Physics in the News

Friday, August 22, 2014

Traces of one of the Universe’s first stars detected

The first stars were born a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, as this artist impression shows. (Credit: NASA)
The first stars were born a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, as this artist impression shows. (Credit: NASA)
via bbc

Scientists pulled hydrogen from water using an AAA battery

The nickel-based catalyst is just as effective as platinum. (Credit: Tunnicliffe, Stanford)
The nickel-based catalyst is just as effective as platinum. (Credit: Tunnicliffe, Stanford)
via tcetoday

Cyborg moths can be controlled mid-flight by scientists(VIDEO)

via motherboard

Study finds that human subjects prefer when robots give the orders(VIDEO)

via mit

Asteroid had active volcanoes, reveal researchers

New meteorite evidence shows volcanic activity began much earlier in the history of the solar system than previously thought.(USGS)
New meteorite evidence shows volcanic activity began much earlier in the history of the solar system than previously thought. (Credit:USGS)
via abc

Telescope captures spectacular view of nebula, star cluster

This mosaic of images from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. (Credit: ESO/G. Beccari)
This mosaic of images from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. (Credit: ESO/G. Beccari)
via forbes

The next space race is for a rental car into orbit

Boeing in among three companies bidding for the next NASA contract to take astronauts into space. The company is  offering its CST-100 space capsule in the competition. (Credit: Boeing)
Boeing in among three companies bidding for the next NASA contract to take astronauts into space. The company is offering its CST-100 space capsule in the competition. (Credit: Boeing)
via washingtonpost

Quantum gravity expert says “philosophical superficiality” has harmed physics

Carlo Rovelli: "Theoretical physics has not done great in the last decades. Why? Well, one of the reasons, I think, is that it got trapped in a wrong philosophy." (Credit: Horgan)
Carlo Rovelli: “Theoretical physics has not done great in the last decades. Why? Well, one of the reasons, I think, is that it got trapped in a wrong philosophy.” (Credit: Horgan)
via scientificamerican

Pairing old technologies with new for next-generation electronic devices

The scientists reported a 40-times-larger effect than previously achieved in semiconductor materials, with the largest value measured comparable to a record high value of the spin-Hall effect observed in heavy metals such as Platinum. (Credit: UCL London Centre for Nanotechnology)
The scientists reported a 40-times-larger effect than previously achieved in semiconductor materials, with the largest value measured comparable to a record high value of the spin-Hall effect observed in heavy metals such as Platinum. (Credit: UCL London Centre for Nanotechnology)
via spacemart

Physics in the News

Updated Thursday, June 5, 2014

60-year-old Prediction of Atomic Behavior Confirmed

Quantum_Physics_60-year-old_Prediction_of_Atomic_Behavior_Confirmed_ml
Researchers at Washington State University have used a super-cold cloud of atoms that behaves like a single atom to see a phenomenon predicted 60 years ago and witnessed only once since.
via scientificcomputing.com

Big Bang research blunder leaves multiverse theory in ruins, theoretical physicist claims

multiverse
Scientist says the search for the multiverse is not stymied
via www.independent.co.uk

A violent, complex scene of colliding galaxy clusters

MACSJ0717
Colliding galaxy clusters MACS J0717+3745, more than 5 billion light-years from Earth. Background is Hubble Space Telescope image; blue is X-ray image from Chandra, and red is VLA radio image.
via www.astronomy.com

Kapteyn b and c: Two Exoplanets Found Orbiting Kapteyn’s Star

image_1965_1-Kapteyn-b-c
This artistic representation shows the potentially habitable exoplanet Kapteyn b and the globular cluster Omega Centauri in the background. It is believed that this cluster is the remaining core of a dwarf galaxy that merged with our own Milky Way Galaxy billions of years ago bringing Kapteyn’s star along. Image credit: PHL / UPR Arecibo / Aladin Sky Atlas.
via www.sci-news.com

Light from huge explosion 12 billion years ago reaches Earth

observedbyte
Light from the explosion 12 billion years ago of a massive star at the end of its life reached Earth recently. An image of its peak afterglow, circled with blue and yellow, was captured by Southern Methodist University’s ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, Texas. A bright star sits alongside the afterglow from GRB 140419A. Credit: ROTSE-IIIb, SMU
via phys.org

Miniature Digital Zenith Telescope For Astronomy And Geoscience

This shows the DZT-1 prototype and observation image. Credit: ©Science China Press
This shows the DZT-1 prototype and observation image. Credit: ©Science China Press
via technology.org

Powerful magnetic fields challenge black holes’ pull

zoom
A computer simulation of gas (in yellow) falling into a black hole (too small to be seen). Twin jets are also shown with magnetic field lines. Alexander Tchekhovskoy (LBNL)
via www.astronomy.com

Astronomers Find “Mega-Earth,” Most Massive Rocky Planet Yet

mega-earth-kepler-01_80397_990x742
Rocky world could be the first of an entirely new class of planet. An illustration of mega-Earth Rocky world could be the first of an entirely new class of planet. An illustration of mega-Earth The newly discovered ”mega-Earth” Kepler-10c dominates the foreground in this artist’s conception released by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 2, 2014.
via news.nationalgeographic.com

Penn science and art at the edge of space

Artacama
Penn astrophysicist Mark Devlin and Jackie Tileston, an associate professor of fine arts at PennDesign, collaborated on the ARTacama Project, the “highest known art installation in the world” three miles above sea level in the Chilean mountains.
www.upenn.edu