Surrey NanoSystems has “super black” material

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Credit: Surrey NanoSystems A British company says it has scored a breakthrough in the world’s darkest material. Surrey NanoSystems describes its development as not just a black material but super-black. They are calling it Vantablack, and they are singling out its ability to be applied to lightweight, temperature-sensitive structures such as aluminum, absorbing 99.96% of incident radiation; that is, they said, believed to be the highest ever recorded. This coating is made of carbon nanotubes – “each 10,000 times thinner than a human hair,” wrote Ian Johnston in The Independent on Sunday. It’s not what you see; it’s what you don’t see. If fact, you see nothing, period. “It is so dark that the human eye cannot understand what it is seeing,” wrote Johnston. “Shapes and contours are lost, leaving nothing but an apparent abyss.” Read more at: Phys.org  

The post Surrey NanoSystems has “super black” material has been published on Technology Org.

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Sleep with the stars!

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Sleep with the stars!
I'm so enjoying making these duvet covers. Many, many more in my Society6 store :)
  #outerspace  

Stellar Nursery in Tarantula Nebula Duvet Cover by Highton Ridley | Society6

 » see original post https://plus.google.com/116000959328274308893/posts/SwGiojbPQTV
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Cost-effective, solvothermal synthesis of heteroatom (S or N)-doped graphene developed

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A research team has developed cost-effective technology to synthesize sulfur-doped and nitrogen-doped graphenes which can be applied as high performance electrodes for secondary batteries and fuel cells.

via Science Daily

Nano-supercapacitors for electric cars

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Innovative nano-material based supercapacitors are set to bring mass market appeal a good step closer to the lukewarm public interest in Germany. This movement is currently being motivated by the advancements in the state-of-the-art of this device.

via Science Daily

Yes Posters

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Yes Posters

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YES is a constellation formed from many NOs.

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The quiet search for dark matter deep underground

Science Focus

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A mile below ground, a sign hangs over the door to the LUX dark matter experiment telling visitors how far to Wall Drug—in both dimensions.

Matthew R. Francis

One of the quietest, darkest places in the cosmos isn’t out in the depths of space. It’s at the center of a tank of cold liquid xenon in a gold mine deep under the Black Hills of South Dakota. It needs to be that quiet: any stray particles could confuse the detectors lining the outside of the tank. Those detectors are looking for faint, rare signals, ones that could reveal the presence of dark matter.

The whole assembly—the container of liquid and gaseous xenon, the water tank enveloping that, and all the detectors—is called the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment. So far, LUX hasn’t found anything, but the days of its operation are just beginning: the detector was installed and started operations just last year.

Though still relatively young, LUX has already set many standards for hunting for dark matter particles. When I visited, the facility was gearing up for the next data collection run, one that will involve 300 days of constant operation. The size and sensitivity of the experiment, its designers’ dedication to understanding any noise sources, and the relative simplicity of the detector lead many to hope that if there’s any dark matter to be found, LUX—or its successor—will find it.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/94fAyw3U_xk/
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Harnessing the speed of light

Science Focus

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The fields of data communication, fabrication, and ultrasound imaging share a common challenge when it comes to improving speed and efficiency: light’s diffraction limit. Nicholas Fang thinks his group at MIT might have found a solution. “In my group we play tricks with optics,” says Fang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering. These tricks have led to findings that allow for generating three-dimensional microstructures, using graphene as a more efficient delivery channel, and creating a new lens that would produce intense ultrasonic energy. With the ability to focus and target light onto the nanoscale, not only would data communication become quicker, but the diagnosis and treatment of disease would also become more precise, less invasive, less cumbersome, and more cost effective than current approaches. Narrowing the target One of Fang’s key discoveries is finding how to beat the diffraction of light. Since light and sound waves tend to spread out when blocked by an obstacle, images and communication signals can become blurry and muddled. In his lab, Fang discovered that by breaking the diffraction barrier, light signals can be sent at 10 times greater capacity. This has allowed him to produce results on the sub-nanometer scale, with light as a

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Beef's greater environment burden

Science Focus

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A new study says the production of beef is around 10 times more damaging to the environment than any other form of livestock. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28409704#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Tarantula Nebula Star Forming Gas Cloud Sculpture Rectangle Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Tarantula Nebula Star Forming Gas Cloud Sculpture Rectangle Sticker

tagged with: envelope sealers, tnlmcsfr, billowing interstellar gas clouds, awesome hubble images, tarantula nebula, large magellanic cloud, star forming activity, young hot stars, star nurseries, outer space photographs, triggering star formation

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series An awesome mobile phone shell featuring the Tarantula Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, our galactic home. This Hubble image shows old stars from the distant past and rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new ones. The most massive and hottest stars are intense, high-energy radiation sources and this pushes away what remains of the gas and dust, compressing and sculpting it. As the whorls and eddies clump and stretch it, gravity takes over and the birth of the next generation of new stars is triggered.

