Thursday 18 July 2013

Graphene 'onion rings' have delicious potential

more »

Hexagonal graphene "onion rings" are the product of growing two-dimensional carbon in a high-pressure, hydrogen-rich environment.

via Science Daily

NASA tries to save planet-hunting telescope

more »

(AP)—NASA says it will try to fix its space telescope that hunts for planets outside our solar system.



Zazzle Space market place

How Mars' atmosphere got so thin: Reports detail Curiosity clues to atmosphere's past

more »

A pair of new papers report measurements of the Martian atmosphere's composition by NASA's Curiosity rover, providing evidence about loss of much of Mars' original atmosphere.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Snow in an infant solar system: A frosty landmark for planet and comet formation

more »

A snow line has been imaged in a far-off infant solar system for the very first time. The snow line, located in the disc around the Sun-like star TW Hydrae, promises to tell us more about the formation of planets and comets, the factors that decide their composition, and the history of the Solar System.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Stars' orbital dance reveals a generation gap

more »

UBC astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to track the orbital motion of 33,000 stars in one of the Galaxy's oldest globular clusters, offering new insights into the formation of the Milky Way.



Zazzle Space market place

Snow falling around infant solar system

more »

Astronomers using the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have taken the first-ever image of a snow line in an infant solar system. This frosty landmark is thought to play an essential role in the formation and chemical make-up of planets around a young star.



Zazzle Space market place

NASA's Hubble Shows Link between Stars' Ages and Their Orbits

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have determined the orbital motion of two distinct populations of stars in an ancient globular star cluster, offering proof they formed at different times and providing a rare look back into the Milky Way galaxy's early days.

via NASA Breaking News

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/july/nasas-hubble-shows-link-between-stars-ages-and-their-orbits

MAVEN spectrometer opens window to Red Planet’s past

more »

When NASA's MAVEN mission begins its journey to the Red Planet later this year, it will be equipped with a special instrument to take the planet back in time.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Hubble shows link between stars' ages and their orbits in dense cluster

more »

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have determined the orbital motion of two distinct populations of stars in an ancient globular star cluster, offering proof they formed at different times and providing a rare look back into the Milky Way galaxy's early days.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

NASA interplanetary probes to take pictures of Earth

more »

Two NASA spacecraft, one studying the Saturn system, the other observing Mercury, are maneuvering into place to take pictures of Earth on July 19 and 20.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Hubble Shows Link Between Stars' Ages and Their Orbits in Dense Cluster



Get larger image formats

Billions of years ago in our Milky Way galaxy, long before the Earth was born, swarms of stars formed in giant clusters. Each grouping of stars, called a globular cluster, was held together by the mutual gravity of its stars. These globular star clusters became the homesteaders of our Milky Way.




via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/25/

Hopkins Astronomer Holland Ford Receives NASA Award for Hubble Contributions



Get larger image formats

Holland Ford, an astronomer at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., has received NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal for his outstanding contributions to the Hubble Space Telescope.




via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/28/

Oxford Questions seek to pull back the curtain on the foundations of quantum physics

more »

(Phys.org) —Relativity and quantum theory form the backbone of modern physics, but a group of physicists stresses that daily use of these theories can numb the sense of wonder at their immense empirical success. At the same time, fundamental questions on the foundations of these two theories remain. In 2010, experimentalists, theorists, and philosophers of physics convened at a conference at the University of Oxford called Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality. They produced a set of "Oxford Questions" aimed at identifying some specific open problems about the nature of quantum reality in order to stimulate and guide future research.



Zazzle Space market place

NASA Interplanetary Probes to Take Pictures of Earth from Space

Two NASA spacecraft, one studying the Saturn system, the other observing Mercury, are maneuvering into place to take pictures of Earth on July 19 and 20.

via NASA Breaking News

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/july/nasa-interplanetary-probes-to-take-pictures-of-earth-from-space

Slow bow shock ahead of the sun's heliosphere predicted

more »

A new study indicates that a bow shock (a dynamic boundary between sun’s heliosphere and the interstellar medium) is highly likely. These findings challenge recent predictions that no such bow shock would be encountered.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

NASA's Sofia Investigates the Southern Sky from New Zealand

NASA's SOFIA airborne observatory will be based in New Zealand for the next two weeks, taking advantage of the Southern Hemisphere's orientation to study celestial objects that are difficult or impossible to see in the northern sky.

via NASA Breaking News

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/july/nasas-sofia-investigates-the-southern-sky-from-new-zealand

Link between quantum physics and game theory found

more »

(Phys.org) —A deep link between two seemingly unconnected areas of modern science has been discovered by researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Geneva.



Zazzle Space market place

Miracle material graphene could deliver Internet one hundred times faster

more »

(Phys.org) —The use of graphene in telecommunications could dramatically accelerate internet speeds by up to a hundred times, according to new research by scientists in our Department of Physics.



Zazzle Space market place

NGC 2392: A beautiful end to a star's life

more »

(Phys.org) —Stars like the Sun can become remarkably photogenic at the end of their life. A good example is NGC 2392, which is located about 4,200 light years from Earth. NGC 2392, (nicknamed the "Eskimo Nebula") is what astronomers call a planetary nebula. This designation, however, is deceiving because planetary nebulas actually have nothing to do with planets. The term is simply a historic relic since these objects looked like planetary disks to astronomers in earlier times looking through small optical telescopes.



Zazzle Space market place

True colour of exoplanet measured for the first time

more »

(Phys.org) —Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, determined the true colour of a planet orbiting another star. If seen up close this planet, known as HD 189733b, would be a deep azure blue, reminiscent of Earth's colour as seen from space.



Zazzle Space market place

Scientists investigate how electric current flows in multilayer 2-D materials

more »

(Phys.org) —Although scientists continue to discover the remarkable electronic properties of nanomaterials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, the way that electric current flows at this scale is not well understood. In a new study, scientists for the first time have investigated exactly how a current flows through multilayer 2-D materials, and found that current flow in these materials is very different than current flow in 3-D materials and cannot be explained with conventional models. This understanding could guide researchers in designing future nanoelectronics devices.



Zazzle Space market place

New simulation shows disk anomalies around stars may not be planets after all

more »

(Phys.org) —Two researchers affiliated with several research centers in the U.S. have built a computer simulation that casts doubt on the claim of many recent exoplanet discoveries. In their paper published in the journal Nature, Wladimir Lyra and Marc Kuchner describe how they added gas to debris disks in their simulations and found irregularities similar to those found around real stars. This means, the researchers explain, that not all disk cluster irregularities are caused by planets.



Zazzle Space market place

Putting more science into the art of making nanocrystals

more »

Preparing semiconductor quantum dots is sometimes more of a black art than a science. That presents an obstacle to further progress in, for example, creating better solar cells or lighting devices, where quantum dots offer unique advantages that would be particularly useful if they could be used as basic building blocks for constructing larger nanoscale architectures.



Zazzle Space market place