Thursday 30 November 2017

Deducing the properties of a new form of diamond

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Earlier this year, amorphous diamond was synthesized for the first time using a technique involving high pressures, moderately high temperatures and a tiny amount of glassy carbon as starting material. A father-son team at Clemson University has now successfully calculated a number of basic physical properties for this new substance, including elastic constants and related quantities.
via Science Daily

How to produce the purest argon ever?

ARIA’s modules are being leak-tested at CERN before travelling to Sardinia, Italy. The top, bottom and one standard column module have now been lined up horizontally to test their alignment. (Image: J. Ordan/CERN)

Producing the purest argon ever made is no mean feat, in fact it needs a column 26 metres taller than the Eiffel Tower.

CERN is part of a project, called ARIA, to construct a 350-metre-tall distillation tower that will be used to purify liquid argon for scientific and, in a second phase, medical use.

The full tower, composed of 28 identical modules plus a top (condenser) and a bottom (re-boiler) special module, will be installed in a disused mine site in Sardinia, Italy.

The project is was initiated to supply the purest argon possible to the international dark matter experiment DarkSide at INFN’s Gran Sasso National Laboratories. DarkSide is a dual-phase liquid-argon time-projection chamber that aims to detect the possible passage of a dark matter particle in the form of a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) when it hits the argon nuclei contained in the detector. Since this WIMP-nuclei interaction is predicted to be extremely rare, the detector must contain only the purest argon possible, so as not to accidentally produce a spurious signal.

ARIA has been designed to produce this extra-pure argon. Atmospheric argon contains many “impurities” such as water, oxygen, krypton and argon-39, an isotope of argon, which are all sources of unwanted signals. Argon from underground sources is already depleted from the argon-39 isotope by a factor of 1400, but this is still not enough for dark-matter research. ARIA is designed to purify underground argon by a further factor of 100.

For more information, read this article.


via CERN: Updates for the general public
https://home.cern/about/updates/2017/11/how-produce-purest-argon-ever

A very special run for the LHCb experiment

The LHCb detector in open configuration. (Image: Anna Pantelia/CERN)

For the first time, the LHCb experiment at CERN has collected data simultaneously in collider and in fixed-target modes. With this, the LHCb special run is even more special.

The past two weeks have been devoted to special runs of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at the end of the LHC 2017 proton run and before the winter shutdown. One run involved proton collisions at an energy of 5.02 TeV, mainly to set a reference to compare with lead-ion collision data. What was exceptional this year is that a tiny quantity of neon gas was injected into the beam pipe near the LHCb experiment’s interaction point. This allowed physicists to collect proton-neon at the same time as proton-proton collision data.

When (noble) gases are injected into the beam pipe to collide with protons, the LHCb experiment is in “fixed-target” mode, in contrast to the standard “collider” mode. But unlike traditional fixed target experiments, where the beam of accelerated particles is directed at a dense solid or liquid target, here LHC protons are colliding with a handful of neon nuclei injected near the collision point and floating in the beam pipe. These nuclei slightly pollute the almost perfect LHC vacuum, but the conditions they create – where pressure is in the order of 10-7 millibar – are still considered to be typical of ultra-high vacuum environments.

There are two main reasons to collect proton-gas collision data at the LHC. On one hand, these data help understand nuclear effects (i.e. depending on the type of nuclei involved in the collisions), affecting the production of specific types of particles (J/ψ and D0 mesons), whose suppressed production is considered to be the hallmark of the quark-gluon plasma. The quark-gluon plasma is the state in which the matter filling the universe a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang was , when protons and neutrons had not yet formed, composed of quarks not binding together and then free to move on their own.  

On the other hand, proton-neon interactions are important to also study cosmic rays – highly energetic particles, mostly protons, coming from outside the Solar System – when they collide with nuclei in the Earth’s atmosphere. Neon is one of the components of the Earth’s atmosphere and it is very similar in terms of nuclear size to the much more abundant nitrogen and oxygen.

This gas-injection technique was originally designed to measure the brightness of the accelerator's beams, but its potential was quickly recognised by the LHCb physicists and it is now also being used for dedicated physics measurements. In 2015 and 2016, the LHCb experiment already performed special proton-helium, proton-neon and proton-argon runs. In October this year, for eight hours only, the LHC accelerated and collided xenon nuclei, allowing the four large LHC experiments to record xenon-xenon collisions for the first time.

