The EUREKA E! 3418 LIG-HT project is set to bring the sun into the heart of the Austrian Tyrol town of Rattenberg in the depths of winter. A combination of heliotstats – mirrors that track the sun – and optical concentrators would make it possible to light up locations within the town that lies totally in the shadow of a 900-m high mountain for over three months of the year. The benefits would be psychological, economic and environmental.
Rattenberg was built just north of the
A team led by Dr. Patrizia Caraveo of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Milan discovered this cometary trail with data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Archive. The discovery follows the team’s discovery in 2003 using ESA’s XMM-Newton of Geminga’s twin X-ray tails stretching for billions of chilometers.
Together, these observations provide unique insight into the contents and density of the interstellar “ocean” Geminga is plowing thro
German-Austrian-French research team uses a hundred-nanometre wide x-ray beam to observe how nanolayers buckle in bent high-tech carbon fibres
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, working together with colleagues from the University of Vienna and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France have made the first-ever observations of nanocrystallite buckling in carbon fibres. The results indicate that missing cross-links between
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is ending its year with another achievement of international importance as engineers and technicians this week completed testing of a world-record magnet.
With the completion of a new, 35-tesla magnet, the highest-field “resistive” magnet in the world is located at the Tallahassee facility. The state-of-the-art magnet, which incorporates “Florida-Bitter” technology invented at the lab, was designed and built on-site and is immediately
Cosmic gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe, have the extreme brilliance of a billion billion Suns and occur several times a day. But they are not all created equal. For several decades astronomers have known that two types exist–long ones that last for tens or hundreds of seconds, and short bursts, which last a few milliseconds to a second. Intense research over the last decade has shown that long bursts are the death throes of massive stars in distant, young, and vig
When a viscous fluid, such as a jar of honey, is stirred and then unstirred, the contents return to their starting points. However, according to research by a team of physicists headed by New York University’s David Pine, the particles of such fluids do not always return to their original locations. The findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
It is a well-established consequence of the laws governing fluid motion that when a viscous fluid is stirred and then un
Astronomers at the University of Hertfordshire have helped to solve one of the longest standing puzzles in astrophysics— the nature of the enormous explosions known as short-duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs).
In a paper to be published in Nature tomorrow (15th December), they will reveal that around 15% of short-duration bursts originate from galaxies within 300 million light years of the Milky Way – more than 10 times closer than previously thought.
Dr Nial Tanvir who i
A group of professors from the departments of Chemistry, Soil Science, Physics and Applied Mathematics of the University of Navarra is working together in the preparation and characterization of a type of material termed “photonic crystals”, which has optical properties with many uses. Thanks to these crystals, in the future more powerful and effective lasers will be able to be constructed. Indeed, the Nobel prize winner of 2005 has made specific mention of recent progress in laser technology, wh
Short Gamma-Ray Burst Confirms Formation Scenario
An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a third short gamma-ray burst, associated with a nearby elliptical galaxy. The low level of star formation in such galaxies and the detection of a second long-lasting flare indicate that this gamma-ray burst is most likely the final scream of a neutron star as it is being devoured by a black hole.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most powerful type of explosio
Physicists at nearly a dozen research institutions, including New York University, have discovered evidence for very high energy gamma rays emitting from the Milky Way, marking the highest energies ever detected from the galactic equator. Their findings, published in the Dec. 16 issue of the Physical Review of Letters, were obtained using the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory, a new detector located near Los Alamos, N.M., that allows monitoring of the northern sky on a 24-hour, 7-day-per-week basis.
Scientists have come up with a “recipe” to help build the world’s first quantum computer – a new generation of super-fast machines set to revolutionise scientific discovery.
Quantum technology could be used to crack codes – valuable for national security – and is already used in some bank transactions. Future developments could involve understanding chemical reactions creating medicines, ultra-fast communications systems and seemingly impossible simulations, such as the creation of
White dwarfs are important to theories of both stellar and cosmological evolution. New results published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society provide for the first time an accurate measurement of the weight of the nearest white dwarf, Sirius B, companion of the brightest star in the sky. It turns out that Sirius’s companion, despite being smaller than the Earth, has a mass that is 98% that of our own Sun.
For astronomers, it’s always been a source of frustratio
ESA has confirmed the principle of a new space thruster that may ultimately give much more thrust than today’s electric propulsion techniques. The concept is an ingenious one, inspired by the northern and southern aurorae, the glows in the sky that signal increased solar activity.
“Essentially the concept exploits a natural phenomenon we see taking place in space,” says Dr Roger Walker of ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team. “When the solar wind, a ‘plasma’ of electrified gas released by
Clues revealed by the recently sharpened view of the Hubble Space Telescope have allowed astronomers to map the location of invisible “dark matter” in unprecedented detail in two very young galaxy clusters.
A Johns Hopkins University-Space Telescope Science Institute team reports its findings in the December issue of Astrophysical Journal. (Other, less-detailed observations appeared in the January 2005 issue of that publication.)
The team’s results lend credence to
Physicists propose innovative probe for quantum criticalities
A team of theoretical and experimental physicists from Rice University is preparing a unique probe in hopes of “dialing in” elusive quantum states called “quantum criticalities.” The team is using nanotechnology to create a probe capable of trapping and tuning a single electron to create the rarified physical state in nearby magnetic electrodes.
The probe, a transistor thousands of times smaller than a living
Picture a teaspoon of powdered sugar. As fine a substance as it is, there still are tremendous differences in the sizes of its individual particles. Some are so small, they move around randomly and are invisible to the naked eye.
Now, let’s say you wanted to choose only particles of a certain size from those in the spoon. Traditional technology and scientific techniques can separate quantities of particles of different sizes down to a few microns, but beyond that, it’s no
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