Tag Archives: Space

Long Predicted Atomic Collapse State Observed in Graphene

By Guest PostMarch 19, 2013Sciencealex zettl, andrey shytov, artificial atomic nuclei, atomic collapse behavior, atomic collapse state, berkeley lab, calcium dimers, dillon wong, electrical conductor, electronic devices, electronic resonance, electrons, energy, graphene, holy grail, michael crommie, nuclear physics, nucleus, predictions, quantum mechanical phenomenon, relativistic quantum mechanics, roland kawakami, scanning tunneling microscope, smoking gun, Space, stable circular orbits, stm, stm spectroscopy, ultra high vacuum, ultrafast transistors, william regan, yang wang

Berkeley Lab researchers recreate elusive phenomenon with artificial nuclei

The first experimental observation of a quantum mechanical phenomenon that was predicted nearly 70 years ago holds important implications for the future of graphene-based electronic devices. Working with microscopic artificial atomic nuclei fabricated on graphene, a collaboration of researchers led by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have imaged the “atomic collapse” states theorized to occur around super-large atomic nuclei.

“Atomic collapse is one of the holy grails of graphene research, as well as a holy grail of atomic and nuclear physics,” says Michael Crommie, a physicist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley’s Physics Department. “While this work represents a very nice confirmation of basic relativistic quantum mechanics predictions made many decades ago, it is also highly relevant for future nanoscale devices where electrical charge is concentrated into very small areas.” (more…)

Volcanic Aerosols, not Pollutants, Tamped down Recent Earth Warming, Says CU Study

By Guest PostMarch 3, 2013Environmentasia, atmosphere, boulder, brian toon, change, chemical reactions, China, climate, climate change trends, climate variability, coal burning activities, coal burning pollution, community climate model, cooling the planet, david hoffman, earth, emissions, global volcanic eruptions, greenhouse effect, India, industrial sulfur dioxide, jean paul vernier, jeffrey thayer, noaa, reflect, role of volcanoes, ryan neely, Space, stratospheric aerosol layer, sulfur dioxide, sulfuric acid, sunlight, susan solomon, university of colorado, version 3, volcanoe, waccm, warming on earth, water particles

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight — dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide.

The study results essentially exonerate Asia, including India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by about 60 percent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely, who led the research as part of his CU-Boulder doctoral thesis. Small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet. (more…)

Testing Einstein’s E=mc2 in Outer Space

By Guest PostJanuary 5, 2013Sciencealbert einstein, andrei lebed, atomic bomb, conceptual model, cornell university library, curvature, electron, energy, energy level, everything, explosion, galileo galilei, general relativity, gps navigation, gravitational field, gravitational mass, gravity, hydrogen atom, iconic equation, mass, motion, moving object, nucleus, object, paradigm in physics, principles in physics, proton, quantum mechanics, quantum objects, relativistic, Space, special relativity, speed of light, stockholm, theory, theory of gravitation, ua physicist, unifying theory, university of arizona

UA physicist Andrei Lebed has stirred the physics community with an intriguing idea yet to be tested experimentally: The world’s most iconic equation, Albert Einstein’s E=mc2, may be correct or not depending on where you are in space.

With the first explosions of atomic bombs, the world became witness to one of the most important and consequential principles in physics: Energy and mass, fundamentally speaking, are the same thing and can, in fact, be converted into each other.

This was first demonstrated by Albert Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity and famously expressed in his iconic equation, E=mc2, where E stands for energy, m for mass and c for the speed of light (squared). (more…)

Shot Away from its Companion, Giant Star Makes Waves

By Guest PostDecember 23, 2012Sciencebow shock, caltech, giant star, infrared light, infrared portrait, jet propulsion laboratory, NASA, pasadena, sonic boom, Space, spitzer space telescope, survey explorer, visible colors, wise, zeta ophiuchi

Like a ship plowing through still waters, the giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is speeding through space, making waves in the dust ahead. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a dramatic, infrared portrait of these glowing waves, also known as a bow shock.

Astronomers theorize that this star was once sitting pretty next to a companion star even heftier than itself. But when that star exploded, Zeta Ophiuchi was kicked away and sent flying. Zeta Ophiuchi, which is 20 times more massive and 80,000 times brighter than our sun, is racing along at about 54,000 mph (24 kilometers per second). (more…)

Monitoring Hurricanes: Georgia Tech Engineers Assist NASA with Instrument for Remotely Measuring Storm Intensity

By Guest PostDecember 14, 2012Environment, Scienceairborne system, analog beam former, aperture, array antenna, data, electromagnetic energy, electromagnetic radiation, fan beams, flight center, georgia, gigahertz range, glenn hopkins, global hawk, gtri, high winds, hirad, hurricane imaging radiometer, in the system, innovation research, jim maloney, knowledge, marshall, massachusetts, michigan, microwave, microwave radiation, minimizing noise, NASA, next generation system, noaa, numerical modeling, ocean waves, orbit, pacific frontal system, polarized array, project, prosensing, radiometer, rain rate, research institute, satellite, sbir, sea foam, sensitivity, small business, Space, spatial resolution, storm, surface wind speeds, synthetic, tech, timothy miller, university, wind direction