This recent 11-day proton-neon run will allow physicists to collect a dataset that is 100 times larger than all proton-neon collision data collected until now at the LHC, and the first results of the analyses are foreseen for next year.

Find out more on the LHCb website


via CERN: Updates for the general public
https://home.cern/about/updates/2017/11/very-special-run-lhcb-experiment

Wednesday 29 November 2017

Fast flowing heat in graphene heterostructures

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Scientists have recently succeeded in observing and following, in real-time, the way in which heat transport occurs in van der Waals stacks, which consist of graphene encapsulated by the dielectric two-dimensional material hexagonal BN (hBN).
via Science Daily

A transistor of graphene nanoribbons

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Transistors based on carbon nanostructures: what sounds like a futuristic dream could be reality in just a few years' time. Scientists have now produced nanotransistors from graphene ribbons that are only a few atoms wide.
via Science Daily

MUSE probes uncharted depths of Hubble Ultra Deep Field

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Astronomers using the MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile have conducted the deepest spectroscopic survey ever. They focused on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, measuring distances and properties of 1600 very faint galaxies including 72 galaxies that have never been detected before. This groundbreaking dataset has already resulted in 10 science papers. This wealth of new information is giving astronomers insight into star formation in the early Universe.
via Science Daily
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AWAKE: Closer to a breakthrough acceleration technology

First light for pioneering SESAME light source

Tuesday 28 November 2017

Why is massive star formation quenched in galaxy centers?

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A new study proposes that one of the reasons that slows down the rate at which massive stars form in galaxies is the existence of relatively large magnetic fields. Research has revealed that this process occurs around the center of the galaxy NGC 1097.
via Science Daily
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The electronic origins of fluorescence in carbon nanotubes

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Scientists have studied the infrared fluorescence of carbon nanotubes (rolled-up sheets of graphene). The frequency of infrared emission depended on the molecules bonded to the tube walls. By applying electrical potentials, they found that changes in the electron energy levels of carbon, induced by the attached molecules, were consistent with the frequency shifts. This allows the design of carbon nanotubes for bio-imaging, with tunable fluorescence by chemical modification.
via Science Daily

Monday 27 November 2017

Ultrathin and flat graphene metalenses gain morace properties

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Lenses made of graphene and precisely pierced gold sheets are able to concentrate terahertz beams to a spot, flip its polarization and modulate its intensity.
via Science Daily

First proper motions measured of stars in a small galaxy outside the Milky Way

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By combining data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gaia mission, astronomers have been able to measure the proper motion of 15 stars in the Sculptor Galaxy, the first such measurement outside the Milky Way. Analysis shows an unexpected preference in the direction of movement, which suggests that the standard theoretical models used to describe the motion of stars and dark matter halos in other galaxies might be invalid.
via Science Daily
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All missions on board for NASA heliophysics research

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Scientists have been studying the near-Earth environment for the better part of a century, but many mysteries -- like where the energetic particles that pervade the area originate and become energized -- still remain. In a new type of collaborative study, scientists combined data from 16 separate NASA and Los Alamos National Laboratory spacecraft to understand how a particle phenomenon in the magnetic environment around Earth occurs. These events, called substorms, can cause auroras, disrupt GPS communications and, at their most intense, damage power grids.
via Science Daily
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Earthworms can reproduce in Mars soil simulant

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Two young worms are the first offspring in a Mars soil experiment. A biologist found them in a Mars soil simulant that he obtained from NASA. At the start he only added adult worms. The experiments are crucial in the study that aims to determine whether people can keep themselves alive at the red planet by growing their own crops on Mars soils.
via Science Daily
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Cosmic Chamaeleon

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Space Science Image of the Week: Delve into the depths of a star-forming cloud observed by the Herschel space observatory
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2017/11/Star_formation_in_the_Chamaeleon

Sunday 26 November 2017

If No One Owns the Moon, Can Anyone Make Money Up There?

