A groundbreaking group of theoretical and experimental physicists is coming together to experiment with a phenomenon that disturbed Einstein and which could one day make super-fast quantum computers a possibility.
Centenary professor of quantum information science Vlatko Vedral (pictured) is an expert in the theoretical study of entanglement – a phenomenon Einstein called ‘spooky action at a distance’. Two ‘entangled’ particles are connected because the fate of one depends on the
VLT First Images of Comet Tempel 1 After Impact
On the night of July 4, 2005, all ESO telescopes continued their extensive observing campaign of Comet Tempel 1. But this time, they were able to see the effect of the impact on the comet. The astronomers were clearly not disappointed.
The impact occurred at 07:52 CEST but because the comet has already set in Chile at that time, observers at the La Silla Paranal Observatory could only start observing several hours later. The
These animations, composed of images taken by the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera on board ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, shows how the brightness of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 developed after impact.
www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/SEMSJ06DIAE_0.html
Dust and gas are seen in these images of Comet 9P/Tempel 1, as observed with the 1-metre ESA Optical Ground Station (OGS) telescope, located at the Observatorio del Teide on Tenerife, Canary Islands.
Two different filters have been used in different visible light observations to study different aspects of the comet’s nature. Red ’broadband’ filters allowed the detection of dust, while blue ’narrowband’ filters, filtering only carbon gaseous compounds, allow the observations to
Through the night of 4 July 2005, all European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes observed the effects of the impact on Comet 9P/Tempel 1. At sunset in Chile, the seven telescopes of the La Silla Paranal Observatory went into action.
The FORS2 multi-mode instrument on Antu, one of the 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array, took stunning images, showing that the morphology of the comet had dramatically changed: a new bright fan-like structure was
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) signed an agreement on 27 June 2005 for including European instruments on board India’s first scientific mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-1.
This agreement, under the umbrella agreement for co-operation already existing between ISRO and ESA, was signed by Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman of ISRO, and Mr Jean Jacques Dordain, Director General of ESA, at Bangalore.
Chandrayaan-1 is planned
Researchers from HP Laboratories in Bristol, UK, have proposed an approach to distributed optical quantum computing with a technique that is highly efficient, flexible and scalable.
Quantum computing is expected to be much more powerful than conventional information processing. It should be able to search faster and simulate better, factor large numbers efficiently and virtually guarantee secure communications.
Optical quantum computing – using photons instead of electro
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured the dramatic effects of the collision early July 4 between a 370-kilogram projectile released by the Deep Impact spacecraft and comet 9P/Tempel 1.
The sequence of images (files enclosed to this release) shows the comet before and after the impact. The image at left shows the comet 10 minutes before the impact. The encounter occurred at 7:52 a.m. CEST
In the middle image, captured 15 minutes after the collision, Tempel 1 ap
Images of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 taken by the Optical Monitor on ESA’s XMM-Newton observatory, from two minutes before impact and until seven minutes after impact.
The first two images were taken just before impact, and in the following images the brightening due to impact is visible.
These images were taken with the Optical Monitor blue filter, with which it is possible to measure the outcoming gas and dust. More images from the Optical Monitor are expected in the next hou
Astronomers Using the VLT Discover Bright Cosmic Mirage Far Away
Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, Rémi Cabanac and his European colleagues have discovered an amazing cosmic mirage, known to scientists as an Einstein Ring. This cosmic mirage, dubbed FOR J0332-3557, is seen towards the southern constellation Fornax (the Furnace), and is remarkable on at least two counts. First, it is a bright, almost complete Einstein ring. Second, it is the farthest ever found.
“T
ESA’s Rosetta comet-chaser spacecraft has acquired its first view of the Deep Impact target, Comet 9P/Tempel 1.
This first Rosetta image of the Deep Impact campaign was taken by its Navigation Camera (NAVCAM) between 08:45 and 09:15 CEST on 28 June 2005.
The image shows that the spacecraft now points towards Comet 9P/Tempel 1 in the correct orientation. The NAVCAM is pointing purposely slightly off-target to give the best view to the science instrumentation.
The
Carving a telephone pole is easy if you have the right tools, say a power saw and some large chisels. And with some much tinier tools you could even carve a design into a paper clip if you wanted to. But shrink your sights down to the nanoscale, to a nanowire that is 1,000 times smaller than the diameter of a paper clip, and you find there are no physical tools to do the job properly.
So a team of Northwestern University scientists turned to chemistry and developed a new method th
Physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have experimentally discovered a fundamental principal about how solid materials melt. Their studies have shown explicitly that melting begins at defects within the crystalline structure of solid matter, beginning along the cracks, grain boundaries and dislocations that are present in the otherwise orderly array of atoms. Their findings, which will appear today in the journal Science, answer longstanding fundamental questions about melting and will
Zone Plate Lenses Capable of Better than 15-Nanometer Resolution
Progress in nanoscience and nanotechnology depends not only on examining the surfaces of things but on seeing deep inside biological organisms and material structures to identify what they’re made of — and what electronic, magnetic, optical, and chemical processes may be in play.
For measuring internal variations in shape, organization, magnetism, polarization, or chemical make-up over distances of a fe
Physics researchers working at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Laboratory in Japan have observed a new type of interaction among the most fundamental of particles, the quark. The scientists reported at the Symposium on Lepton-Photon Interactions at High Energies, June 30-July 5 in Uppsala, Sweden, that they had produced first evidence of a beauty quark converting to the lightest of quarks, the down quark.
“Observation of this very rare phenomenon allows us t
The University of Chicago’s Nicolas Dauphas has developed a new way to calculate the age of the Milky Way that is free of the unvalidated assumptions that have plagued previous methods. Dauphas’ method, which he reports in the June 29 issue of the journal Nature, can now be used to tackle other mysteries of the cosmos that have remained unsolved for decades.
“Age determinations are crucial to a fundamental understanding of the universe,” said Thomas Rauscher, an ass
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