: wiki, Tarantola)
via gizmodo
A new analysis suggests that hot super-Earths might be the skeletal remnants of hot Jupiters stripped of their atmospheres. The above image is an artist’s depiction of an early stage in the destruction of a hot Jupiter by its star. (Credit: NASA / GSFC / Reddy, S. Hall)
via skyandtelescope
Recent proposals postulate the existence of a “firewall” at the event horizon that may incinerate an infalling observer. These proposals face an apparent paradox if a freely falling observer detects nothing special in the vicinity of the horizon. (Credit: Moffat, Toth, Feild)
via mathoverflow
Google is going beyond using other people’s hardware. “With an integrated hardware group, the Quantum AI team at Google will now be able to implement and test new designs for quantum optimization and inference processors based on recent theoretical progress and insights from the D-Wave quantum annealing architecture,” says Hartmut Neven, Google’s Director of Engineering. (Credit: E. Lucero(UCSB), Lardinois)
via techcrunch
Finding clouds of water floating in the atmosphere of an alien world is a significant find. Now, astronomers have reported preliminary findings that water clouds have been detected in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf, a mere 7.3 light-years from Earth. (Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, O’neil)
via discovery
NASA mechanical engineer, Brian Trease, worked with Brigham Young University doctoral student Shannon Zirbel, and collaborated with origami expert Robert Lang, who has long been active in promoting it in science, and BYU professor Larry Howel, to combine different traditional folds for an 82-foot solar array that whirls down to 8.9 feet. (Credit: BYU, Meier)
via hyperallergic
“If we find a noise we can’t get rid of, we might be detecting something fundamental about nature – a noise that is intrinsic to space-time,” said Physicist Aaron Choi, the holometer project’s lead scientist. (Credit: NASA, ESA)
via interactions
In this picture, which combines views from Hubble and the Keck-II telescope on Hawaii (using adaptive optics), you can see a foreground galaxy that is acting as the gravitational lens. The galaxy resembles how our home galaxy, the Milky Way, would appear if seen edge-on. But around this galaxy there is an almost complete ring — the smeared out image of a star-forming galaxy merger far beyond. (Credit: NASA, ESA)
via spacetelescope
With a circumference of 52km, the “Higgs Factory” would be almost twice the size of Europe’s equivalent, and significantly more powerful. The Chinese said it is due to be completed by 2028. Image above is the Large Hadron Collider. (Credit: Getty)
via cityam
This diagram shows how the effect of gravitational lensing around a normal galaxy focuses the light coming from a very distant star-forming galaxy merger to created a distorted, but brighter view. (Credit: ESA/ESO/M. Kornmesser)
via washingtonpost
As seen under an optical microscope, the heterostructures have a triangular shape. The two different monolayer semiconductors can be recognized through their different colors. (Credit: U of Washington)
via phys.org
“It’s the most distant object for which the spin has been directly measured. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old, so this is going significantly back towards when the epoch of furious galaxy formation was happening,” says, Astrophysicist, Mark Reynolds.
via motherboard
Dark matter and dark energy continue to be cosmological conundrum for physicists worldwide. Nobel prize winner Brian Schmidt offers his perspective in an interview. The image shown here is of the ALMA antennas and the constellations of Carina (The Keel) and Vela (The Sails). The dark, wispy dust clouds of the Milky Way streak from middle top left to middle bottom right. (Credit: ESO, B. Tafreshi)
via sciencenordic
“Our model predicts different fracture patterns on the surface of Charon depending on the thickness of its surface ice, the structure of the moon’s interior and how easily it deforms, and how its orbit evolved,” said Alyssa Rhoden of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. (Credit: NASA)
via dailygalaxy
Open network environments have become essential in the sciences, enabling accelerated discovery and communication of knowledge. Yet, the real revolution began when open community databases allowed researchers to build on existing contributions and compare their results to established knowledge. (Credit: King, Uhlir)
via acm
Indian physicists propose a tabletop experiment that will provide scientists their first opportunity to measure the probability that particles can move through slits in a twisted path, depicted by the purple ray. (Credit: Aninda Sinha and Urbasi Sinha)
via telegraphindia
Physicists in the US have compressed a synthetic diamond to pressures of 50 million Earth atmospheres to recreate conditions in the cores of giant planets. (Credit: National Ignition Facility)
via sciencealert
. A novel class of electronic materials – the so-called transition-metal oxides – hold promise for exciting, new applications. Where layers of this novel class of electronic materials touch, often a unique, and unprecedented phenomenon occurs: for instance, the interface between two insulators can become superconducting, or a strong magnetic order can build up between two non-magnetic layers.
via phys.org
NIST-F1 contributes to the international group of atomic clocks that define Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the official world time. Because NIST-F1 is among the most accurate clocks in the world, it makes UTC more accurate than ever before. (Credit: Time and Frequency Division of NIST’s PML)
via guardianlv
Artist’s conception of the atmosphere of an Earth-like planet displaying a brownish haze as the result of widespread pollution. (Credit: Christine Pulliam/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
via npr
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the globular cluster IC 4499. A cosmic archaeological dig has unfolded within a giant ball of stars some 55,000 light-years away. (Credit: NASA)
via nationalgeographic
Top: A typical set-up for squeezing injection in the first demonstrations of squeezing at GEO600 and LIGO, both using DC readout [36,37]. Bottom: Proposed design for future detectors. This design features an in-vacuum OPO. The remainder of the squeezed light source remains outside of vacuum. (Credit: E. Oelker, L. Barsotti, S. Dwyer, D. Sigg, and N. Mavalvala)
via opticsinfobase
What’s that dot on the Sun? If you look closely, it is almost perfectly round. The dot is the result of an unusual type of solar eclipse that occurred in 2006. Usually it is the Earth’s Moon that eclipses the Sun. This time, the planet Mercury took a turn. (Credit: D. Cortner, NASA, K. Schmidt)
“Maybe we will see how galaxies are magnetically connected to intergalactic space. This is a key experiment in preparation for the planned Square Kilometre Array (SKA) that should tell us how cosmic magnetic fields are generated,” says Rainer Beck, lead astronomer with the Max Planck Institute.
Researchers have developed a flexible structure that can sense ambient conditions and adjust its color to match them. At the moment, it only works in black and white. (Credit: PNAS, Timmer)
via arstechnica
![Top: A typical set-up for squeezing injection in the first demonstrations of squeezing at GEO600 and LIGO, both using DC readout [36,37]. Proposed design for future detectors. This design features an in-vacuum OPO. The remainder of the squeezed light source remains outside of vacuum. (Credit: E. Oelker, L. Barsotti, S. Dwyer, D. Sigg, and N. Mavalvala)](https://cosmologyandtime.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/screen-shot-2014-08-24-at-10-39-30-am.png)