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Ambiguities in the 50-year-old Outer Space Treaty may be getting in the way of entrepreneurs seeking opportunities elsewhere in our solar system.
via New York Times

Friday 24 November 2017

Enhancing the quantum sensing capabilities of diamond

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Researchers have discovered that dense ensembles of quantum spins can be created in diamond with high resolution using an electron microscopes, paving the way for enhanced sensors and resources for quantum technologies. This work demonstrates an improvement in the densities of Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in a variety of diamond types, foreshadowing future improvements in the sensitivity of diamond magnetic measurements, as well as promising directions in the study of solid state physics and quantum information theory.
via Science Daily

Borophene shines alone as 2-D plasmonic material

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An atom-thick film of boron could be the first pure two-dimensional material able to emit visible and near-infrared light by activating its plasmons.
via Science Daily

AWAKE: Closer to a breakthrough acceleration technology

Thursday 23 November 2017

Dark matter and dark energy: Do they really exist?

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Researchers have hypothesized that the universe contains a 'dark matter.' They have also posited the existence of a 'dark energy.' These two hypotheses account for the movement of stars in galaxies and for the accelerating expansion of the universe. But, according to a researcher, these concepts may be no longer valid: the phenomena can be demonstrated without them. This research exploits a new theoretical model based on the scale invariance of the empty space.
via Science Daily
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Frictional heat powers hydrothermal activity on Enceladus

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A computer simulation shows how icy moon heats water in a porous rock core. This study also offers among others an answer to the long-standing question of where the energy that can support water in liquid form on a small, cryovulcanic moon far from the sun comes from.
via Science Daily
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First light for pioneering SESAME light source

SESAME XAFS/XRF beamline scientist, Messaoud Harfouche, points out SESAME’s first monochromatic light. (Image: SESAME)

At 10:50 yesterday morning scientists at the pioneering SESAME light source saw First Monochromatic Light through the XAFS/XRF (X-ray absorption fine structure/X-ray fluorescence) spectroscopy beamline, signalling the start of the laboratory’s experimental programme. This beamline, SESAME’s first to come on stream, delivers X-ray light that will be used to carry out research in areas ranging from solid state physics to environmental science and archaeology.

“After years of preparation, it’s great to see light on target,” said XAFS/XRF beamline scientist Messaoud Harfouche. “We have a fantastic experimental programme ahead of us, starting with an experiment to investigate heavy metals contaminating soils in the region.”

The initial research programme will be carried out at two beamlines, the XAFS/XRF beamline and the Infrared (IR) spectromicroscopy beamline that is scheduled to join the XAFS/XRF beamline this year. Both have specific characteristics that make them appropriate for various areas of research. A third beamline, devoted to materials science, will come on stream in 2018.

“Our first three beamlines already give SESAME a wide range of research options to fulfil the needs of our research community,” said SESAME Scientific Director Giorgio Paolucci, “the future for light source research in the Middle East and neighbouring countries is looking very bright!”

First Light is an important step in the commissioning process of a new synchrotron light source, but it is nevertheless just one step on the way to full operation. The SESAME synchrotron is currently operating with a beam current of just over 80 milliamps, while the design value is 400 milliamps. Over the coming weeks and months as experiments get underway, the current will be gradually increased.

“SESAME is a major scientific and technological addition to research and education in the Middle East and beyond,” said Director of SESAME, Khaled Toukan. “Jordan supported the project financially and politically since its inception in 2004 for the benefit of science and peace in the region. The young scientists, physicists, engineers and administrators who have built SESAME, come for the first time from this part of the world.”

Among the subjects likely to be studied in early experiments are environmental pollution with a view to improving public health, as well as studies aimed at identifying new drugs for cancer therapy, and cultural heritage studies ranging from bioarcheology – the study of our ancestors – to investigations of ancient manuscripts.

“On behalf of the SESAME Council, I’d like to congratulate the SESAME staff on this wonderful milestone,” said President of the Council, Rolf Heuer. “SESAME is a great addition to the region’s research infrastructure, allowing scientists from the region access to the kind of facility that they previously had to travel to Europe or the US to use.”

