Physics

How Small Are Atoms?

April 26, 2012

Here on Universe Today we often discuss things that exist on the atomic and sub-atmonic scale. Even though astronomy is concerned with very big things that happen over very, very large distances and time spans, the reality is that our Universe is driven by events occurring on the tiny atomic scale. We all know atoms [...]

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‘Seeing’ Cosmic Rays in Space

April 19, 2012

Astronauts have long reported the experience of seeing flashes while they are in space, even when their eyes are closed. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin both reported these flashes during the Apollo 11 mission, and similar reports during the Apollo 12 and 13 missions led to subsequent Apollo missions including experiments specifically looking at this [...]

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Cosmic Rays: They Aren’t What We Thought They Were

April 19, 2012

The origin of cosmic rays has been one of the most enduring mysteries in physics, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way for a while longer. One of the leading candidates for where cosmic rays come from is gamma ray bursts, and physicists were hoping a huge Antarctic detector called the IceCube [...]

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Polar Telescope Casts New Light On Dark Energy And Neutrino Mass

April 5, 2012

Located at the southermost point on Earth, the 280-ton, 10-meter-wide South Pole Telescope has helped astronomers unravel the nature of dark energy and zero in on the actual mass of neutrinos — elusive subatomic particles that pervade the Universe and, until very recently, were thought to be entirely without measureable mass.

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Neutrinos Obey The Speed Limit, After All

March 16, 2012

Neutrinos have been cleared of allegations of speeding, according to an announcement issued today by CERN and the ICARUS experiment at Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory. Turns out they travel exactly as fast as they should, and not a nanosecond more.

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Watch This 3D Printer Make a Microscopic Car

March 13, 2012

3D printers let you manufacture any 3-dimensional object out of plastic. You just download the design, fire up the old 3D printer, fill the hopper with plastic, and it’ll slowly print out the object. It sounds cool, and hackers are having a great time playing around with them, but it still doesn’t compare to the [...]

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ALPHA Closes in on Antimatter

March 10, 2012

We live in a universe made of matter. But at the moment of the Big Bang, matter and antimatter existed in equal amounts. That antimatter has all but disappeared suggests that nature, for some reason, has a strong preference for matter. Physicists want to know why matter has replaced its antimatter twin, and this week [...]

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Most Accurate Clock Ever

March 9, 2012

Do you find that you’re always having to adjust the clocks in your house? Why can’t someone just make a clock that’s accurate? How about a clock that would never lose time in, say, the entire age of the Universe? Well, that’s just what researchers from the University of New South Wales are proposing. According [...]

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The Most Astounding Fact About The Universe

March 6, 2012

In a 2008 interview by TIME magazine, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked what he thought the “most astounding fact” about the Universe was. Never at a loss for words, the famed scientist gave his equally astounding answer. His response is in the video above, set to images and music by Max Schlickenmeyer. It’s the [...]

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Warp Drives May Come With a Killer Downside

February 29, 2012

Planning a little space travel to see some friends on Kepler 22b? Thinking of trying out your newly-installed FTL3000 Alcubierre Warp Drive to get you there in no time? Better not make it a surprise visit — your arrival may end up disintegrating anyone there when you show up.

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Galactic Archaeology: NGC 5907 – The Dragon Clash

February 23, 2012

The sprawling northern constellation of Draco is home to a monumental galactic merger which left a singular spectacle – NGC 5907. Surrounded by an ethereal garment of wispy star trails and currents of stellar material, this spiral galaxy is the survivor of a “clash of the dragons” which may have occurred some 8 to 9 [...]

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Faster Than Light? More Like Faulty Wiring.

February 22, 2012

You can shelf your designs for a warp drive engine (for now) and put the DeLorean back in the garage; it turns out neutrinos may not have broken any cosmic speed limits after all.

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Skydiver Prepares for Record-Setting Freefall from the Edge of Space

February 15, 2012

In 2010, we reported on Felix Baumgartner and his upcoming attempt to break the sound barrier with his body, in a freefall from the edge of space. Part science experiment, part publicity stunt, part life-long ambition, the Red Bull Stratos mission will have Baumgartner traveling inside a capsule with a stratospheric balloon to 36,500 meters [...]

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Video: Dancing Water Drops In Earth Orbit

February 7, 2012

An astronaut once told me that fellow space flier Don Pettit could fix anything with a paper clip. Indeed, Pettit has nicknames like Mr. Wizard and Mr. Fixit, and he is well-known for his Saturday Morning Science videos during his first stay on the International Space Station and his “Zero G Coffee Cup” from a [...]

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Journal Club – Neutrino Vision

February 5, 2012

According to Wikipedia, a journal club is a group of individuals who meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in the scientific literature. And of course, the first rule of Journal Club is… don’t talk about Journal Club. So, without further ado – today’s journal article is about the latest findings in neutrino astronomy. Today’s [...]

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Recycling Pulsars – The Millisecond Matters…

February 4, 2012

It’s a millisecond pulsar… a rapidly rotating neutron star and it’s about to reach the end of its mass gathering phase. For ages the vampire of this binary system has been sucking matter from a donor star. It has been busy, spinning at incredibly high rotational speeds of about 1 to 10 milliseconds and shooting [...]

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Could a ‘Death Star’ Really Destroy a Planet?

January 18, 2012

Countless Sci-Fi fans vividly remember the famous scene in Star Wars in which the Death Star obliterates the planet Alderaan. Mirroring many late night caffeine-fueled arguments among Sci-Fi fans, a University of Leicester researcher asks the question: Could a small moon-sized battle station generate enough energy to destroy an Earth-sized planet?

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Guest Post: The Cosmic Energy Inventory

January 2, 2012

Editor’s Note: Markus Pössel is a theoretical physicist turned astronomical outreach scientist. He is the managing scientist at the Centre for Astronomy Education and Outreach “Haus der Astronomie” in Heidelberg, Germany. Now that the old year has drawn to a close, it’s traditional to take stock. And why not think big and take stock of [...]

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Journal Club – This new Chi b (3P) thingy

December 31, 2011

According to Wikipedia, a Journal Club is a group of individuals who meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in the scientific literature. Since this is Universe Today if we occasionally stray into critically evaluating each other’s critical evaluations, that’s OK too. And of course, the first rule of Journal Club is… don’t talk about [...]

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Slower than Light Neutrinos

December 30, 2011

Earlier this year, an international team of scientists announced they had found neutrinos — tiny particles with an equally tiny but non-zero mass — traveling faster than the speed of light. Unable to find a flaw themselves, the team put out a call for physicists worldwide to check their experiment. One physicist who answered the [...]

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