Ultraviolet light (orange) pours out of a galaxy in this image from NASA’s GALEX satellite. New Hubble observations reveal this galaxy might mimic the earliest galaxies in the universe. (Credit: NASA; ESA; R. Overzier/ON/MCT; T. Heckman/JH)
via sciencenews
Researchers on Thursday said they conducted experiments to learn precisely how sidewinder rattlesnakes are able to climb sandy hills, then applied the reptiles’ repertoire to an existing snake robot so it could do the same thing. (Credit: Chaohui Gong, Reuters/Chaohui Gong)
via reuters
Results confirm the time dilation predicted for high velocities in the theory of relativity with an accuracy that has never before been achieved. Furthermore, the team provided the first direct proof of a spectral line in highly charged bismuth ions. (Credit: Technische Universität Darmstadt )
via scientificcomputing
The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged light from a hot Jupiter called WASP-43b, detecting temperature differences between the planet’s day and night sides. The results suggest that the planet has an eastward jet stream that redistributes some of the heat from its host star, but otherwise there’s very little circulation of heat. (Credit: Hubble, Timmer)
via nasa
If you ever wanted to see a sci-fi plot that expertly applied advanced physical concepts so that with a bit of imagination teleporting a human was not as unbelievable as most of the teleportation scenarios we see in the movies, read this article. The above is a Cosmic Treadmill, as it appears in Flash #196. (Credit: Paul Winslade, Hmmmjenia)
via quantumfrontiers
A new journal, Microgravity, is dedicated to publishing research that uses space exploration and research enabled by spaceflight. It will also publish research utilizing ground-based models of spaceflight. (Credit: NASA, Caspermeyer)
via asunews
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)
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)
via phys
a region of jet activity can be seen at the neck of the comet. These jets, originating from several discrete locations, are a product of ices sublimating and gases escaping from inside the nucleus. (Credit: ESA, NASA)
via phys.org
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
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
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)
via backreaction
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
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)
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A transmission electron microscopic image of titanium dioxide plates resting on a near-invisible sheet of graphene. (Credit: Rozhkova et. al.)
via anl.gov
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)
via theguardian
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)
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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.)
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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)
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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)
via nytimes
“I confess that in my early in my career as a physicist I was rather cynical about sophisticated statistical tools, being of the opinion that “if any of this makes a difference, just get more data”. That is, if you do enough experiments, the confidence level will be so high that the exact statistical treatment you use to evaluate it is irrelevant.” (Credit: Jon Butterworth)
via theguardian
It was the daytime soap opera of particle physics. But the final episode of the first season ends in an anticlimax. The Higgs boson’s decay into pairs of photons – the strongest yet most confusing clue to the particle’s existence – is looking utterly normal after all. (Credit: D. Moir/Reurters, M. Slezak)
via newscientist
NIST chip containing a single-photon detector was made of superconducting nanowires. Four chips like this were used in the experiment that entangled three photons. (Credit: Verma/NIST)
via extremetech
The new plan, proposed by researchers at the University of Southampton in England, is to eavesdrop on the faint nanosecond radio signals sent our way when cosmic rays hit edges of the Moon at a near-tangent. (Credit J. Hewitt, astrobiology.aob.rs)
via extremetech
“The key question is whether a real quantum dynamics, of the general form suggested by de Broglie and the walking drops, might underlie quantum statistics,” Bush said. “While undoubtedly complex, it would replace the philosophical vagaries of quantum mechanics with a concrete dynamical theory,” said John Bush of MIT. (Credit: D. Harris/MIT, M. Byrne)
via motherboard
A composite photo of comet 67P/C-G showing gases escaping from the ‘neck’. The first jets of dust were detected spurting from the comet as Rosetta approached it in August but detailed photographs weren’t available until last week. (Credit: Emily Lakdawalla/ESA)
via forbes
The spacecraft captured the views between July 20 and July 22, 2014, as it departed Titan following a flyby. Cassini tracked the system of clouds as it developed and dissipated over Ligeia Mare during this two-day period. Measurements of the cloud motions indicate wind speeds of around 7 to 10 miles per hour (3 to 4.5 meters per second). (Credit: NASA, Cassini)
via smithsonianmag
Less than two months after it first began repeatedly scanning the sky, the ESA’s Gaia space observatory has discovered its first supernova – a powerful stellar explosion that had occurred in a distant galaxy located some 500 million light-years from Earth, the agency announced on Friday. The above is an artist’s impression of a Type Ia supernova – the explosion of a white dwarf locked in a binary system with a companion star. (Credit: ESA/ATG medialab/C. Carreau, Bednar)
via redorbit
Grain boundaries are rows of defects that disrupt the electronic properties of two-dimensional materials, like graphene, but a new theory by scientists at Rice University shows no such effects in atomically flat phosphorus. That may make the material ideal for nano-electronic applications. (Credit: Evgeni Penev/Rice University)
via energy-daily
To find out if the universe is a hologram, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have powered up their exotic holographic inferometer, or Holometer. The results of the Fermilab E-990 experiment could indeed indicate that the nature of the universe is holographic. (Credit: Baskin, M. Freiberger)
via guardianlv
The ultimate fate of the universe depends on the nature of dark matter and dark energy, about which we know almost nothing. (Credit: NASA)
via mysteriousuniverse
This is an artist’s impression of supernova 1993J, an exploding star in the galaxy M81 whose light reached us 21 years ago. The supernova originated in a double-star system where one member was a massive star that exploded after siphoning most of its hydrogen envelope to its companion star. After two decades, astronomers have at last identified the blue helium-burning companion star, seen at the center of the expanding nebula of debris from the supernova. The Hubble Space Telescope identified the ultraviolet glow of the surviving companion embedded in the fading glow of the supernova. (Credit: NASA)
via sciencedaily
The nearby galaxy Centaurus A as viewed at X-ray, radio, and optical wavelengths, showing jets powered by a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy. (Credit: NASA)
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Researchers at UT Arlington have created the first electronic device that can cool electrons to -228 degrees Celsius (-375F), without any kind of external cooling. (Credit: S. Anthony)
via extremetech
“Our research strengthens the argument that methane and oxygen together, or methane and ozone together, are still strong signatures of life. That’s because oxygen and methane abhor each other. An atmosphere heavy in one of these gases has to have its supplies of the other continually replenished, and the most reliable way that happens on Earth is through the mechanisms of life,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. (Credit: NASA, B. Richmond)
via motherboard
“When you get off the plane at the South Pole, there is a feeling like you’re out in the ocean,” says University of Chicago physicist John Carlstrom, the principal investigator for the South Pole Telescope team, who has logged 15 round trips to the South Pole over the past two decades. “It’s just a featureless horizon. The snow is so dry it feels like Styrofoam.” (Credit: J. Gallicchio, G. Roberts Jr.)
via symmetrymagazine