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Astronomers Accurately Measure Intermediate-Mass Black Hole

The universe has so many black holes that it's impossible to count them all. There may be 100 million of these intriguing astral objects in our galaxy alone. Nearly all black holes fall into one of two classes: big, and colossal.

18 Aug 2014

Scientists Analyze Rare, Microscopic Interstellar Dust Particles

Seven rare, microscopic interstellar dust particles that date to the beginnings of the solar system are among the samples collected by scientists who have been studying the payload from NASA's Stardust spacecraft since its return to Earth in 2006. If confirmed, these particles would be the first samples of contemporary interstellar dust.

18 Aug 2014

New Kinds of Galileon-Like Theories Can Be Created in Non-Relativistic Systems

There has been much recent interest, especially among cosmologists, in theories known as galileons. Galileons are an interesting and novel, though still hypothetical, class of effective scalar fields which are extremely universal and have attracted much recent attention. They arise generically in describing the short distance behavior of the new degrees of freedom introduced during the process of modifying gravity, and in describing the dynamics of extra dimensional brane worlds.

18 Aug 2014

Scientists Rule Out One Possible Cause of Closest Supernova

New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory offer a glimpse into the environment of a star before it exploded earlier this year, and insight into what triggered one of the closest supernovas witnessed in decades.

18 Aug 2014

Novel Technique to Record Quantum Mechanical Behavior of an Electron Within a Nanoscale Defect

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, University of California, Santa Barbara and University of Konstanz, Germany, have developed a technique to record the quantum mechanical behavior of an individual electron contained within a nanoscale defect in diamond. Their technique uses ultrafast pulses of laser light both to control the defect’s entire quantum state and observe how that single electron state changes over time.

18 Aug 2014

Rosetta Captures Diversity of Surface Structures on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's Nucleus

A new image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko shows the diversity of surface structures on the comet's nucleus. It was taken by the Rosetta spacecraft's OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on August 7, 2014. At the time, the spacecraft was 65 miles (104 kilometers) away from the 2.5-mile-wide (4-kilometer) nucleus.

18 Aug 2014

Researchers at Berkeley Lab Analyze Seven Grains of Possible Interstellar Dust

The first analysis of space dust collected by a special collector onboard NASA's Stardust mission and sent back to Earth for study in 2006 suggests the tiny specks, which likely originated from beyond our solar system, are more complex in composition and structure than previously imagined.

18 Aug 2014

Astronomers Produce New Maps of Material Located Between the Stars

An international team of sky scholars, including a key researcher from Johns Hopkins, has produced new maps of the material located between the stars in the Milky Way. The results should move astronomers closer to cracking a stardust puzzle that has vexed them for nearly a century.

18 Aug 2014

Kansas State University’s Lithium-Based Neutron Detector Wins 2014 R&D 100 Award

Kansas State University engineers have developed a lithium-based neutron detector that is being recognized as one of the year's Top 100 newly developed technologies.

14 Aug 2014