Physics in the News

Friday, August 15, 2014

Cosmic grains pre-date Solar System

Scientists may have identified the first known dust particles from outside our Solar System, in samples returned to Earth by a Nasa space mission. (Credit: NASA)

via bbc

Every parking spot at the International Space Station is currently occupied

Here’s an awesome photo to start your day: The International Space Station currently has five spacecraft docked to it — the most that can be currently attached. If any of the world’s space agencies, or private companies like SpaceX were to send up another spacecraft today, they’d need to circle until another parking space becomes available. (Credit: NASA)

via extremetech

Massive trail of a boulder as it tumbles down a hill spotted by space probe above the red planet

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the trail from an oblong boulder that rolled down a slope on the Red Planet. The image was taken on July 3, 2014. (Credit: NASA)

Planck’s early universe exploration ‘great landmark’ in human history

“This piece of information, that has always been a dream, and never was thought of as being within human grasp. But here in the year 2014 on finds that perhaps this mission is going to be telling us how the universe started,” said Harwit, who is an expert in infrared astronomy and works as a member of the ESA’s Submillimeter Wave Astronomical Satellite, as well as on the Herschel Telescope. (Credit: East News/ Science Photo Library)

Mars orbiters plan for their October encounter with comet Siding Spring(VIDEO)

Microsoft Research turns 2D camera into depth sensor (VIDEO)

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Rise of the machines? Watch a 1000 Tiny robot horde swarms to form shapes (VIDEO)

Are processors pushing up against Moore’s Law and the limits of physics?

Plot of CPU transistor counts against dates of introduction. Note the logarithmic vertical scale; the line corresponds to exponential growth with transistor count doubling every two years. Transistor counts for integrated circuits plotted against their dates of introduction. The curve shows Moore's law - the doubling of transistor counts every two years. The y-axis is logarithmic, so the line corresponds to exponential growth. (Credit: Wgsimon) — Plot of CPU transistor counts against dates of introduction. Note the logarithmic vertical scale; the line corresponds to exponential growth with transistor count doubling every two years. The curve shows Moore’s law – the doubling of transistor counts every two years. The y-axis is logarithmic, so the line corresponds to exponential growth. (Credit: Wgsimon)

via arstechnica

Molecular engineers record an electron’s quantum behavior

These images show a diamond sample with a hemispherical lens (right and lower left), and the location of a single electron spin/quantum state visible through its light emission (upper left). The scale bar on the image at upper left measures five microns, the approximate diameter of a red blood cell. (Credit: Courtesy of Awschalom Lab/University of Chicago)

via phys

NASA’S NuSTAR catches a black hole bending light, space, and time

This plot of data captured by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shows X-ray light streaming from regions near a supermassive black hole known as Markarian 335. (Credit: NASA)

via universetoday

Physics in the News

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

The smallest possible scale in the universe

Every once in a while I think that there maybe is no fundamentally smallest unit of length; that all these arguments for its existence are wrong. I like to think that we can look infinitely close into structures and will never find a final theory, turtles upon turtles, or that structures are ultimately self-similar and repeat.(Credit: Sabine Hossenfelder) — Every once in a while I think that there maybe is no fundamentally smallest unit of length; that all these arguments for its existence are wrong. I like to think that we can look infinitely close into structures and will never find a final theory, turtles upon turtles, or that structures are ultimately self-similar and repeat.(Credit: Sabine Hossenfelder, Sanghyuk Moon)

Cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton claims black holes do not exist(VIDEO)

via thewatchers

Europe’s last cargo ship reaches space station

The International Space Station's robotic arm, Canadarm2, grapples the Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo craft, as seen in this still image taken from NASA TV July 16, 2014. (Credit: Reuters/NASA TV/Handout via Reuters) — The International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, grapples the Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo craft, as seen in this still image taken from NASA TV July 16, 2014. (Credit: Reuters/NASA TV/Handout via Reuters)

