Sandia gas sampling device rapidly determines whether MEMS seals are effective
Just as astronomers want to understand the atmospheres of planets and moons, so engineers want atmospheric knowledge of worlds they create that are the size of pinheads, their “skies” capped by tiny glass bubbles.
Should their silicon inhabitants – microcircuits, microgears, and micropower drivers – exist in a vacuum? An atmosphere of nitrogen? Air as we know it? More importantly, whatever at
The first superconducting magnet for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was lowered into the accelerator tunnel at 2.00 p.m. on Monday, 7th March. This is the first of the 1232 dipole magnets for the future collider, which measures 27 km in circumference and is scheduled to be commissioned in 2007. The date was thus a key one for CERN since the delivery of the 15 metre long dipole magnet weighing 35 tonnes to its final location marks the start of LHC installation.
The LHC will c
Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton telescope have discovered that observing the giant planet Jupiter may actually give them an insight in to solar activity on the far side of the Sun! In research reported in the most recent edition of Geophysical Research Letters, they discovered that Jupiter’s x-ray glow is due to x-rays from the Sun being reflected back off the planet’s atmosphere.
Jupiter is an intriguing object when viewed in x-rays; it has dramatic x-ra
Computer reveals that life around black holes is turbulent and violent
For more than 30 years, astrophysicists have believed that black holes can swallow nearby matter and release a tremendous amount of energy as a result. Until recently, however, the mechanisms that bring matter close to black holes have been poorly understood, leaving researchers puzzled about many of the details of the process.
Now, however, computer simulations of black holes developed by researchers,
Researchers from Berlin and Seoul store light in plasmonic crystals
Light can creep through tiny holes in a metal plate, even if those holes are smaller in diameter than the wavelength of light. What’s more, the light is stored for a short period of time on the metal surface, as if the metal were a photonic crystal. The controlled interaction of light with such metal structures could pave the way to unique methods for nanosensing or nanoscale information transfer, write Claus
Livermore scientists are working to solve a 50-year-old question: Can neutrinos – a particle that is relatively massless, has no electric charge yet is fundamental to the make-up of the universe – transform from one type to another?
Scientists are using two giant detectors, one at Fermi Lab and another in a historic iron mine in northern Minnesota, to work on the answer.
As part of the international team working on the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) proj
On February 15, 2005 of the Physics/Einstein Year, the complete story of the discovery of natural atom antihydrogen, started in 1985, was published on-line.
The antihydrogen problem has become a highly mediatic issue, both in the specialized physics and the more general press [1]. A real hype started at the end of 2002 when rivalling CERN-based groups ATHENA and ATRAP both claimed the production of large quantities of artificial antihydrogen. Scientists, wondering about a signatu
Very Large Telescope Finds Planet-Sized Transiting Star
An international team of astronomers have accurately determined the radius and mass of the smallest core-burning star known until now.
The observations were performed in March 2004 with the FLAMES multi-fibre spectrograph on the 8.2-m VLT Kueyen telescope at the ESO Paranal Observatory (Chile). They are part of a large programme aimed at measuring accurate radial velocities for sixty stars for which a temporary br
A program developed by Russian scientists under support from the International Science and Technology Center (Project 1917) helps to protect spacecraft from orbital debris that rushes at great speed, in the most effective and economic manner.
The system, under development by Russian scientists with financial support from the International Science and Technology Center, effectively and economically protects spacecraft from meteoroids and orbital debris. First tests, conducted by th
Antenna and telescope mirrors, walls and partitions for space stations, solar battery panels and even houses on the Moon and on Mars – all this can be achieved with technology developed by Russian scientists in the framework of ISTC projects 2835 and 2836. What is more, it can be achieved quickly, with good levels of strength and reliability, with minimal expense of time, space, energy and money.
These construction materials or, to be more accurate, original semi-products for futur
One year into its twelve year journey to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission will make a “close” flyby of Earth on Friday 4th March. UK scientists involved in the mission are hoping for a glimpse of the spacecraft which should be visible in the UK with the use of a telescope.
Whilst it has been visible to large amateur telescopes since 26th February, the best opportunity to view the spacecraft in Europe will be on Friday 4th March w
Jupiter’s formation linked to that of primitive meteorites
The process that formed the giant planet Jupiter may also have spawned some of the tiniest and oldest members of our solar system — millimeter-sized spheres called chondrules, the major part of the most primitive meteorites. As witnesses to the early history of the solar system, chondrules may provide important clues to how the planets formed.
A report of this research result, by theorists Alan P. Boss of th
Using a technique employed by astronomers to determine stellar surface temperatures, chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have measured the temperature inside a single, acoustically driven collapsing bubble. Their results seem out of this world.
“When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot – very hot,” said Ken Suslick, the Marvin T. Schmidt Professor of Chemistry at Illinois and a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science a
Preparations for the arrival of “Jules Verne”, the first European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), and those for ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori’s mission, took a step forward when the unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft Progress M-52 docked yesterday, 2 March at 21.10 Central European Time (CET) with the International Space Station (ISS).
Launched two days earlier, on 28 February at 20.09 CET from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan by a Soyuz rocket as ISS mission 17P, the Progre
A full-scale quantum computer could produce reliable results even if its components performed no better than today’s best first-generation prototypes, according to a paper in the March 3 issue in the journal Nature* by a scientist at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
In theory, such a quantum computer could be used to break commonly used encryption codes, to improve optimization of complex systems such as airline schedules, and to s
Discovery points to new class of astronomical objects
Astronomers at Sweet Briar College and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have detected a powerful new bursting radio source whose unique properties suggest the discovery of a new class of astronomical objects. The researchers have monitored the center of the Milky Way Galaxy for several years and reveal their findings in the March 3, 2005 edition of the journal, “Nature.”
Principal investigator, Dr. Scott Hyman, pr
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