Sounding like something out of a comic book, superatoms are not only an enticing idea, but experiments have confirmed they exist. Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University have collaborated with scientists from Johns Hopkins University to synthesize the first magnetic superatoms.
A team of astronomers led by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) have succeeded in observing the death throws of a giant star in unprecedented detail.
Humans may step on the interstellar gas pedal some day and "Boom!" goes the engine. On Tuesday, April 2, at NASA's Langley Research Center, theoretical physicist Friedwardt Winterberg will present, "To Mars in Weeks by Thermonuclear Micro-Bomb Propulsion," at 2 p.m. in the Reid Conference Center here.
If you could peek at the inner workings of a computer processor you would see billions of transistors switching back and forth between two states. In optical communications, information from the switches can be encoded onto light, which then travels long distances through glass fiber.
The School of Physics at PKU held a recruitment drive during the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS). Dean Xie Xincheng, on a joint reception to some 600 audiences, gave an introduction on the recent development of the school.
By Jin Baihong
1 Apr 2013
What will soon be the most powerful neutrino detector in the United States has recorded its first three-dimensional images of particles. Using the first completed section of the NOvA neutrino detector, scientists have begun collecting data from cosmic rays—particles produced by a constant rain of atomic nuclei falling on the Earth's atmosphere from space.
Messier 77 is a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. Also known as NGC 1068, it is one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies. It is a real star among galaxies, with more papers written about it than many other galaxies put together!
An international team of physicists has proposed a revolutionary laser system, inspired by the telecommunications technology, to produce the next generation of particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
In today's Physical Review Letters, the Antihydrogen TRAP (ATRAP) experiment at CERN's Antiproton Decelerator (AD) reports a new measurement of the antiprotonmagnetic moment made with an unprecedented uncertainty of 4.4 parts per million (ppm). This result is 680 times more precise than previous measurements.
A new look at conditions after a Manhattan-sized asteroid slammed into a region of Mexico in the dinosaur days indicates the event could have triggered a global firestorm that would have burned every twig, bush and tree on Earth and led to the extinction of 80 percent of all Earth's species, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.
An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and from the University of Cologne, successfully identified two titanium oxides in the extended atmosphere around a giant star. The object VY Canis Major is one of the largest stars in the known universe and close to the end of its life. The detection was made using telescope arrays in the USA and in France.
The Universe is an old neighbourhood — roughly 13.8 billion years old. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is also ancient — some of its stars are more than 13 billion years old (eso0425). Nevertheless, there is still a lot of action: new objects form and others are destroyed. In this image, you can see some of the newcomers, the young stars forming the cluster NGC 2547.
Quantum Materials Corporation has recently developed and delivered customized tetrapod QD samples for applications being developed by Department of Energy National Lab researchers.
The next generation of computers promises far greater power and faster processing speeds than today's silicon-based based machines. These "quantum computers" — so called because they would harness the unique quantum mechanical properties of atomic particles — could draw their computing power from a collection of super-cooled molecules.
Supernovae were always thought to occur in two main varieties. But a team of astronomers including Carnegie’s Wendy Freedman, Mark Phillips and Eric Persson is reporting the discovery of a new type of supernova called Type Iax. This research has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and is available online.