Thursday 17 December 2015

Ancient Egyptians described Algol's eclipses

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The Ancient Egyptian papyrus Cairo 86637 calendar is the oldest preserved historical document of naked eye observations of a variable star, the eclipsing binary Algol -- a manifestation of Horus, a god and a king. This calendar contains lucky or unlucky prognoses for each day of one year. Researchers have performed a statistical analysis of the Cairo Calendar mythological texts.
via Science Daily
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Scientists create atomically thin boron

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A team of scientists has, for the first time, created a two-dimensional sheet of boron -- a material known as borophene. It is an unusual material because it shows many metallic properties at the nanoscale even though three-dimensional, or bulk, boron is nonmetallic and semiconducting. No bulk form of elemental boron has this metal-like behavior. Borophene, both metallic and atomically thin, holds promise for possible applications ranging from electronics to photovoltaics.
via Science Daily

Hubble Sees the Force Awakening in a Newborn Star

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Just in time for the release of the movie "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens," NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed what looks like a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber.
via Science Daily
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Rare full moon on Christmas Day

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Not since 1977 has a full moon dawned in the skies on Christmas. But this year, a bright full moon will be an added gift for the holidays. December's full moon, the last of the year, is called the Full Cold Moon because it occurs during the beginning of winter. The moon's peak this year will occur at 6:11 a.m. EST.
via Science Daily
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NuSTAR finds cosmic clumpy doughnut around black hole

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The most massive black holes in the universe are often encircled by thick, doughnut-shaped disks of gas and dust. This deep-space doughnut material ultimately feeds and nourishes the growing black holes tucked inside.
via Science Daily
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Meet the CERN robots

Hubble Sees the Force Awakening in a Newborn Star


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Just about anything is possible in our remarkable universe, and it often competes with the imaginings of science fiction writers and filmmakers. Hubble's latest contribution is a striking photo of what looks like a double-bladed lightsaber straight out of the Star Wars films. In the center of the image, partially obscured by a dark, Jedi-like cloak of dust, a newborn star shoots twin jets out into space as a sort of birth announcement to the universe. Gas from a surrounding disk rains down onto the dust-obscured protostar and engorges it. The material is superheated and shoots outward from the star in opposite directions along an uncluttered escape route the star's rotation axis. Much more energetic than a science fiction lightsaber, these narrow energetic beams are blasting across space at over 100,000 miles per hour. This celestial lightsaber does not lie in a galaxy far, far away but rather inside our home galaxy, the Milky Way.


via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/42/

Vibration tests for High-Luminosity LHC project begin

A seismic truck at Point 1 generated wave-like vibrations measured by EN/MME (Image: Sophia Bennett/CERN)

These measurements will help engineers understand how works could impact the LHC’s operation, and will provide crucial details about the site’s geology before construction begins.

The High-Luminosity LHC is a major upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that will increase its discovery potential from 2025.  

From R&D into state-of-the-art magnets, to developing innovative, robust material capable of withstanding beam impact, the High-Luminosity LHC is a multi-faceted project involving many teams across CERN.

One of these teams has been mandated to measure vibrations at point 1 of the LHC ring where the ATLAS experiment is installed to see if civil engineering work for the High-Luminosity LHC can begin while the LHC is running. While civil engineering work for the LHC was carried out during Large Electron-Positron collider (LEP) operation, the LHC is much more sensitive to vibrations.

“While the main civil engineering work will, of course, take place during the long shutdown scheduled for July 2018, we would like to identify which parts of it could be carried out during LHC operation,” says Paolo Fessia, who is in charge of the HL-LHC integration. It is a tricky endeavour. Imagine a massive digger pounding away just 40 metres from the beam. Meanwhile, the LHC beam stability would need to remain within the micrometre level, that is, one millionth of a metre.

Could this be feasible? 

The team in charge of the study began in an ATLAS tunnel, installing four sensors to measure vibrations in the ground. Further sensors were placed on the surface, and linked to the sensors underground.

