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New Horizons Spacecraft Bound for Pluto Traverses Neptune’s Orbit

NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has traversed the orbit of Neptune. This is its last major crossing en route to becoming the first probe to make a close encounter with distant Pluto on July 14, 2015.

26 Aug 2014

Simple Model Predicts Happenings in Atomic Reactions at Ultracold Temperatures

Findings from a physics study by a Kansas State University researcher are helping scientists accurately predict the once unpredictable.

26 Aug 2014

Molecular Rings Can be Made as Super-Efficient Absorbers of Light

A quantum effect in which excited atoms team up to emit an enhanced pulse of light can be turned on its head to create 'superabsorbing' systems, says an international team including researchers from the Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore. Their work is published 22 August in Nature Communications.

26 Aug 2014

Free-Electron Laser X-rays Peer Inside Droplets of Liquid Helium

Liquid helium, when cooled down nearly to absolute zero, exhibits unusual properties that scientists have struggled to understand: it creeps up walls and flows freely through impossibly small channels, completely lacking viscosity. It becomes a new state of matter – a "superfluid."

25 Aug 2014

Physicists Confirm Exotic Quantum Physics Theory

Just as diamonds with perfect symmetry may be unusually brilliant jewels, the quantum world has a symmetrical splendor of high scientific value.

25 Aug 2014

Transmission and Delay Measured in On-Chip Topological Light

Topological transport of light is the photonic analog of topological electron flow in certain semiconductors. In the electron case, the current flows around the edge of the material but not through the bulk. It is “topological” in that even if electrons encounter impurities in the material the electrons will continue to flow without losing energy.

25 Aug 2014

3-D Grid of Quantum Tornadoes Discovered Inside Microscopic Droplets of Supercooled Liquid Helium

An experiment at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory revealed a well-organized 3-D grid of quantum "tornadoes" inside microscopic droplets of supercooled liquid helium – the first time this formation has been seen at such a tiny scale.

25 Aug 2014

Fluorine May Have Come From Now Dead Stars

The fluorine that is found in products such as toothpaste was likely formed billions of years ago in now dead stars of the same type as our sun. This has been shown by astronomers at Lund University in Sweden, together with colleagues from Ireland and the USA.

25 Aug 2014

Astronomers Endeavor to Solve Mystery of Spectacular Supernova in Galaxy M82

New research by a team of UK and European-based astronomers is helping to solve the mystery of what caused a spectacular supernova in a galaxy 11 million light years away, seen earlier this year.

25 Aug 2014

Magneto-Optical Trapping Chills World's Coolest Molecules

It's official. Yale physicists have chilled the world's coolest molecules. The tiny titans in question are bits of strontium monofluoride, dropped to 2.5 thousandths of a degree above absolute zero through a laser cooling and isolating process called magneto-optical trapping (MOT).

22 Aug 2014