Follow the radio waves to exomoons, astrophysicists say

This is a schematic of a plasma torus around an exoplanet, which is created by the ions injected from an exomoon's ionosphere into the planet's magnetosphere. (Credit: UT Arlington) — This is a schematic of a plasma torus around an exoplanet, which is created by the ions injected from an exomoon’s ionosphere into the planet’s magnetosphere. (Credit: UT Arlington)

via phys

NASA is contest-sourcing solutions to its deepest problems

(Credit: NASA/Don Davis) — “As NASA continues to push the boundaries of human imagination and innovation, we have seen the value in utilizing a citizen-based professional crowd to complement our internal efforts and solve complex real-world challenges,” Jason Crusan, director of NASA’s Tournament Lab. (Credit: NASA/Don Davis)

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Schrödinger’s cat explained on physicist’s 127th birthday(VIDEO)

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Beyond six nines: Ultra-enriched silicon paves the road to quantum computing

NIST researcher Kevin Dwyer with the silicon enrichment apparatus. The process begins at the left, where natural-abundance silicon in the form of silane gas (SiH4) is ionized. The ions pass through a magnetic field (top left), which causes their paths to curve to different degrees based on their mass. The silicon-28 ions, now separated from the other silicon isotopes, are decelerated through an ultra-high vacuum chamber (top center) and into the deposition chamber (top right) (Credit: Pomeroy, NIST, Dwyer)

via phys

NASA’s NuSTAR sees rare blurring of black hole light

This artist’s concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

via pasadenanow

From eons to seconds, proteins exploit the same forces

A protein folding funnel, the product of algorithms created by Rice’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, is a graphic representation of the energy landscape a protein navigates as it goes from its initial floppy state to a folded, functional unit. The funnel shows smooth slopes as well as outcroppings where parts of a protein may pause while others catch up, and also traps that could cause a protein to misfold. New Rice research shows how the interplay between evolution and physics developed the skills necessary to conserve useful proteins. (Credit: Center for Theoretical Biological Physics/Rice University)

via phys

Physics in the News

Monday, August 11, 2014

Physicists create water tractor beam

Dr Horst Punzmann (left) and Professor Michael Shats test their wave-generated tractor beam. (Credit: Stuart Hay)

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Amazing HD footage of ‘Flying Saucer’

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The craziest NASA mission ever proposed

In this concept image, the robotic vehicle deploys an inflatable bag to envelop a free-flying small asteroid before redirecting it to a distant retrograde lunar orbit. (Credit: NASA)

via sciencenews

Scientists unravel mystery of universe’s existence

Researchers from Three Perimeter Institute have a new idea, and have claimed that what is perceived as the big bang, could be the three-dimensional 'mirage' of a collapsing star in a universe profoundly different than our own. (Credit: NASA, ANI) — Researchers from Three Perimeter Institute have a new idea, and have claimed that what is perceived as the big bang, could be the three-dimensional ‘mirage’ of a collapsing star in a universe profoundly different than our own. (Credit: NASA, ANI)

Crowd-funded ISEE-3 reboot mission to begin Sunday after lunar flyby

The International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) will have the closest view of the moon at 11:16 a.m. PDT. Members of the rebooted mission partnered with Google to create a website, where they will host a video hangout beginning at 10:30 a.m. PDT. (Credit: ISEE3, NASA)

via arstechnica

The black hole at the beginning of time –“We may have emerged from a black hole in a higher-dimensional universe”

our known universe could be the three-dimensional “wrapping” around a four-dimensional black hole’s event horizon. In this scenario, our universe burst into being when a star in a four-dimensional universe collapsed into a black hole. (Credit: Perimeter Institute)

via dailygalaxy

Bendable sound waves can skirt objects and trap particles

Scientists have developed a method to bend sound waves as they travel through open air, and can even create an acoustic “bottle” that can trap and hold tiny particles. (Credit: Xiang Zhang Group)

Researchers propose new architecture for quantum computing based on microscopic defects in diamonds

At the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), experiments with nitrogen atoms in diamonds are already being carried out. (Credit: TU Wien)

Physics in the News

Sunday, August 10, 2014

IBM cracks open a new era of computing with brain-like chip: 4096 cores, 1 million neurons, 5.4 billion transistors

IBM's new TrueNorth chip. (Credit: IBM) — IBM’s new TrueNorth chip. (Credit: IBM)

via extremetech

NASA’s “Impossible” engine actually worked

While the separate tests confirm such an engine might be possible, they could be wrong. Still, the mere thought of something that was once considering impossible is now possible should get a lot of people excited. (Credit: NASA)

via technobuffalo

Disney conquers physics, uses 3D printing to create impossible spinning tops

What if the big bang was a 4D black hole instead?

