A pair of supermassive black holes in the distant universe are intertwined and spiraling toward a merger that will create a single super-supermassive black hole capable of swallowing billions of stars, according to a new study by astronomers at the University of Virginia, Bonn University and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

The study appears in the April 6, 2006 issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Black holes are among the oldest regions of the univer

The transistor laser, invented by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been full of surprises. Researchers recently coaxed the device to reveal fundamental properties of the transistor, and of the transistor laser, moving it a step closer to commercialization.

As reported in the April 3 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, Nick Holonyak Jr., Milton Feng, and colleagues at the U. of I. explored the current-voltage relationship in a transist

A team led by physicists at the University of California, San Diego has shown the feasibility of a fast, inexpensive technique to sequence DNA as it passes through tiny pores. The advance brings personalized, genome-based medicine closer to reality.

The paper, published in the April issue of the journal Nano Letters, describes a method to sequence a human genome in a matter of hours at a potentially low cost, by measuring the electrical perturbations generated by a single stran

Isolated vibrations within a three-dimensional solid have been observed for the first time by researchers in the U.S. and Germany. The work could help explain how metals such as uranium behave when bent, compressed or heated.

Normally, atoms in a crystal will pass their vibrational energy to their neighbors. But under some circumstances, theory predicts that a small patch of atoms could vibrate in place. This is the first time that these “lattice solitons” have been detected in a

On 12 February 2006, amateur astronomers reported that a faint star in the constellation of Ophiuchus had suddenly become clearly visible in the night sky without the aid of a telescope.

Records show that this so-called recurrent nova, RS Ophiuchi (RS Oph), has previously reached this level of brightness five times in the last 108 years, most recently in 1985. The latest explosion has been observed in unprecedented detail by an armada of space and ground-based telescopes.

Small satellites are now ready to open up new avenues in astronomy, according to a presentation on Friday 7th April at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Leicester. Rapid advances in the capabilities of satellites smaller than a domestic washing-machine mean that they now have the pointing stability and accurate positioning needed to carry astronomical instruments, such as ultraviolet telescopes.

Stuart Eves of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) said, “We see small satellites as the

This animation, made from images taken by the Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows a feature characterized by bright albedo, and called Reiner Gamma Formation.

The Reiner Gamma Formation, a totally flat area consisting of much brighter material than the surrounding dark ’mare’, is centred on an area located at 57.8° West, 8.1° North, in the Oceanus Procellarum on the near (visible) side of the Moon, and has an extension of appro

ESA has taken a further step in preparing for participation in Mars Sample Return (MSR), the landmark mission to return samples from the Red Planet, with the announcement of the next phase of industrial activity.

The Phase A2 activity will address many critical issues and identify key areas in which Europe can participate in this flagship of the Aurora Programme.

The search for evidence of life outside the Earth is one of the fundamental goals of space exploration, and has been

It was on 9 November last year that ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft lifted off from the desert of Kazakhstan onboard a Soyuz-Fregat rocket. Now, after having travelled 400 million kilometres in only about five months, the spacecraft is about to reach its final destination. The rendezvous is due to take place on 11 April.

First step: catching Venus

To begin to explore our Earth’s hot and hazy sister planet, Venus Express must complete a critical first step, the most challengin

Ring in Mab’s oribit intriguingly similar to Saturn’s blue ring in Enceladus’ orbit

The outermost ring of Uranus, discovered just last year, is bright blue, making it only the second known blue ring in the solar system, according to a report this week in the journal Science.

Perhaps not coincidentally, both blue rings are associated with small moons.

“The outer ring of Saturn is blue and has Enceledus right smack at its brightest spot, and Uranus i

An international team of astronomers led by D. Hudson from the University of Bonn has detected a proto supermassive binary black hole in images of NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory. They found that these two black holes are gravitationally bound and orbit each other. Their results will be published in an upcoming issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics.

An international team of astrophysicists, led by D. Hudson from the University of Bonn and including the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

“Da police are not here to create disorder; dere here to preserve disorder.” — Richard J. Daley, Chicago mayor, explaining to the media the role of the police during the riotous 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Police keep order. That’s why, for example, they issue tickets for “disturbing the peace.” Thus the only logical conclusion to Mayor Daley’s famous quote above — other than dismissing it as the result of a tangled tongue — is sometimes disorder spawns order.

Sounds im

In the field of tissue engineering, the following abstract presents a novel approach as well as the enabling device for culturing epithelial tissue on a larger…

Almost 40 years have passed since top secret nuclear weapon warning satellites accidentally discovered bursts of high energy gamma rays coming from space. Although many thousands of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) have since been detected, the origin and nature of these bursts is still not well understood.

One example of an unusual gamma ray burst occurred on 1 August 2005, when instruments on board the NASA-UK-Italy Swift spacecraft detected a bizarre GRB, which displayed unprecedented beha

New computer simulations of Mercury’s formation show the fate of material blasted out into space when a large proto-planet collided with a giant asteroid 4.5 billion years ago. The simulations, which track the material over several million years, shed light on why Mercury is denser than expected and show that some of the ejected material would have found its way to the Earth and Venus.

“Mercury is an unusually dense planet, which suggests that it contains far more metal than would be exp

A new image of the centre of a cluster of galaxies has revealed massive filamentary structures that give a rare insight into the evolution of galaxy clusters.

“The star forming regions in the cluster that we’d observed previously were just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve now observed filaments of gas streaming out from these regions that are approximately 490 thousand light years across. The gaseous trails mark the path of galaxies travelling at high speed through the cluster. The origin of