Hydrogen peroxide detected at Ganymede’s poles; sulfur monoxide from Io’s volcanos. With its sensitive infrared cameras and high-resolution spectrometer, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is revealing new secrets of Jupiter’s Galilean satellites, in particular Ganymede, the largest moon, and Io, the most volcanically active. In two separate publications, astronomers who are part of JWST’s Early Release Science program report the first detection of hydrogen peroxide on Ganymede and sulfurous fumes on Io, both the result of Jupiter’s domineering influence….
International team reports on a radio pulsar phase of a Galactic magnetar that emitted a fast radio burst in 2020; observations suggest unique origins for “bursts” and “pulses,” which adds to FRB formation theory. More than 15 years after the discovery of fast radio bursts (FRBs) – millisecond-long, deep-space cosmic explosions of electromagnetic radiation – astronomers worldwide have been combing the universe to uncover clues about how and why they form. Nearly all FRBs identified have originated in deep space…
Using ultra-high-precision laser spectroscopy on a simple molecule, a group of physicists led by Professor Stephan Schiller Ph.D. from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has measured the wave-like vibration of atomic nuclei with an unprecedented level of precision. In the scientific journal Nature Physics, the physicists report that they can thus confirm the wave-like movement of nuclear material more precisely that ever before and that they have found no evidence of any deviation from the established force between atomic nuclei….
A young planet whirling around a petulant red dwarf star is changing in unpredictable ways orbit-by-orbit. It is so close to its parent star that it experiences a consistent, torrential blast of energy, which evaporates its hydrogen atmosphere – causing it to puff off the planet. But during one orbit observed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the planet looked like it wasn’t losing any material at all, while an orbit observed with Hubble a year and a half later showed clear…
Researchers at Leipzig University have developed a highly efficient method to investigate systems with long-range interactions that were previously puzzling to experts. These systems can be gases or even solid materials such as magnets whose atoms interact not only with their neighbours but also far beyond. Professor Wolfhard Janke and his team of researchers use Monte Carlo computer simulations for this purpose. This stochastic process, named after the Monte Carlo casino, generates random system states from which the desired properties…
International team of scientists reports in Nature the first detection of a quasi-periodic oscillation signal in the radio band from a Galactic black hole system. Black holes are the most mysterious objects in the universe, with features that sound like they come straight from a sci-fi movie. Stellar-mass black holes with masses of roughly 10 suns, for example, reveal their existence by eating materials from their companion stars. And in some instances, supermassive black holes accumulate at the center of…
Novel magnetic memories are energy-efficient and robust. They are based on ferromagnets with operating frequencies in the gigahertz range. The operating frequency could be further increased with antiferromagnets, which, however, cannot be efficiently excited. Researchers from Kaiserslautern and Mainz have now shown that magnetic heterostructures – based on a thin antiferromagnet/ferromagnet bilayer – can combine the advantages of both material classes: A high working frequency with efficient excitation. The work has been published in the renowned journal Physical Review Letters…
A German-Chinese research team has successfully created a quantum bit in a semiconductor nanostructure. Using a special energy transition, the researchers created a superposition state in a quantum dot – a tiny area of the semiconductor – in which an electron hole simultaneously possessed two different energy levels. Such superposition states are fundamental for quantum computing. However, excitation of the state would require a large-scale free-electron laser that can emit light in the terahertz range. Additionally, this wavelength is too…
A spectacular new image released today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young star, that could collapse to create giant planets. “This discovery is truly captivating as it marks the very first detection of clumps around a young star that have the potential to give rise to…
Construction of Monoatomic Lead Layers with Specially Developed Method Unveiled for the First Time. Research team led by Chemnitz University of Technology synthesizes two-dimensional layer of lead using a novel method and describes its atomic structure in detail for the first time – Publication in renowned journal Advanced Materials Interfaces. Scientists from the Professorship of Analysis of Solid Surfaces (Head: Prof. Dr. Christoph Tegenkamp) and the Professorship of Experimental Physics with a focus on Technical Physics (Head: Prof. Dr. Thomas…
… to enable more scientific discoveries. The Spallation Neutron Source at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory set a world record when its particle accelerator beam operating power reached 1.7 megawatts, substantially improving on the facility’s original design capability. The accelerator’s higher power provides more neutrons for researchers who use the facility to study and improve a wide range of materials for more efficient solar panels, longer–lasting batteries and stronger, lighter materials for transportation. The achievement marks a…
The transition to chaos is ubiquitous in nonlinear systems. Continuous-wave-driven photonic-chip-based Kerr microresonators exhibit spatiotemporal chaos, also known as chaotic modulation instability. For more than fifteen years such modulation instability states have been considered impractical for applications compared to their coherent-light-state counterparts, such as soliton states. The latter have been the centerpiece for numerous high-profile application demonstrations, from long-range optical communication to photonic computing. Now, researchers from the group of Tobias Kippenberg at EPFL have found a new way to…
The popular 1954 rock song “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” could be the theme music for the Hubble Space Telescope’s latest discovery about what is happening to the asteroid Dimorphos in the aftermath of NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) experiment. DART intentionally impacted Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, slightly changing the trajectory of its orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos. Astronomers using Hubble’s extraordinary sensitivity have discovered a swarm of boulders that were possibly shaken off the asteroid when NASA deliberately slammed…
Scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and Boston University have successfully established a connection between the rotation rates of stars in star clusters and those outside them, so-called field stars, enabling the ages of the latter to be derived. The results show that the method of gyrochronology can be applied not only to cluster stars, but also works well for field stars, and thus the ages of many more stars can be determined. How old is a…
An international team led by Curtin University and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, has discovered a new type of stellar object that challenges our understanding of the physics of neutron stars. The object could be an ultra-long period magnetar, a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce powerful bursts of energy. Until recently, all known magnetars released energy at intervals…
A team led by Prof. LI Chuanfeng and Prof. XU Jinshi from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), collaborating with Prof. CHEN Jingling from Nankai University and Prof. Adán Cabello from the University of Seville, studied the single-system version of multipartite Bell nonlocality, and observed the highest degree of quantum contextuality in single system. Their work was published in Physical Review Letters. Quantum contextuality refers to the phenomenon that the…
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