We could be living in the 3D event horizon of a 4D black hole (Credit: Wikipedia)

Watch NASA’s new saucer fly to near space in this awesome video

Spot perseid meteors before ‘Supermoon’ rises this weekend

A particularly large bright Moon will interfere with viewing the Perseid meteor shower this year. (Credit: Starry Night) — A particularly large bright Moon will interfere with viewing the Perseid meteor shower this year.
(Credit: Starry Night)

NASA postpones US spacewalks from space station over battery issue

NASA astronaut Steve Swanson on a spacewalk outside International Space Station on April 22, 2014. (Credit: NASA)

Can we call Pluto and Charon a ‘binary planet’ yet?

This gif of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it raced toward Pluto in July 2014. (Credit: NASA) — This gif of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it raced toward Pluto in July 2014. (Credit: NASA)

Status Of The Higgs Challenge

via science2.0

Physics in the News

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Extracting audio from visual information(VIDEO)

via mit

Technical troubleshooting at the CERN Control Centre

Chris Wetton of CERN's Technical Infrastructure Operation group keeps a keen eye on the monitors at the CERN Control Centre (Image: Stephanie Hills) — Chris Wetton of CERN’s Technical Infrastructure Operation group keeps a keen eye on the monitors at the CERN Control Centre (Credit: Stephanie Hills)

via cern

3-D codes yield unprecedented physics, engineering insights

Sandia National Laboratories researchers Steve Plimpton, left, and Michael Gallis look at a projection of a model of the Russian MIR space station, which fell out of orbit several years ago and disintegrated, with the remains ending up at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Using Sandia’s 3-D code SPARTA, the calculation is simulating an instance of the process of de-orbiting. (Credit: Randy Montoya)

via phys

Funds awarded to begin construction of Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

The 8.4-meter LSST will use a special three-mirror design, creating an exceptionally wide field of view. (LSST/rendering) — The 8.4-meter LSST will use a special three-mirror design, creating an exceptionally wide field of view. (Credit: LSST/rendering)

Neutrinos could monitor Iranian nuclear plant

Japanese scientists recently published a paper that showed they could monitor neutrinos by putting a detector in the back of a van and parking it outside the reactor.

via wvtf

NASA’s quantum drive: Cool your jets

Photo by Paramount Pictures — Of course science has overturned earlier notions of how the Universe works. But sometimes, those rules are shown to be true so much and so often that when you come up with an idea that overthrows all of it, you’d better have iron-clad evidence of it. (Credit: Phil Plait, Paramount Pictures)

The changing state of a qubit over time

The work verifies theoretical models of the most likely way in which a quantum system will collapse, proving that the probable path can be predicted. This paves the way to actively controlling a quantum system in the future by steering it towards a certain outcome.(Credit: Irfan Siddiqi, UC Berkeley)

via newscientist

The summer’s second Supermoon to return Sunday afternoon

A perigee moon rises in Washington, DC, on March 19, 2011. A perigee moon is visible when the moon's orbit position is at its closest point to Earth during a full moon phase. The full moon coincided with its closest approach to the Earth, 221,565 miles (356,575 km), making the so-called "super moon" look slightly larger than average. AFP PHOTO / Jewel Samad (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images) — A perigee moon rises in Washington, DC, on March 19, 2011. A perigee moon is visible when the moon’s orbit position is at its closest point to Earth during a full moon phase. The full moon coincided with its closest approach to the Earth, 221,565 miles (356,575 km), making the so-called “super moon” look slightly larger than average. (Credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

via cbs

Comet-chasing Euro-probe could make history Wednesday

An artist's impression shows what the Rosetta orbiter will look like when it deploys the Philae lander to a comet later this year. (Credit: ESA) — An artist’s impression shows what the Rosetta orbiter will look like when it deploys the Philae lander to a comet later this year. (Credit: ESA)