Wednesday 10 August 2016

Cassini finds flooded canyons on Saturn's moon Titan

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NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found deep, steep-sided canyons on Saturn's moon Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons. The finding represents the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid-filled channels on Titan, as well as the first observation of canyons hundreds of meters deep.
via Science Daily
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Stellar lab in Sagittarius

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The small smattering of bright blue stars in a new ESO image is the perfect cosmic laboratory in which to study the life and death of stars. Known as Messier 18 this star cluster contains stars that formed together from the same massive cloud of gas and dust.
via Science Daily
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Trilobites: Get Ready for the Perseids Meteor Shower: ‘It Will Rival the Stars in the Sky.’

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As many as 200 meteors per hour will ignite in the Earth’s atmosphere during the peak on Thursday night and Friday morning. Here’s how to catch the show.
via New York Times

New BBC show follows CERN scientists to ICHEP conference


via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.cern/about/updates/2016/08/new-bbc-show-follows-cern-scientists-ichep-conference

Colliding Galaxies in Stephan's Quintet

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What in the World: A Space-Age Food Product Invented by the Incas

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Astronauts need lightweight, long-lasting provisions for hazardous trips. So did the Incas, and villagers in the Andes have made their version for centuries.
via New York Times

Graphene aids optical study of dye molecules

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Dyes have long been used as colorants, stains, and markers. Their potential use as optical materials has been widely investigated, especially in recent years in the context of dye-sensitized solar cells, where dyes play the role of sunlight absorber. In order to study and understand the optical properties of dye molecules, however, scientists need to assemble them in thin molecular layers. Thin films of dye molecules made with traditional methods, such as for example Langmuir-Blodgett assembly or spin coating, consist of molecules with random orientations, which can yield low optical signal and data that is difficult to interpret. Now, scientists at CNRS in France have used a graphene substrate to produce a monolayer of well-organized dye molecules and study its optical properties.

Figure: Regular arrangements of dye molecules on graphene. Top: The particular dye molecule used in the study. Image reproduced from Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology.

The paper “Optical absorption signature of a self-assembled dye monolayer on graphene”, published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, applies a commercially available dye (N,N′-Ditridecylperylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide (PTCDI-C13)) onto CVD graphene by drop casting or dip coating. Using optical spectroscopy and polarized transmission measurements, the scientists conclude that the elongated molecules assemble all with their long axes pointing in the same direction, leading to a strong response to optical probing. Features observed in transmission measurements are sharper than on a similar layer that was produced without graphene. Furthermore, using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), they find that the molecules are arranged in a regular periodic lattice.

The researchers attribute the regularity of the arrangement to electrostatic interactions between the dye molecules and graphene.


via Graphenea

MoEDAL closes in on search for magnetic particle