For the first time an X-ray image of a pair of interacting stars has been made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
The ability to distinguish between the interacting stars – one a highly evolved giant star and the other likely a white dwarf – allowed a team of scientists to observe an X-ray outburst from the giant star and find evidence that a bridge of hot matter is streaming between the two stars.
“Before this observation it was assumed that all the X-rays came
The Cassini spacecraft has seen a 50-mile-diameter impact crater on Titan with different instruments on separate flybys, giving scientists new information on impact-crater formation on Saturn’s giant moon.
They’ve released a composite image of one of Titan’s most prominent impact craters as previously seen by Cassini’s radar and recently seen by its Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS).
The composite image is online at
The nucleus of an atom contains protons and neutrons. However, some atoms of the same chemical element can have varying numbers of neutrons, giving so-called isotopes of that element. Most elements have both stable and radioactive isotopes. Radioactive isotopes of an element are commonly used as tracers in medical, biological, and industrial studies to gain information about physical and mechanical processes. In geology and archaeology, radioactive isotopes are used to determine the age of a sa
Skylark, the one of the World’s longest running space programmes, will lift-off for the final time in a launch window starting on Saturday, April 30th. The launch of the 441st Skylark sounding rocket marks the end of 50 years of outstanding scientific research that has included investigations into atmospheric conditions, X-ray astronomy, land use and the effects of microgravity.
The Skylark sounding rocket has been a leading British success story since its design in the mid 1950s.
The first practical fountain pen was invented in 1884 by Lewis Waterman. Although pens with self-contained ink reservoirs had existed for more than a hundred years before his invention, they suffered from ink leaks and other troubles. Waterman solved these problems by inventing the capillary feed which produced even ink flow. Now fountain pen history is repeating itself in the tiny world of nanoscale writing.
Researchers at Northwestern University have demonstrated writing at the s
If you wanted a random number, historically you could do worse than to pick a sequence from the string of digits in pi. But Purdue University scientists now say other sources might be better.
Physicists including Purdue’s Ephraim Fischbach have completed a study comparing the “randomness” in pi to that produced by 30 software random number generators and one chaos-generating physical machine. After conducting several tests, they have found that while sequences of digits from pi are
Debris could be dust cloud around the moon
An instrument designed and built at the University of Chicago for the Cassini space probe has discovered dust particles around Enceladus, an ice-covered moon of Saturn that has the distinction of being the most reflective object in the solar system. The particles could indicate the existence of a dust cloud around Enceladus, or they may have originated from Saturn’s largest ring, the E-ring.
“We are operating on the plane o
Students play important role in Nobel-caliber research
Tucked away in a small, cluttered laboratory on Patuxent River Naval Air Station, two physicists spend their days trapping atoms – millions and millions of microscopic atoms. Dr. Frank Narducci, a physicist at Patuxent River Naval Air Station (NAVAIR 4.5.6.) and adjunct professor of physics at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Dr. Charles Adler, a physics professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, are engaged in groundbreak
Thirty years after scientists at the University of Missouri-Rolla and Grambling College discovered “strange” Xenon in meteorites, scientists from Japan and France are reporting the discovery of other strange elements left over from the birth of the solar system.
A 1976 study published in the journal Nature showed that strange Xenon, which is made in supernova explosions, is present within the composition of the Sun. Those findings by the UMR and Grambling team were largely dismiss
The ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) has just passed an impressive milestone with the publication of the 1,000th peer-reviewed scientific article based on data from the world’s largest and most advanced optical and near-infrared telescope.
“This remarkable landmark, reached in only six years of operations is another clear demonstration of the unique capabilities of this telescope, a true flagship in European research that is continuously opening new horizons in astrophysics”, s
Scientists at Ohio State University have taken a step toward the development of powerful new computers — by making tiny holes that contain nothing at all.
The holes — dark spots in an egg carton-shaped surface of laser light — could one day cradle atoms for quantum computing. Worldwide, scientists are racing to develop computers that exploit the quantum mechanical properties of atoms, explained Greg Lafyatis, associate professor of physics at Ohio State . These so-called quan
Using synchrotron x-ray microbeams, a research team from the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart and the ESRF has been able to observe for the first time that the microscopic structure of a crystalline material fluctuates in time. The results are published today in Science Express with the title: Scaling in the Time Domain: Universal Dynamics of Order Fluctuations in Fe3Al.
The research team investigated a metal alloy, composed of iron and aluminium. When the structure o
Portable radiation detectors generally perform well enough to meet new consensus standards but provide inaccurate readings for certain types of radiation, according to recent tests by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The results, reported in the May issue of the journal Health Physics,* are based on NIST tests of 31 commercial detectors, including hand-held survey meters; electronic personal alarming detectors (similar to pagers); and radionuclide i
The ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft determines the origin of the fast solar wind in the magnetized atmosphere of the Sun
A Chinese-German team of scientists have identified the magnetic structures in the solar corona where the fast solar wind originates. Using images and Doppler maps from the Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation (SUMER) spectrometer and magnetograms delivered by the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on the space-based Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
Thanks to data from ESA’s XMM-Newton spacecraft, European astronomers have observed for the first time rotating ‘hot spots’ on the surfaces of three nearby neutron stars.
This result provides a breakthrough in understanding the ‘thermal geography’ of neutron stars, and provides the first measurement of very small-sized features on objects hundreds to thousands light-years away. The spots vary in size from that of a football field to that of a golf course.
Neutron st
In the 15 years that the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has orbited Earth, it has taken three-quarters of a million photographs of the cosmos. Two new views have been released of Hubble’s most well-known images: the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, and the Eagle Nebula, M16.
The new images released for Hubble’s 15th anniversary are among the largest and sharpest views Hubble has ever taken, and were made with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
The new Whirlpool Galaxy i
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