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
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
Delighted scientists on the Cassini imaging team will be breaking out the champagne in celebration of the first Cassini sighting of spokes, the ghostly radial markings discovered in Saturn’s rings by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft 25 years ago.
A sequence of images taken on the unilluminated side of the rings has captured a few faint, narrow spokes in the outer B ring, about 3,500 kilometers long and about 100 kilometers wide (2,200 miles by 60 miles). The images show the spo
University of Arizona and Japanese scientists are convinced that evidence at last settles decades-long arguments about what objects bombarded the early inner solar system in a cataclysm 3.9 billion years ago.
Ancient main belt asteroids identical in size to present-day asteroids in the Mars-Jupiter belt — not comets — hammered the inner rocky planets in a unique catastrophe that lasted for a blink of geologic time, anywhere from 20 million to 150 million years, they report in
In the scenario proposed by the astrophysicists, the gas from the companion star is channeled along the magnetic field lines until it slams into the pulsar magnetic poles. This gas, heated to extreme temperatures, produces high-energy photons. These photons, emitted periodically at the pulsar rotation frequency, are detected by the INTEGRAL satellite. Additional observations by NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer show that during the cannibalization of the companion star, the pulsar spins
Nano-sized carbon tubes coated with strands of DNA can create tiny sensors with abilities to detect odors and tastes, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Monell Chemical Sciences Center. Their findings are published in the current issue of the journal Nano Letters, a publication of the American Chemical Society.
According to the researchers, arrays of these nanosensors could detect molecules on the order of one part per million, akin to finding a one
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