The international Cassini spacecraft has detected the faint but distinct signature of dust coming from outside our Solar System.
From 11–15 April, more than 450 scientists, leaders of high-tech industry, universities and research centres gather in Rome (Italy), to review the progress on Future Circular Collider Study (FCC).
This study develops concepts for future frontier infrastructures to extend the research currently being conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The future of high-energy physics on the timescale of the 21st century hinges on designing and building future colliders that could take us beyond the present energy and intensity frontiers. To date, a total of 74 institutes from 26 countries have joined the FCC collaboration, reflecting the growing global interest in the study.
During the FCC week 2016 a public event entitled “Discovery Machines: The Higgs Boson and the Search for New Physics” will take place on 14 April at the Auditorium in Rome. The event, in Italian, with simultaneous translation into English, brings together physicists and experts from economics to discuss intriguing questions on the origin and evolution of the Universe and the societal impact of large-scale research projects.
Inner planet Venus and a thin crescent Moon are never found far from the Sun in planet Earth's skies. Taken near dawn on April 6, this timelapse composite shows them both rising just before the Sun. The mountaintop Teide Observatory domes on the fortunate island of Tenerife appear in silhouette against the twilight. In fact, the series of telephoto exposures follows the occultation of Venus by the Moon in three frames. Far from Earth in its orbit and in a nearly full phase, Venus was 96 percent illuminated. Near perigee or closest approach to Earth, the Moon's slender crescent represents about 2 percent of the lunar disk in sunlight. Seen in the first two exposures, the brilliant morning star only vanishes in the third as it winks out behind the bright lunar limb. Five minutes of the dramatic occultation at dawn is compressed into 15 seconds in this timelapse video (vimeo).
The ESA–Roscosmos ExoMars spacecraft are in excellent health following launch last month, with the orbiter sending back its first test image of a starry view taken en route to the Red Planet.