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Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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New mass map of a distant galaxy cluster is the most precise yet

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Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the mass within a galaxy cluster more precisely than ever before. Created using observations from Hubble's Frontier Fields observing programme, the map shows the amount and distribution of mass within MCS J0416.1-2403, a massive galaxy cluster found to be 160 trillion times the mass of the Sun. The detail in this mass map was made possible thanks to the unprecedented depth of data provided by new Hubble observations, and the cosmic phenomenon known as strong gravitational lensing.



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Highest-precision measurement of water in planet outside the solar system

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A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have gone looking for water vapour in the atmospheres of three planets orbiting stars similar to the Sun – and have come up nearly dry.



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ALMA Milky Way

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This alluring all-skyscape was taken 5,100 meters above sea level, from the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes. Viewed through the site's rarefied atmosphere at about 50% sea level pressure, the gorgeous Milky Way stretches through the scene. Its cosmic rifts of dust, stars, and nebulae are joined by Venus, a brilliant morning star immersed in a strong band of predawn Zodiacal light. Still not completely dark even at this high altitude, the night sky's greenish cast is due to airglow emission from oxygen atoms. Around the horizon the dish antenna units of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, ALMA, explore the universe at wavelengths over 1,000 times longer than visible light.

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Hubble Finds Three Surprisingly Dry Exoplanets

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Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have gone looking for water vapor in the atmospheres of three planets orbiting stars similar to the Sun and have come up nearly dry. The planets spectroscopically surveyed have only one-tenth to one one-thousandth the amount of water predicted by standard planet-formation theories. The planets are not habitable because they are gaseous and are as big as Jupiter. They lie so much closer to their host star than Jupiter is to our Sun, so their atmospheres are seething between 1,500 and 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Nevertheless, this result suggests that some percentage of Earth-size exoplanets may be more deficient in water than predicted. And, water is a necessary prerequisite for life as we know it. The search for water-bearing terrestrial worlds may be more challenging than thought for future space telescopes. And, scientists may have to revisit their theories of planet formation.

via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/36/

Helix Nebula Wall Sticker

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Helix Nebula Wall Sticker

tagged with: universe, space, science, fiction, astronomy, helix, nebula, eye

Photograph of Helix Nebula by NASA and ESA.

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Boron ‘buckyball’ discovered

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Researchers have shown that clusters of 40 boron atoms form a molecular cage similar to the carbon buckyball. This is the first experimental evidence that such a boron cage structure exists. Credit: Wang lab / Brown University The discovery 30 years ago of soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules called buckyballs helped to spur an explosion of nanotechnology research. Now, there appears to be a new ball on the pitch.   Researchers from Brown University, Shanxi University and Tsinghua University in China have shown that a cluster of 40 boron atoms forms a hollow molecular cage similar to a carbon buckyball. It’s the first experimental evidence that a boron cage structure—previously only a matter of speculation—does indeed exist. “This is the first time that a boron cage has been observed experimentally,” said Lai-Sheng Wang, a professor of chemistry at Brown who led the team that made the discovery. “As a chemist, finding new molecules and structures is always exciting. The fact that boron has the capacity to form this kind of structure is very interesting.” Read more at: Phys.org  

The post Boron ‘buckyball’ discovered has been published on Technology Org.

Similar news or articles:

1. Graphene-like material made of boron a possibility, experiments suggest
2. Update: New boron nanomaterial may be possible

 
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Vintage Astronomy, Celestial Star Chart, Sky Map Print

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Vintage Astronomy, Celestial Star Chart, Sky Map Print

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Vintage illustration astronomy and celestial map or star chart image featuring the constellations of the northern night sky including some signs of the zodiac, Pegasus, Ursa Major (Bear) and Orion the Hunter by English mathematician and physician Thomas Hood (1556-1620). Created in 1590.

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Star Birth in Constellation Cygnus, The Swan Stickers

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Star Birth in Constellation Cygnus, The Swan Stickers

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Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous star forming region in Constellation Cygnus (The Swan). This Hubble image shows a dust-rich, interstellar gas cloud with a new-born star in the centre of the hour-glass shape. The glowing blue of the hydrogen in this nebula is due to the jets being emitted from the forming star as dust falls into into it and this causes the heating and turbulence of the hydrogen. The star, known as S106 IR, is reaching the end of its birth and will soon enter the much quieter period of adulthood known as the main stage.

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Image code: cygsb

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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