Wednesday 2 May 2018

Hubble Detects Helium in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet for the First Time


Ballooning Atmosphere Extends Tens of Thousands of Miles Above a Gas Giant Planet

There may be no shortage of balloon-filled birthday parties or people with silly high-pitched voices on the planet WASP-107b. That's because NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was used to detect helium in the atmosphere for the first time ever on a world outside of our solar system. The discovery demonstrates the ability to use infrared spectra to study exoplanet atmospheres.

Though as far back as 2000 helium was predicted to be one of the most readily-detectable gases on giant exoplanets, until now helium had not been found — despite searches for it. Helium was first discovered on the Sun, and is the second-most common element in the universe after hydrogen. It's one of the main constituents of the planets Jupiter and Saturn.

An international team of astronomers led by Jessica Spake of the University of Exeter, UK, used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to discover helium. The atmosphere of WASP-107b must stretch tens of thousands of miles out into space. This is the first time that such an extended atmosphere has been discovered at infrared wavelengths.


via Hubble - News feed
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-26

Hubble detects helium in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time

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Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected helium in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-107b. This is the first time this element has been detected in the atmosphere of a planet outside the Solar System. The discovery demonstrates the ability to use infrared spectra to study exoplanet extended atmospheres.
via Science Daily
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CERN launches a new careers website

The homepage of CERN’s new careers.cern website. (Image: CERN)

CERN launches its brand new careers website today, with streamlined, user- and mobile-friendly webpages to attract candidates throughout the Laboratory’s Member and Associate Member States.

CERN offers student, graduate and professional opportunities in diverse fields of expertise, from IT to mechanics, electronics to civil engineering, administration and many more.

Find out more, including the latest vacancies by visiting careers.cern. Take part.


via CERN: Updates for the general public
https://home.cern/about/updates/2018/05/cern-launches-new-careers-website

Taming the multiverse: Stephen Hawking's final theory about the big bang

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Professor Stephen Hawking's final theory on the origin of the universe has just been published.
via Science Daily
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Recent work challenges view of early Mars, picturing a warm desert with occasional rain

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The climate of early Mars is a subject of debate. A recent study suggests that the early Martian surface may not have been dominated by ice, but instead it may have been modestly warm and prone to rain, with only small patches of ice.
via Science Daily
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Flares in the universe can now be studied on Earth

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Solar flares, cosmic radiation, and the northern lights are well known phenomena. But exactly how their enormous energy arises is not as well understood. Now, physicists have discovered a new way to study these spectacular space plasma phenomena in a laboratory environment.
via Science Daily
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Microbes living in a toxic volcanic lake could hold clues to possible life on Mars

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Researchers have discovered microbes living in one of the harshest environments on Earth. Their findings could guide scientists looking for signs of ancient life on Mars.
via Science Daily
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Honey, I shrunk the vacuum chambers!

Doctoral student Lucia Lain Amador with a prototype of the reduced-diameter vacuum chamber (Image: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

It takes a lot of work to achieve nothingness. The beam pipes within particle accelerators are some of the emptiest regions in the universe. They are evacuated so as to prevent the accelerating particles from colliding with gas molecules in their path. The extreme vacuums inside these pipes are achieved by pumping out all the gasses within them and then coating their insides with layers of a special material called a “getter” to which stray molecules stick. A team from CERN’s vacuum group has recently demonstrated a new method for applying getter coatings to much narrower beam pipes than ever before. This would allow accelerators such as electron synchrotrons to operate with better-focused beams and produce brighter radiation by bringing the steering magnets closer to the beams themselves.

The traditional method for applying the getter relies on producing a plasma of the coating material inside the pipes and using high voltage to deposit the material onto the inner walls. But the thinner and longer the pipe, the more difficult it is to produce a stable plasma; at a diameter of a few millimetres and a length of a few metres, it is impossible for the plasma to form, rendering this method unusable.

When faced with such challenges that push the limits of existing techniques, adopting inverse thinking helps. Rather than building the pipe first and applying the getter coating inside it, the engineers reversed the process. They first applied the getter coating to the outside of a temporary skeletal structure and then constructed the beam pipe around the coating by a metal-plating process. The skeletal structure, which is known as a “sacrificial mandrel” and is made of high-purity aluminium, was later dissolved, leaving behind a narrow vacuum chamber with a pre-applied getter coating.

“The key advantage of our technique is that it can also be used to make vacuum chambers with non-circular cross-sections,” says Lucia Lain Amador, the doctoral student who is leading the project. “And it is not limited to getter coatings – it can be used to apply other functional coatings in the future.” The concept of using a sacrificial mandrel is not new – indeed mandrels made of silicone rubber have been used by researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. The innovation by the CERN team was in working with aluminium, which, unlike silicone rubber, produces a stiff and pollutant-free mandrel.

At the moment, the technology is not intended for use in colliders like the LHC but is aimed at electron synchrotrons, which require small-diameter beam pipes with variable geometries. Lucia and her colleagues have been perfecting the technique by producing several prototype vacuum chambers and they hope to see its widespread use in the coming years.


via CERN: Updates for the general public
https://home.cern/about/updates/2018/05/honey-i-shrunk-vacuum-chambers

One-dimensional material packs a powerful punch for next generation electronics

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Engineers have demonstrated prototype devices made of an exotic material that can conduct a current density 50 times greater than conventional copper interconnect technology.
via Science Daily