Monday 2 October 2017

Asphalt helps lithium batteries charge faster

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A touch of asphalt may be the secret to high-capacity lithium batteries that charge up to 20 times faster than commercial lithium-ion batteries, according to scientists.
via Science Daily

Meteorite tells us that Mars had a dense atmosphere 4 billion years ago

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Exploration missions have suggested that Mars once had a warm climate, which sustained oceans on its surface. To keep Mars warm requires a dense atmosphere with a sufficient greenhouse effect, while the present-day Mars has a thin atmosphere whose surface pressure is only 0.006 bar, resulting in the cold climate it has today. It has been a big mystery as to when and how Mars lost its dense atmosphere.
via Science Daily
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Biomarker found in space complicates search for life on exoplanets

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A molecule once thought to be a useful marker for life as we know it has been discovered around a young star and at a comet for the first time, suggesting these ingredients are inherited during the planet-forming phase.


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

ATLAS and CMS celebrate their 25th anniversaries

This special ATLAS and CMS birthday cake, baked and decorated by a member of the ATLAS collaboration, Katharine Leney, represents two event displays, one from each detector, in the icing. (Image: CERN)

ATLAS and CMS are like close sisters, the best of friends and competitors all at once. Today they are both celebrating their 25th birthdays. On 1 October 1992, the two collaborations each submitted a letter of intent for the construction of a detector to be installed at the proposed Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These two documents, each around one hundred pages long, are considered the birth certificates of the two general-purpose experiments. They each contain fairly precise technical specifications, close to that of the two detectors that were eventually built, and an already long list of institutes and scientists that had joined the collaborations. The letters of intent for ALICE and LHCb, the LHC’s two other large experiments, followed a few months later.

Several months earlier, 600 physicists and engineers from 250 institutes around the world had met in Évian-les-Bains to discuss the physics and detectors of the LHC. Design proposals for various experiments were then made public. Carlo Rubbia, the Director-General of CERN at the time, proposed a schedule for selecting which experiments would go ahead, with letters of intent to be submitted for evaluation by a peer review committee. This resulted in the creation of the LHC Committee (LHCC), which began evaluating the proposals that autumn.

In June 1993, the LHCC gave the green light to the two general-purpose experiments, which then had to develop detailed technical proposals. This marked the start of a long and difficult journey that pushed the boundaries of technology and human endeavour, but which eventually led to a major discovery, that of the Higgs boson, and many other important results, the list of which keeps on growing. 


via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.cern/about/updates/2017/10/atlas-and-cms-celebrate-their-25th-anniversaries

Two Comets and a Star Cluster

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Two unusual spots are on the move near the famous Pleiades star cluster. Shifting only a small amount per night, these spots are actually comets in our nearby Solar System that by chance wandered into the field of the light-years distant stars. On the far left is comet C/2017 O1 ASAS-SN, a multi-kilometer block of evaporating ice sporting a bright coma of surrounding gas dominated by green-glowing carbon. Comet ASAS-SN1 shows a slight tail to its lower right. Near the frame center is comet C/2015 ER61 PanSTARRS, also a giant block of evaporating ice, but sporting a rather long tail to its right. On the upper right is the Pleiades, an open cluster dominated by bright blue stars illuminating nearby reflecting dust. This exposure, taken about two weeks ago, is so deep that the filamentary interstellar dust can be traced across the entire field. The Pleiades is visible to the unaided eye, but it should require binoculars to see the comets.

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Facing the Sun

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Space Science Image of the Week: ESA’s Solar Orbiter will face the Sun from within the orbit of Mercury
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/10/Facing_the_Sun