“The first vibrations we studied were generated by a core-drilling machine, used to examine the site’s geological make-up,” says Paolo. “This information will be essential for designing and constructing the new underground caverns and technical galleries needed for the HL-LHC, as construction companies need to know exactly what they will find when they dig (hard rock, sand, water, etc.). While this is the main purpose of the drilling, it has also been used to study the effect of pulsed vibrations.”

A few days later, the seismic truck arrived. This unique, 24-tonne machine uses its entire weight to push down on the ground, generating wave-like vibrations up to 100 times per second. 

“We created waves with a wide range of frequencies and looked at their attenuation,” says Michael Guinchard, who is in charge of the mechanical measurement lab. Measurements were also taken with the LHC beam and will provide a valuable data set for more detailed analysis.

So, while the HL-LHC is still many years away from operation, its impact on the LHC can already be felt… in this case, quite literally.


via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.cern/about/updates/2015/12/vibration-tests-high-luminosity-lhc-project-begin

Geminids of the South

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Earth's annual Geminid meteor shower did not disappoint, peaking before dawn on December 14 as our fair planet plowed through dust from active asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Captured in this southern hemisphere nightscape the meteors stream away from the shower's radiant in Gemini. To create the image, many individual frames recording meteor streaks were taken over period of 5 hours. In the final composite they were selected and registered against the starry sky above the twin 6.5 meter Magellan telescopes of Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Rigel in Orion, and Sirius shine brightly as the Milky Way stretches toward the zenith. Near Castor and Pollux the twin stars of Gemini, the meteor shower's radiant is low, close to the horizon. The radiant effect is due to perspective as the parallel meteor tracks appear to converge in the distance. Gemini's meteors enter Earth's atmosphere traveling at about 22 kilometers per second.

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ESA confirms James Webb telescope Ariane launch

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The next great space observatory took a step closer this week when ESA signed the contract with Arianespace that will see the James Webb Space Telescope launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in October 2018.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ESA_confirms_James_Webb_telescope_Ariane_launch

Euclid dark Universe mission ready to take shape

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Euclid, ESA’s dark Universe mission, has passed its preliminary design review, providing confidence that the spacecraft and its payload can be built. It’s time to start ‘cutting metal’.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Euclid_dark_Universe_mission_ready_to_take_shape

Op-Ed Contributor: The ‘Benefits’ of Black Physics Students

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Black students’ responsibility in the classroom is not to serve as ‘seasoning’ to the academic soup.










via New York Times

Nearby star hosts closest alien planet in the 'habitable zone'

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Australian astronomers have discovered the closest potentially habitable planet found outside our solar system so far, orbiting a star just 14 light years away. The planet, more than four times the mass of the Earth, is one of three that the team detected around a red dwarf star called Wolf 1061.
via Science Daily
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Quasar outburst revises understanding of universe, quasars

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An outburst from a distant quasar known as PKS 1441+25 in April of this year gave astronomers at the gamma-ray telescope VERITAS an opportunity to measure the density of the optical 'fog' that lies between the quasar and Earth and to deduce the surprising separation of the high-energy emission from the black hole that drives it.
via Science Daily
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Plunging into the ionosphere: Satellite's last days improve orbital decay predictions

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The Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite burned up in Earth's atmosphere during a planned reentry on Nov. 28, 2015 leaving behind a treasure trove of data about a part of the space environment that's difficult to study.
via Science Daily
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Monster planet is 'dancing with the stars'

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A team of scientists has discovered a highly unusual planetary system comprised of a sun-like star, a dwarf star, and an enormous planet sandwiched in between.
via Science Daily
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Hubble captures first-ever predicted exploding star

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the image of the first-ever predicted supernova explosion. The reappearance of the Refsdal supernova was calculated from different models of the galaxy cluster whose immense gravity is warping the supernova's light.
via Science Daily
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