 

 

 


via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.cern/about/updates/2017/11/first-light-pioneering-sesame-light-source

Wednesday 22 November 2017

Official Launch: Amazon Nifty CPanel for Amazon Affiliates

Amazon Nifty CPanel for Amazon Affiliates: A simple and easy suite of sharing and code embedding tools

Out There: An Interstellar Visitor Both Familiar and Alien

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Astronomers offer new details about Oumuamua, a probable asteroid arriving from beyond the solar system and leaving in a big hurry.
via New York Times

How the Earth stops high-energy neutrinos in their tracks

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For the first time, a science experiment has measured Earth's ability to absorb neutrinos -- the smaller-than-an-atom particles that zoom throughout space and through us by the trillions every second at nearly the speed of light. The experiment was achieved with the IceCube detector, an array of 5,160 basketball-sized sensors frozen deep within a cubic kilometer of very clear ice near the South Pole.
via Science Daily
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New composite material made of carbon nanotubes

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Due to their unique properties, carbon nanotubes would be ideal for numerous applications, but to date they cannot be combined adequately with other materials, or they lose their beneficial properties. Scientists have developed an alternative method of combining, so they retain their characteristic properties. As such, they 'felt' the thread-like tubes into a stable 3-D network.
via Science Daily

Tech We’re Using: How to Cover Rocket Blastoffs With an iPhone

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Space shuttle launches were Earth-rattling when seen in person. Now rocket launches can be covered through an iPhone, says Kenneth Chang, who covers space for The Times.
via New York Times

Graphenea awarded ISO 9001 certificate for Quality Management System

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Graphenea has been awarded an ISO 9001:2015 certificate for the “Design and development, manufacture and commercialization of high quality graphene products”. The certificate was awarded by SGS, the world's leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. The certificate is a statement that our business strives to continue to meet customer requirements and expectations.

ISO 9001 is an internationally recognized standard of excellence in quality management systems that is based on eight principles: customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approach, continual improvement, fact-based decision making, and mutually beneficial supplier relationships. The certificate is proof that Graphenea has been excelling at each of those points, but is also a statement of commitment to continue excelling in the coming years as the company maintains its pivotal role in graphene technology and applications. Congratulations team Graphenea!


via Graphenea

Tuesday 21 November 2017

Moon's crust underwent resurfacing after forming from magma ocean

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A research team took to the lab to recreate the magmatic melt that once formed the lunar surface and uncovered new insights on how the modern moonscape came to be.
via Science Daily
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Ice shapes the landslide landscape on Mars

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How good is your Martian geography? Scientists now explain the extent to which ice may have been an important medium of lubrication for landslides on Mars.
via Science Daily
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Unexpected atmospheric vortex behavior on Saturn's moon Titan

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Recently reported unexpected behavior on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is due to its unique atmospheric chemistry, new research suggests.
via Science Daily
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CERN surprises Swiss expo visitors

Monday 20 November 2017

Astronomers reveal nearby stars that are among the oldest in our galaxy

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Astronomers have discovered some of the oldest stars in our Milky Way galaxy by determining their locations and velocities.
via Science Daily
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Previous evidence of water on Mars now identified as grainflows

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Dark features previously proposed as evidence for significant liquid water flowing on Mars have now been identified as granular flows, where sand and dust move rather than liquid water, according to a new article. These findings indicate that present-day Mars may not have a significant volume of liquid water. The water-restricted conditions that exist on Mars would make it difficult for Earth-like life to exist near the surface.
via Science Daily
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First interstellar asteroid is like nothing seen before

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For the first time ever astronomers have studied an asteroid that has entered the Solar System from interstellar space. Observations from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that this unique object was traveling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. It appears to be a dark, reddish, highly-elongated rocky or high-metal-content object.
via Science Daily
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Space dust may transport life between worlds, research suggests

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Life on Earth might have originated from tiny organisms brought to our planet in streams of fast-moving space dust, according to a new study.
via Science Daily
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50 years since iconic 'A Model of Leptons' published

Integral orbits

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Visualising 15 years in space for ESA’s Integral satellite
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2017/11/Integral_s_orbits_2002_17

Sunday 19 November 2017

Heavy nitrogen molecules reveal planetary-scale tug-of-war

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Researchers have discovered a planetary-scale tug-of-war between life, deep Earth and the upper atmosphere that is expressed in atmospheric nitrogen.
via Science Daily
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Saturday 18 November 2017

