AMBER instrument on VLTI Probes Environment of Stars
Using the newly installed AMBER instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, which combines the light from two or three 8.2-m Unit Telescopes thereby amounting to observe with a telescope of 40 to 90 metres in diameter, two international teams of astronomers observed with unprecedented detail the environment of two stars. One is a young, still-forming star and the new results provide useful information on
A recent check of the VIRTIS imaging spectrometer during the Venus Express commissioning phase has allowed its first remote-sensing data to be acquired, using Earth and the Moon as a reference.
After a successful in-flight checkout of the spacecraft’s systems in the first ten days of flight, the ESOC operations team is now verifying the health and functioning of all the Venus Express instruments. These observations were made as part of this checkout.
Of course the ver
International team of astronomers uses a new infrared interferometer at the VLT to get surprising views of cosmic disks of dust and gas
A research team investigated a disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star, as well as the stellar winds which emanate from that star. The team found unique, previously unknown characteristics of the innermost environment around the star. Another research group carried out the first-ever analysis of the gas and dust material surrounding a “supergi
An experimental mystery — the origin of the insulating state in a class of materials known as doped Mott insulators — has been solved by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The solution helps explain the bizarre behavior of doped Mott insulators, such as high-temperature copper-oxide superconductors.
In a paper published in the Nov. 2 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, physics professor Philip Phillips and graduate student Ting-Pong Choy
AMBER instrument on VLTI Probes Environment of Stars
Using the newly installed AMBER instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, which combines the light from two or three 8.2-m Unit Telescopes thereby amounting to observe with a telescope of 40 to 90 metres in diameter, two international teams of astronomers observed with unprecedented detail the environment of two stars. One is a young, still-forming star and the new results provide useful information on the conditi
Carbon nanotubes have enticed researchers since their discovery in 1991, offering an impressive combination of high strength and low weight. Now a new study suggests that they also act like super-compressible springs, opening the door to foam-like materials for just about any application where strength and flexibility are needed, from disposable coffee cups to the exterior of the space shuttle.
The research, which is reported in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science, shows that films
The first results obtained from the SNLS (Supernova Legacy Survey) international collaboration – in which CEA-Dapnia and CNRS (IN2P3 and INSU) are participants – are showing that the mysterious “dark energy” assumed to be responsible for the acceleration in the Universe’s expansion could be Einstein’s cosmological constant. The results were published on Monday 21 November in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
A few years ago, astrophysicists thought that the Universe’s expansion, discov
The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a “cosmological constant” to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it, may be vindicated by new research published today in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The enigmatic “dark energy” that drives the acceleration of the Universe behaves just like Einstein’s famed cosmological constant, according to the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS), an international team of researchers in France and Toronto
The Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) partakes in one of the world’s largest projects on the development of innovative organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Scientists at the Institute of Applied Photophysics have been developing highly efficient white organic light-emitting diodes which could perhaps serve as the light sources of the future.
More than 20 of Europe’s leading companies and research institutes have joined together in a research project entitled OLLA in order to a
Researchers at the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) have developed a new machine that can reveal how electrons behave inside a single nano-object. The results from initial tests on pyramidal gallium-arsenide quantum dots are presented in an article in the November 24 issue of Nature.
Hiding in the lab behind a dramatic black curtain, the hardware setup is not particularly imposing. It doesn’t look expensive. Nonetheless, this machine in EPFL’s Laboratory of quantu
New supernovae study offers tantalyzing clues about dark energy
The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a “cosmological constant” to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it, may be vindicated by new research.
The enigmatic dark energy that drives the accelerating expansion of the universe behaves just like Einstein’s famed cosmological constant, according to the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS), an international team of researchers in France
The SuperNova Legacy Survey collaboration started the largest survey yet launched to measure the distance to far supernovae. Distant supernovae are powerful tools to measure cosmological distances. The first results of the survey, to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, place strong constraints on cosmological models. In the near future, this new Legacy Survey will possibly help us understand the nature of dark energy.
The SuperNova Legacy Survey is an international collabor
Since the creation of the first working laser – a ruby model made in 1960 – scientists have fashioned these light sources from substances ranging from neon to sapphire. Silicon, however, was not considered a candidate. Its structure would not allow for the proper line-up of electrons needed to get this semiconductor to emit light.
Now a trio of Brown University researchers, led by engineering and physics professor Jimmy Xu, has made the impossible possible. The team has created the firs
The University of Arizona Steward Observatory has been given an advanced infrared telescope that is unique because it will be used primarily by students and amateurs enrolled in UA Astronomy Camps. The internationally acclaimed UA Astronomy Camps are popular with youngsters and adults who include Girl Scout leaders from around the nation. They will study the universe using a truly professional ’research class’ infrared telescope available to them for the first time on Moun
Through a series of theoretical calculations and supercomputer simulations, astrophysicists have determined that new stars form by gravitational collapse rather than the widely held belief that they come from the buildup of unbound gas.
In astronomy, there are two dominant models as to how stars form. In both scenarios, a star initially forms when a gravitationally bound gas core collapses. But what ensues after that is the crucial distinction between the two theories.
I
Permanent magnets are important in a broad variety of commercial technologies, from car starters to alternators for wind power generation to computer hard drives. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have found new clues into ways to make those magnets longer-lasting and more powerful.
Using the Western Hemisphere’s most powerful X-rays at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne, the researchers were able to see new details of r
Feedback
