At 9:50 UTC on the morning of Sep 14, 2015, the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (LIGO), one in Louisiana and the other in Oregon, simultaneously observed the distinct signal of a possible gravitational wave. The signal swept upward in frequency from 35 Hz to peak at 250 Hz, exactly matching physicists’ predictions for the inspiral, collision, merger and ringdown of a pair of black holes
A team of astronomers including Harvard's Robert Kirshner and Peter Challis has detected a flash of light from the companion to an exploding star. This is the first time astronomers have witnessed the impact of an exploding star on its neighbor. It provides the best evidence on the type of binary star system that leads to Type Ia supernovae.
Astronomers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report that they have observed the most luminous galaxies ever seen in the Universe, objects so bright that established descriptors such as “ultra-” and “hyper-luminous” used to describe previously brightest known galaxies don’t even come close. Lead author and undergraduate Kevin Harrington says, “We’ve taken to calling them ‘outrageously luminous’ among ourselves, because there is no scientific term to apply.”
Researchers have developed a new conceptual framework for understanding how stars similar to our Sun evolve. Their framework helps explain how the rotation of stars, their emission of x-rays, and the intensity of their stellar winds vary with time. According to first author Eric Blackman, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, the work could also “ultimately help to determine the age of stars more precisely than is currently possible.”
An international team of researchers has made a breakthrough in generating single photons – the single quanta of light particles – as carriers of quantum information in security systems. The findings are set to revolutionise cybersecurity, along with advancing quantum computing, which can search large databases exponentially faster. Work will be continued through the Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, which launches at the University of Sydney in April 2016.
In December, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented a sneak peek of the new data collected during the first few months of the Large Hadron Collider’s enormously energetic second run. Both experiments reported a small excess of photon pairs with a combined mass around 750 GeV. This small excess could be the first hint of a new massive particle that spits out two photons as it decays, or it might be a coincidental fluctuation that will disappear with more information.
In quantum theory, interactions among particles create fascinating correlations known as entanglement that cannot be explained by any means known to the classical world. Entanglement is a consequence of the probabilistic rules of quantum mechanics and seems to permit a peculiar instantaneous connection between particles over long distances that defies the laws of our macroscopic world - a phenomenon that Einstein referred to as "spooky action at a distance."
Observations using the VLA radio telescope array in New Mexico show the innermost portion of a planetary birthplace around the young star HL Tauri in unprecedented detail. Clearly visible is a lump of dust with 3 to 8 times the mass of the Earth, which represents the ideal conditions for the formation of a planet: a planetary nursery with sufficient building material for a planet somewhere between the mass of our own Earth and that of Neptune. The presence of a lump points towards a solution for a fundamental problem of planet formation: how planets can form on the limited time scale available for such processes.
The double-slit experiment is regarded among physicists as one of the most elegant experiments of all time. According to Nobel Prize laureate Richard Feynman, it encapsulates the entire mystery of quantum physics. It impressively demonstrates the wave nature of light and the phenomenon of interference.
The lightest few elements in the periodic table formed minutes after the Big Bang. Heavier chemical elements are created by stars, either from nuclear fusion in their interiors or in catastrophic explosions. However, scientists have disagreed for nearly 60 years about how the heaviest elements, such as gold and lead, are manufactured. New observations of a tiny galaxy discovered last year show that these heavy elements are likely left over from rare collisions between two neutron stars. The work is published by Nature.
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