A device designed by engineers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is part of the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD), an experimental airborne system developed by the Earth Science Office at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

Known as an analog beam-former, the GTRI device is part of the radiometer, which is being tested by NASA on a Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. The radiometer measures microwave radiation emitted by the sea foam that is produced when high winds blow across ocean waves. By measuring the electromagnetic radiation, scientists can remotely assess surface wind speeds at multiple locations within the hurricanes. (more…)

Mammalian Brain Knows Where It’s at

By Guest PostDecember 8, 2012Sciencebehavior, brain, brain injury, brown university, conventional wisdom, depression, disease, egocentric movement, electrical activity, fish sculpture, frequency, hippocampus, humans, journal, location, memory, neuron, neuropsychiatric diseases, neuroscientist, object, omar ahmed, parahippocampal cortex, pattern, phc, por, postrhinal cortex, primate neuroanatomy, rebecca burwell, region, rhythm, schizophrenia, sharon furtak, Space, spiking, theta, treat

A new study in the journal Neuron suggests that the brain uses a different region than neuroscientists had thought to associate objects and locations in the space around an individual. Knowing where this fundamental process occurs could help treat disease and brain injury as well as inform basic understanding of how the brain supports memory and guides behavior.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Where are you?

Conventional wisdom in brain research says that you just used your hippocampus to answer that question, but that might not be the whole story. The context of place depends on not just how you got there, but also the things you see around you. A new study in Neuron provides evidence that a different part of the brain is important for understanding where you are based on the spatial layout of the objects in that place. The finding, in rats, has a direct analogy to primate neuroanatomy. (more…)

BOSS Quasars Unveil a New Era in the Expansion History of the Universe

By Guest PostNovember 21, 2012Scienceacceleration, analytic techniques, ancient universe, andreu font ribera, apache point observatory, bao, baryon, baryon acoustic oscillations, berkeley lab, bigboss, bill carithers, BOSS, clouds, cosmology, dark energy, dark matter, data sets, david schlegel, deceleration, density variation, digital sky survey, early universe, evolution, expanse of sky, expansion, gas clouds, gas density, gravity, hydrogen absorption lines, intergalactic gas, lyman alpha forest, mocks, new mexico, nicholas ross, oscillation, patrick mcdonald, quasars, riemann linux cluster, sdss, sloan, Space, spectra, spectroscopic, survey, universe, volume

Berkeley Lab scientists and their Sloan Digital Sky Survey colleagues use quasars to probe dark energy over 10 billion years in the past

BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, is mapping a huge volume of space to measure the role of dark energy in the evolution of the universe. BOSS is the largest program of the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) and has just announced the first major result of a new mapping technique, based on the spectra of over 48,000 quasars with redshifts up to 3.5, meaning that light left these active galaxies up to 11.5 billion years in the past.

“No technique for dark energy research has been able to probe this ancient era before, a time when matter was still dense enough for gravity to slow the expansion of the universe, and the influence of dark energy hadn’t yet been felt,” says BOSS principal investigator David Schlegel, an astrophysicist in the Physics Division of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). “In our own time, expansion is accelerating because the universe is dominated by dark energy. How dark energy effected the transition from deceleration to acceleration is one of the most challenging questions in cosmology.” (more…)

Exhaustive Family Tree for Birds Shows Recent, Rapid Diversification

By Guest PostNovember 9, 2012Natureanalysis, arne mooers, avian diversity, basic hypotheses, behavioral innovation, biodiversity expert, bird species, birds, bumblebees, canada, diversification rate, dna data, earth, eurasia, evolution, evolutionary history, extinction, family tree, fossil, g h thomas, geographic context, geographic space, geographical information, global phylogenies, global picture, habitats, islands, j b joy, k hartmann, life, mainlands, north american, simon fraser university, south america, Space, tasmania, time, tropical species, tunafish, walter jetz, western hemisphere, yale, zeitgeist

A Yale-led scientific team has produced the most comprehensive family tree for birds to date, connecting all living bird species — nearly 10,000 in total — and revealing surprising new details about their evolutionary history and its geographic context.

Analysis of the family tree shows when and where birds diversified — and that birds’ diversification rate has increased over the last 50 million years, challenging the conventional wisdom of biodiversity experts.

“It’s the first time that we have — for such a large group of species and with such a high degree of confidence — the full global picture of diversification in time and space,” said biologist Walter Jetz of Yale, lead author of the team’s research paper, published Oct. 31 online in the journal Nature. (more…)