Astronomers have found compelling evidence that a supernova shock wave has produced a large amount of cosmic rays, particles of mysterious origin that constantly bombard the Earth. This discovery, made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, supports theoretical arguments that shock waves from stellar explosions may be a primary source of cosmic rays.

This finding is important for understanding the origin of cosmic rays, which are atomic nuclei that strike the Earth’s atmospher

University of Arizona physicists have directly measured how close speeding atoms can come to a surface before the atoms’ wavelengths change.

Theirs is a first, fundamental measurement that confirms the idea that the wave of a fast-moving atom shortens and lengthens depending on its distance from a surface, an idea first proposed by pioneering quantum physicists in the late 1920s.

The measurement tells nanotechnologists how small they can make extremely tiny devices bef

The world’s best clock, NIST-F1, has been improved over the past few years and now measures time and frequency more than twice as accurately as it did in 1999 when first used as a national standard, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report.

The improved version of NIST-F1 would neither gain nor lose one second in 60 million years, according to a paper published online Sept. 13 by the journal Metrologia.* NIST-F1 uses a fountain-like movem

“Keep cool to reduce friction” might be the advice given to designers of nanoscale machinery by researchers who have just completed a study of factors influencing the formation of “water bridges” – capillary connections that can glue surfaces together, giving rise to friction forces.

When surfaces touch in a humid environment, moisture forms water bridges, or capillaries, between them. On familiar size scales, this process – known as nucleation – helps hold sand castles and wet co

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web 15 years ago, he always intended that it should be easy for people to write to it, not just read from it. But if websites are opened up to anyone, they often get vandalised by people with axes to grind. Now, a researcher from Manchester has brought together two of computing’s current buzzwords – the Grid, and Wikis – to overcome this problem.

A Wiki is a web site where users can easily add and edit its content. Although some Wikis a

Shared-memory computing applications have never taken particularly well to operating on distributed-memory systems, at least until now. A possible solution has emerged, of interest to NASA and IBM, and is being tested on their distributed computing systems.

Funded under the European Commission’s IST programme, the POP project focused on generating an environment to allow applications designed using the OpenMP Application Program Interface (API) to operate on distributed-memory

Large Population of Galaxies Found in the Young Universe with ESO’s VLT

The Universe was a more fertile place soon after it was formed than has previously been suspected. A team of French and Italian astronomers [1] made indeed the surprising discovery of a large and unknown population of distant galaxies observed when the Universe was only 10 to 30% its present age.

This breakthrough is based on observations made with the Visible Multi-Object Spectrograph (VIMOS)

Astronomers throughout the UK now have a valuable new research tool at their disposal which may lead to new discoveries and improved understanding of the physics of the Universe. Launched this week, AstroGrid provides a unique way of accessing, processing and storing astronomical data obtained from a diverse range of data archives held anywhere on Earth. AstroGrid will open the way for virtual observing on individual computers, enabling astronomers to compare and manipulate a wide range of astr

ESA’s Mars Express mission has been extended by one Martian year, or about 23 months, from the beginning of December 2005.

The decision, taken on 19 October by ESA’s Science Programme Committee, allows the spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet to continue building on the legacy of its own scientific success. Co-ordinated from the beginning with the Mars science and exploration activities of other agencies, Mars Express has revealed an increasingly complex picture of Mars.

CryoSat’s 8 October flight atop its Rockot launcher will be of historical significance in more ways than one. In a striking juxtaposition of new and old, the ESA’s ice satellite mated to a newly-finished Breeze-KM upper stage will be hauled most of the way to orbit by a vintage SS-19 two-stage rocket, first assembled two decades ago to serve as a weapon of nuclear war.

ESA satellites have flown from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome before (as well as the Russian-operated

In November 2005, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will be discussing a proposal to abolish leap seconds.

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) strongly recommends that this proposal should be shelved, and that, before any changes are implemented, there should be a broader, public debate on the future use of these small adjustments to our annual time-keeping.

Our scientific understanding of time has developed over several centuries. Today, scientists re

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have identified the source of a mysterious blue light surrounding a supermassive black hole in our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Though the light has puzzled astronomers for more than a decade, the new discovery makes the story even more mysterious.

The blue light is coming from a disk of hot, young stars. These stars are whipping around the black hole in much the same way as planets in our solar system are revolving

A most interesting audience gathered yesterday at the third and now traditional Café Scientifique at the Dark and Light Beer House, organized by the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC), the InformNauka agency and the Uspekhi Fiziki (Successes of Physics) Foundation, headed by Academician V.L. Ginzburg. Not only science journalists from the most varied publications and astrophysicists, but science-fiction writers, too came to the café. A make up of such an unusual order dictated the f

British scientists develop new way of using chrome that doesn’t put workers’ lives at risk

British scientists have developed a safer and more versatile alternative to chrome electroplating, the coating found on vintage car bumpers, steel camshafts, and fixtures such as door furniture and light fittings.

Chrome electroplating protects from corrosion and adds an aesthetically pleasing sheen, but chromium comes with serious health risks and chromium compounds have

Virgo image gives evidence of violent life, death of cluster galaxies Case Western Reserve University astronomers have captured the deepest wide-field image ever of the nearby Virgo cluster of galaxies, directly revealing for the first time a vast, complex web of “intracluster starlight” — nearly 1,000 times fainter than the dark night sky — filling the space between the galaxies within the cluster. The streamers, plumes and cocoons that make up this extremely faint starlight are

Researchers trying to understand how the planets formed have uncovered a new clue by analysing meteorites that are older than the earth.

The research shows that the process which depleted planets and meteorites of so-called volatile elements such as zinc, lead and sodium, must have been one of the first things to happen in our nebula.

The implication of this clue is that ’volatile depletion’ may be an inevitable part of planet formation – a feature not just o