A new study of gamma-ray light from the center of our galaxy makes the strongest case to date that some of this emission may arise from dark matter, an unknown substance making up most of the material universe. Using public data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, independent scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Chicago have developed new maps showing that the Galactic center produces more high-energy gamma rays than can be explained by known sources and that this excess emission is consistent with some forms of dark matter.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has weighed the largest known galaxy cluster in the distant universe and found that it definitely lives up to its nickname: El Gordo (Spanish for "the fat one").
Secure mobile communications underpin our society and through mobile phones, tablets and laptops we have become online consumers. The security of mobile transactions is obscure to most people but is absolutely essential if we are to stay protected from malicious online attacks, fraud and theft.
The centimeter-sized fragments and smaller particles that make up the regolith — the layer of loose, unconsolidated rock and dust — of small asteroids is formed by temperature cycling that breaks down rock in a process called thermal fatigue, according to a paper published today in the Nature Advance Online Publication.
When it comes to looking at reality from the subatomic perspective of quantum theory, many physicists are nearly as much in the dark as the average person on the street.
Grammy-winning jazz legend and sax virtuoso WAYNE SHORTER took a few hours off recently from a busy weekend of sold-out shows at the SFJazz Center in San Francisco to indulge in his second love – the cosmos. In fact, all four members of the Wayne Shorter Quartet left a rainy Saturday afternoon behind to take an impromptu tour of the universe, courtesy of jazz fans TOM ABEL and RISA WECHSLER, who are Stanford professors of physics and astrophysicists at Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
By Lori Ann White
3 Apr 2014
NASA has selected seven scientists as recipients of the 2014 Carl Sagan Exoplanet Postdoctoral Fellowships. The fellowship, named for the late astronomer, was created to inspire the next generation of explorers seeking to learn more about planets, and possibly life, around other stars.
This new image from the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows two contrasting galaxies: NGC 1316, and its smaller neighbour NGC 1317. These two are quite close to each other in space, but they have very different histories. The small spiral NGC 1317 has led an uneventful life, but NGC 1316 has engulfed several other galaxies in its violent history and shows the battle scars.
A team of researchers led by University of Notre Dame physicist Boldizsar Janko has announced analytical prediction and numerical verification of novel quantum rotor states in nanostructured superconductors.
NASA has announced the selection of the 2014 Einstein Fellows who will conduct research related to NASA's Physics of the Cosmos (PCOS) program, which aims to expand our knowledge of the origin, evolution, and fate of the Universe. The PCOS Program consists of a suite of operating science missions and possible future missions that focus on specific aspects of these questions.
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Quantum Dots Trends" report to their offering.
Professor Stephan Irle of the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM) at Nagoya University and co-workers at Kyoto University, Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), and Chinese research institutions have revealed through theoretical simulations that the molecular mechanism of carbon nanotube (CNT) growth and hydrocarbon combustion actually share many similarities.
New York University physicist Maryam Modjaz will study the explosions of stars using a method she calls "stellar forensics" under a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
Quantum standards for the electrical units the volt and the ohm have been available for more than two decades. However, for the electrical base unit of the international system of units (SI) the ampere, such a "new" quantum standard is still lacking. Within the planned "new" SI the base unit of current will then be traced to the corresponding fundamental constant – the electric charge of a single electron.
Physicists at New Zealand's University of Otago have pushed the frontiers of quantum technology by developing a steerable 'optical tweezers' unit that uses intense laser beams to precisely split minute clouds of ultracold atoms and to smash them together.