Strain-free epitaxy of germanium film on mica

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Germanium was the material of choice in the early history of electronic devices, and due to its high charge carrier mobility, it's making a comeback. It's generally grown on expensive single-crystal substrates, adding another challenge to making it sustainably viable for most applications. To address this aspect, researchers demonstrate an epitaxy method that incorporates van der Waals' forces to grow germanium on mica.
via Science Daily

Salt pond in Antarctica, among the saltiest waters on Earth, is fed from beneath

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One of the saltiest bodies on Earth, an analog for what water might look like on Mars, is just one piece of a larger aquifer.
via Science Daily
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Breakthrough could launch organic electronics beyond cell phone screens

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A new discovery points the way to more widespread use of an advanced technology generally known as organic electronics.
via Science Daily

Friday 17 November 2017

Taking a spin on plasma space tornadoes with NASA observations

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Tornado-like swirls of space plasma create tumultuous boundaries in the near-Earth environment, letting dangerous high-energy particles slip into near Earth space, new NASA mission results show.
via Science Daily
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Solar flare pulses at sun and Earth detected

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Two recent studies show how solar flares exhibit pulses or oscillations in the amount of energy being sent out. Such research provides new insights on the origins of these massive solar flares and the space weather they produce. This is key information as humans and robotic missions venture out into the solar system, farther and farther from Earth.
via Science Daily
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Thursday 16 November 2017

On the origins of star stuff: Shedding new light on origin of anti-matter

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Astronomers have used a high-altitude observatory in Mexico to better understand where gamma rays come from. More than 300 massive water tanks sit waiting at the site for cascades of particles initiated by high-energy packets of light called gamma rays -- many of which have more than a million times the energy of a dental X-ray. When these gamma rays smash into the upper atmosphere, they blast apart atoms in the air, producing a shower of particles that moves at nearly the speed of light toward the ground. When this shower reaches HAWC's tanks, it produces coordinated flashes of blue light in the water, allowing researchers to reconstruct the energy and cosmic origin of the gamma ray that kicked off the cascade.
via Science Daily
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Lava or not, exoplanet 55 Cancri e likely to have atmosphere

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Twice as big as Earth, the super-Earth 55 Cancri e was thought to have lava flows on its surface. Now, a new analysis finds this planet likely has an atmosphere whose ingredients could be similar to those of Earth's atmosphere, but thicker.
via Science Daily
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Space missions locate whistling space electrons' origins

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Plasma waves in space are likely responsible for accelerating high-energy particles into Earth's atmosphere, new research shows.
via Science Daily
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Fracture swarms on Mars

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These striking features on Mars were caused by the planet’s crust stretching apart in response to ancient volcanic activity.


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

What is the computational power of the universe?

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Can a close look at the universe give us solutions to problems too difficult for a computer -- even if we built a computer larger than a planet? Physicist Stephen Jordan reflects on this question in a new NIST video, along with a scientific paper that considers one particular tough problem the universe might answer.
via Science Daily
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Wednesday 15 November 2017

Tuning the optical, photocatalytic properties of so-called carbon dots

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The optical and photocatalytic properties of so-called carbon dots can be precisely tuned by controlling the positions of nitrogen atoms introduced into their structure, physicists have demonstrated in a new study.
via Science Daily

Pluto's hydrocarbon haze keeps dwarf planet colder than expected

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The gas composition of a planet's atmosphere generally determines how much heat gets trapped in the atmosphere. For the dwarf planet Pluto, however, the predicted temperature based on the composition of its atmosphere was much higher than actual measurements taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. A new study proposes a novel cooling mechanism controlled by haze particles to account for Pluto's frigid atmosphere.
via Science Daily
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Closest temperate world orbiting quiet star discovered

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A temperate Earth-sized planet has been discovered only 11 light-years from the solar system by a team using ESO's unique planet-hunting HARPS instrument. The new world has the designation Ross 128 b and is now the second-closest temperate planet to be detected after Proxima b. It is also the closest planet to be discovered orbiting an inactive red dwarf star, which may increase the likelihood that this planet could potentially sustain life.
via Science Daily
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Listening for gravitational waves using pulsars

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When galaxies collide, their central black holes tend to spiral toward each other, releasing gravitational waves in their cosmic dance. To explore this uncharted area of gravitational wave science, researchers look a natural experiment in the sky called a pulsar timing array. Pulsars are dense remnants of dead stars that regularly emit beams of radio waves, which is why some call them "cosmic lighthouses."
via Science Daily
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Eleven Light-Years Away, an Earth-Size Planet That May Be Habitable

