Unique Five-Week VLT Study of the Polarisation of a Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow

“Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)” are certainly amongst the most dramatic events known in astrophysics. These short flashes of energetic gamma-rays, first detected in the late 1960’s by military satellites, last from less than one second to several minutes.

GRBs have been found to be situated at extremely large (“cosmological”) distances. The energy released in a few seconds during such an event is lar

Europe’s mission to the Red Planet, Mars Express, is on schedule to arrive at the planet on Christmas Day, 2003.

The lander, Beagle 2, is due to descend through the Martian atmosphere and touch down also on 25 December.
Mars Express is now within 20 million kilometres of the Red Planet and the next mission milestone comes on 19 December, when Mars Express will release Beagle 2. The orbiter spacecraft will send Beagle 2 spinning towards the planet on a precise trajectory.

Scanning all of Shakespeare in 1/60th of a second

A computer scientist at Washington University in St. Louis has developed technology to stop malicious software – malware – such as viruses and worms long before it even has a chance to reach computers in the home and office.

John Lockwood, Ph.D., an assistant professor of computer science at Washington University, and the graduate students that work in his research laboratory have developed a hardware platform called the Fiel

ESA’s gamma-ray observatory Integral is making excellent progress, mapping the Galaxy at key gamma-ray wavelengths.

It is now poised to give astronomers their truest picture yet of recent changes in the Milky Way’s chemical composition. At the same time, it has confirmed an ’antimatter’ mystery at the centre of the Galaxy.

Since its formation from a cloud of hydrogen and helium gas, around 12 000 million years ago, the Milky Way has gradually been enriched

Gains in communication and movement may be reality soon for patients

Exciting new research into how signals from the brain can be captured by a computer or other device to carry out an individual’s command may allow people with motor disabilities to more fully communicate and function in their daily lives.

Over the past several years, scientists have begun to address the needs of people with severe disabilities brought on by paralysis or injury by developing brain-compu

During her doctoral research in the Netherlands, Gemma Piella developed a new method for processing images. With this method more details are visible at a lower resolution than the original image: both the wood and the individual trees are distinct. Piella also combined various images of the same object to produce a detailed complete picture.

Mathematician Gemma Piella has developed a new technique for processing images. For this she used a mathematical operation that makes use of so-called

American Heart Association meeting report

A small device can give doctors the “big picture” of patients’ vital signs, researchers reported today during the Resuscitation Science Symposium at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2003.

The device, called “Vital Dust,” transmits patient data to a hospital or centralized location, allowing others to see the data and also gain a global view of all patients in the field who are being similarly monitored. I

The “dark matter” that comprises a still-undetected one-quarter of the universe is not a uniform cosmic fog, says a University of California, Berkeley, astrophysicist, but instead forms dense clumps that move about like dust motes dancing in a shaft of light.

In a paper submitted this week to Physical Review D, Chung-Pei Ma, an associate professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley, and Edmund Bertschinger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), prove that the motion of dark matter clum

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of Bielefeld, Germany, have discovered a new type of hollow spherical vesicles formed by large-scale, wheel-shaped inorganic molecules. These vesicles, described in the November 6, 2003, issue of Nature, represent a new kind of self-assembly in nature with implications for the emerging field of nanoscience as well the solution behavior of other types of particles or systems previously thought to be unrela

Yesterday, at its 105th meeting, ESA’s Science Programme Committee (SPC) has made important decisions concerning the Cosmic Vision programme. Due to the current financial exigencies and an outlook with no budget increase or other relief, the SPC was forced to cancel the Eddington mission and rescope the BepiColombo mission.

Eddington had two aims, both remarkable and very pertinent to front-line astronomical interests. The first aim was to look for Earth-like planets outside our solar s

The Dutch Ministers of Economical Affairs and of Education, Culture and Science have announced the mission name of the next Soyuz flight to the International Space Station, which has Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers serving as flight engineer. This mission has been christened ’DELTA’.

Flanked by Kuipers and ESA’s Director of Human Spaceflight, Mr Jörg Feustel-Büechl, on Tuesday Ministers Brinkhorst and Van der Hoeven unveiled the mission logo and also announced the experime

ONE of NASA’s highest profile space telescopes is losing its sight. The $2 billion Chandra X-Ray Observatory is suffering from a mysterious build-up of grease on an optical filter in front of one of its cameras, blocking almost half the light at some frequencies.

Since being placed in orbit by the space shuttle in 1999, Chandra has been studying X-rays emitted by astronomical objects such as quasars and black holes. It is expected to carry on working for up to 15 years.

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The most accurate test to date of Einstein’s theory of special relativity is taking place at the University of Sussex. The investigation of Einstein’s 1905 theory could change the face of modern physics. It will examine quantum gravity, a theory which introduces very small modifications into the accepted 1905 theory.

Examination of Einstein’s theory is usually a costly and time-consuming exercise. Existing experiments involve multi-million dollar space projects. Physicist Dr Ben Varc

The Wide-Field-Imager at La Silla Unveils Intricate Structures Illuminated by Hot Stars

The two best known satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds, are located in the southern sky at a distance of about 170,000 light-years. They host many giant nebular complexes with very hot and luminous stars whose intense ultraviolet radiation causes the surrounding interstellar gas to glow.

The intricate and colourful nebulae are produced by ionised gas that shines as

An international team of astronomers from France, Italy, the UK and Australia has found a previously unknown galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way. This newly-discovered galaxy takes the record for the nearest galaxy to the centre of the Milky Way.

Called the Canis Major dwarf galaxy after the constellation in which it lies, it is about 25000 light years away from the solar system and 42000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. This is closer than the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, dis

Since Tuesday 28 October, explosive events originating from the Sun have been bathing the Earth and its surroundings in high energy radiation.

Although 150 million kilometers away, the Sun is still capable of causing major disruption here on Earth to a range of systems that we depend on in everyday life. These include communication and navigation systems, aircraft and spacecraft operations and the distribution of electricity at high latitudes.

The activity started on Tuesday