Physics in the News

Updated Sunday, June 8, 2014

Scientists: The Universe’s Most Common Stars Could Make Alien Life Impossible

Artist conception of a rocky planet in a binary star-system, one of which is a red dwarf. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt via Getty Images)
Artist conception of a rocky planet in a binary star-system, one of which is a red dwarf. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt via Getty Images)
via tampa.cbslocal.com

 

New Suspect Identified in Supernova Explosion

This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows N103B -- all that remains from a supernova that exploded a millennium ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy 160,000 light-years away from our own Milky Way. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Goddard
This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows N103B — all that remains from a supernova that exploded a millennium ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy 160,000 light-years away from our own Milky Way. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Goddard
via nasa.gov
 

Astronauts aboard ISS breeding Japanese fish, growing mosquitoes

© Photo: nias.affrc.go.jp
© Photo: nias.affrc.go.jp
via voiceofrussia
 

Space Oddity: Bizarre Hybrid Star Found After 40-Year Search

Credit: Phil Massey, Lowell Observatory
Credit: Phil Massey, Lowell Observatory
via space.com
 

Lasers ignite ‘supernova’ in the lab

This composite shows the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant that has magnetic fields that are approximately 100 times stronger than those in adjacent interstellar space. (NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration, CXC/SAO/JPL-Caltech/Steward/O. Krause et al., and NRAO/AUI)
This composite shows the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant that has magnetic fields that are approximately 100 times stronger than those in adjacent interstellar space. (NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration, CXC/SAO/JPL-Caltech/Steward/O. Krause et al., and NRAO/AUI)
via theepochtimes.com
 

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

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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

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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