Close encounter may explain some objects beyond Neptune
Computer simulations show a close encounter with a passing star about 4 billion years ago may have given our solar system its abrupt edge and put small, alien worlds into distant orbits around our sun.
The study, which used a supercomputer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was published in the Dec. 2 issue of the journal Nature by physicist Ben Bromley of the University of Utah and astron
A practical method for automatically correcting data-handling errors in quantum computers has been developed and demonstrated by physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Described in the Dec. 2, 2004, issue of the journal Nature, the NIST work is the first demonstration of all the steps of error correction for quantum computers, a futuristic, potentially very powerful form of computing that uses the quantum properties of atoms or other particles as
Very Large Telescope Takes Snapshots of Two Grand-Design Spiral Galaxies Images of beautiful galaxies, and in particular of spiral brethren of our own Milky Way, leaves no-one unmoved. It is difficult indeed to resist the charm of these impressive grand structures. Astronomers at Paranal Observatory used the versatile VIMOS instrument on the Very Large Telescope to photograph two magnificent examples of such “island universes”, both of which are seen in a southern constellation wit
As the UK prepares to celebrate Einstein Year in 2005, a physicist from Bristol University is looking for stories that can be used to tell taxi drivers what physics is all about. Sir Michael Berry, whose own father was a London cabbie, thought of the idea after failing to give a taxi driver a clear explanation of what it is that physicists actually do. Berry realized that physicists need a stock of good and convincing stories that show how physics affects people’s lives. Looking back, he now
A big advantage of space robots is that they need neither food nor drink and can support very inhospitable conditions. More important still, although expensive to design and produce, their loss is always preferable to that of an astronaut. At this month’s ASTRA 2004 workshop robots designed in ESA’s space research and technical centre in the Netherlands attracted much attention.
“On Earth, robots regularly take over when it comes to repetitive tasks or when human health ma
If you run into Ed Saff at a cocktail party and ask him what he does for a living, the mathematician is likely to reply that he is working on a “method for creating the perfect poppy-seed bagel.” Then he’ll pause and add, “Maybe that’s not the most accurate description, but it’s the most digestible.”
More accurately, Saff, who is a mathematics professor at Vanderbilt, has been working with his colleague Associate Professor of Mathematics Doug Hardin to come up with a new and improv
New observations of an oddball planetary system 150 light-years from Earth may force astronomers to rethink the textbook definition of a planet and the accepted idea about how such a body forms. The observations suggest that either some planets are superheavy or that planets can form from disks of gas and dust that encircle not just a single star but two starlike objects.
Two years ago, when astronomers at the Geneva Observatory in Sauverny, Switzerland, reported their findings on
A team of Danish physicists has taken a crucial step towards an Internet that is faster and more secure than what we know today. The researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have created an atomic memory that, in time, will be able to break the limits for Internet communication. The team’s breakthrough was published in the prominent journal, Nature, on 25 November 2004.
From Internet to Quantum Internet
The Internet is getting faster
MiniGRAIL: first spherical gravitational wave antenna in the world
Since last week, Professor Giorgio Frossati of Leiden University’s Institute of Physics can ‘listen’ to gravitational waves. That is, if such a wave happens to come along. Gravitational waves originate from violent clashes between black holes in the universe and from instabilities in neutron stars.
MiniGRAIL is the name of the first spherical gravitational wave antenna in the world. The ball was made at t
VLT Interferometer Studies the Inner Region of Circumstellar Discs [1]
One of the currently hottest astrophysical topics – the hunt for Earth-like planets around other stars – has just received an important impetus from new spectral observations with the MIDI instrument at the ESO VLT Interferometer (VLTI).
An international team of astronomers [2] has obtained unique infrared spectra of the dust in the innermost regions of the proto-planetary discs around three young
Dr Eddie Moxey of the University of Surrey recently gave a speech at the IEE seminar on the Changing Face of Robotics. His speech concentrated on the use of robotics in space.
The talk reviewed the past, present and future of the two main strands of space robotics research and development On-Orbit Servicing (OOS) and Planetary Exploration.
Since the deployment of the Canadarm, on the Space Shuttle, OOS has steadily developed from a fascinating research topic into a po
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show Crater Hale in the Argyre basin of the southern hemisphere of Mars.
The images show an area close to the northern rim of the Argyre basin, located at latitude 36° South and longitude 324° East. The image was taken with a ground resolution of about 40 metres per pixel during Mars Express orbit 533 in June 2004.
Slight periodic colour and brightness variations in
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has obtained definitive evidence that a distant quasar formed less than a billion years after the big bang contains a fully-grown supermassive black hole generating energy at the rate of 20 trillion suns. The existence of such massive black holes at this early epoch of the Universe challenges theories of the formation of galaxies and supermassive black holes. The Marshall Center manages the Chandra program.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has
An Elizabethtown College professor has developed an embedded sensor that functions in cement much like a thermometer in the Thanksgiving turkey.
“The thermometer indicates if the turkey is done by measuring its internal temperature,” said Nathaniel Hager III, an adjunct faculty member in Elizabethtown’s physics and engineering department. “The embedded sensor does the same thing in concrete by monitoring how quickly water involved in the curing process is chemically combining wit
University of Kent astronomers Professor Glenn White, Dr Stephen Serjeant, Dr Toshi Takagi and collaborators, will be presented with the £10,000 Daiwa Adrian Prize 2004 at a Royal Society ceremony in London on Thursday 25 November.
The team have been awarded the prize in recognition of their pioneering work on the Japan-Anglo-Dutch ASTRO-F satellite, a powerful new space telescope which will make a map of the sky in far-infrared light.
Daiwa Adrian Prizes are trienni
ESA’s Huygens probe, now orbiting Saturn on board the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft, is in good health and successfully passed its sixteenth ‘In-Flight Checkout’ on 23 November 2004.
This in-flight checkout procedure was the last one planned before separation of the Huygens probe from Cassini in December this year. The preliminary analysis of the real-time data received showed all events in the check-out procedure occurred as, and when, expected.
The procedure was carried out
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