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Astronomers have found a planet circling Ross 128, a quiet red star in our own galactic neighborhood.
via New York Times

Tuesday 14 November 2017

Zwicky Transient Facility sees 'first light'

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A new robotic camera that can capture hundreds of thousands of stars and galaxies in a single shot has taken its first image -- an event astronomers refer to as 'first light.' The camera is the centerpiece of a new automated sky survey called the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF).
via Science Daily
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Graphene/polymer pressure sensors compete with existing technology

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A team of scientists from the University of Manchester and Graphenea have produced pressure sensors based on graphene/polymer heterostructures that compete with existing technology. Two types of sensors were made, the first sustaining large maximum load up to 250 kPa, the other yielding unprecedented pressure sensitivity of 123 aF Pa-1 mm2 over a pressure scale of 80 kPa.

The sensors fall into the capacitive type, a common design that measures the motion of a freestanding membrane that moves under pressure towards a fixed electrode. Such sensors find their applications in a vast industrial space that includes biomedical sensing (ex. blood pressure monitoring), altitude sensing, depth sensing, and gas or liquid system leak testing.

The sensors are made by coating graphene with a polymer layer, for optimal trade-off between device performance and membrane yield – free-standing graphene has a tendency to stick to the substrate during the fabrication process, which is avoided with polymer reinforcement. The present devices have 100% fabrication yield. Optical and mechanical inspection reveals that the quality of the graphene is excellent after the two-step transfer fabrication process.

Figure: Sketch, photograph, and AFM image of graphene/polymer pressure sensors. Reproduced from Nanoscale 2017, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/C7NR04621A with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry.

The first sensor type was shown to sustain an up to 250 kPa pressure difference. The sensor reacted to pressure changes and had a relaxation time of several seconds, on par with commercial polymer-based sensors. The second type of sensor was made by straining the membrane during fabrication, which resulted in better sensitivity. Suspended over a gap just 50 nm deep, the high-performance device yielded a sensitivity of 4.2 aF Pa-1, which is in the same ballpark as state-of-the-art commercial silicon- and polymer-based pressure sensors. The full pressure scale was 100 kPa, significantly outperforming metal-polymer sensors. Owing to the 2D nature of graphene, the sensitivity per unit area of the new device was over 30 times higher than for silicon pressure sensors and 5 times higher than for polymer-based sensors. Furthermore, graphene/polymer sensors should not suffer from brittle fatigue that silicon-based sensors experience over time and in humid conditions.

The work, published in the journal Nanoscale, highlights the potential of such graphene/polymer heterostructures for use in highly sensitive pressure sensors with a large operating range and excellent reliability.


via Graphenea

Monday 13 November 2017

Trilobites: The Dream Chaser Takes Flight and Seems to Ace Its Landing

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Built by Sierra Nevada Corporation, the space plane that brings to mind NASA’s retired shuttles completed a successful test flight and landing on Saturday.
via New York Times

Anatomy of a cosmic snake reveals structure of distant galaxies

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We have a fair understanding of star formation, from the interstellar matter to the diffuse clouds whose gravitational contraction gives birth to stars. But observations of distant galaxies have questioned this picture, the size and mass of these distant stellar nurseries exceeding that of their local counterparts. Astrophysicists have tackled this inconsistency and found the first answers thanks to the observation of the cosmic snake.
via Science Daily
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Duo of titanic galaxies captured in extreme starbursting merger

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Astronomers have uncovered the never-before-seen close encounter between two astoundingly bright and spectacularly massive galaxies in the early universe.
via Science Daily
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Stellar explosions and cosmic 'recipe' for nearby universe

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Thanks to an in-depth look into the composition of gas in the Perseus galaxy cluster, Japan's Hitomi mission has given scientists new insights into the stellar explosions that formed its chemical elements.
via Science Daily
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Gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes will be spotted within 10 years

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New research predicts that gravitational waves generated by the merger of two supermassive black holes -- the strongest gravitational waves in the universe -- will be detected within 10 years. The study is the first to use real data, rather than computer simulations, to predict when such an observation will be made.
via Science Daily
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