Quantum Physics News

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Black Hole Takes a Bite Out of a Star

Astronomers have gotten the closest look yet at what happens when a black hole takes a bite out of a star—and the star lives to tell the tale.

25 Oct 2014

Astronomers Discover Two Families of Exocomets Orbiting Beta Pictoris Star

Beta Pictoris is a young star located about 63 light-years from the Sun. It is only about 20 million years old and is surrounded by a huge disc of material — a very active young planetary system where gas and dust are produced by the evaporation of comets and the collisions of asteroids.

25 Oct 2014

Researchers Observe East-to-West Variations in Titan’s Atmospheric Gases

New maps of Saturn’s moon Titan reveal large patches of trace gases shining brightly near the north and south poles. These regions are curiously shifted off the poles, to the east or west, so that dawn is breaking over the southern region while dusk is falling over the northern one.

24 Oct 2014

New Observational Strategy Helps Determine Amount of Molecular Hydrogen in Distant Galaxies

Scientists at the Universities of Bonn and Cardiff see good times approaching for astrophysicists after hatching a new observational strategy to distill detailed information from galaxies at the edge of the Universe.

24 Oct 2014

Webcast Explores Role of Quantum Mechanics in Helping Understand Universe’s Fabric of Time and Space

Talking about the state of his profession, Dr. Nima Arkani-Hamed recently said “I haven’t been this excited about physics in a very long time.” He’ll share why he’s so excited during his Perimeter Institute (PI) public lecture on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 at 7 pm EST.

24 Oct 2014

Massive Black Holes Can Prevent Formation of New Stars

Massive black holes spewing out radio-frequency-emitting particles at near-light speed can block formation of new stars in aging galaxies, a study has found.

24 Oct 2014

Radiation Hazards Could Make Mars Astronaut Ventures Risky

Crewed missions to Mars remain an essential goal for NASA, but scientists are only now beginning to understand and characterize the radiation hazards that could make such ventures risky, concludes a new paper by University of New Hampshire scientists.

24 Oct 2014

Major Upgrade to Improve Quality of Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source’s X-rays

The X-rays produced by the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) are bright, but they will soon be even brighter, thanks to a major upgrade that will make the quality of CHESS’ X-rays competitive with the world’s best synchrotron light sources.

21 Oct 2014

New Theory Result Opens Up Novel Path for Generating Spin Hall Effect

Every electrical device, from a simple lightbulb to the latest microchips, is enabled by the movement of electrical charge, or current. The nascent field of ‘spintronics’ taps into a different electronic attribute, an intrinsic quantum property known as spin, and may yield devices that operate on the basis of spin-transport.

21 Oct 2014

University of Houston Recognized as the Site of Discovery of High Temperature Superconductivity

The University of Houston will be recognized Nov. 17 by IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) as the site of the discovery by physicist Paul Chu and colleagues of a material that made high temperature superconductivity practical for real-world applications. The University will receive IEEE's prestigious Milestone Award.

21 Oct 2014