One of the basic truisms in astronomy is that, when a massive star ends its life, it goes out with a bang. A big one. A supernova. This titanic explosion is triggered when the star runs out of nuclear fuel in its core. The core collapses in a heartbeat, and the energy generated in that…
Category: Physics
Cassini probe shoots through Saturn’s rings
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has successfully executed its daring dive through the 1,500-mile-wide gap between Saturn and its rings, the first time a man-made object has navigated through the icy halo that hugs the gas giant. Controllers operating the Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California confirmed data collected during its passage was being received from…
Science in America – Neil deGrasse Tyson – March For Science – 22nd April
We offer this 4min video on “Science in America”, containing what may be the most important words Neil deGrasse Tyson has ever spoken. Get involved in March For Science 22nd April. We, as citizens of this planet, have the right to preserve what is the truth, to let climate change deniers know that we have…
Quantum communicating with the Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Humanity is facing now the dawn of a new technological era involving quantum mechanics in almost all aspects of social life, from computation to communication. It might be natural to ask if we shouldn’t consider search for quantum messages from extraterrestrial intelligence. China has launched the first quantum communication satellite last year bringing the humanity…
How scientists created a new state of matter
Some of the most profound predictions in theoretical physics, such as Einstein’s gravitational waves or Higgs’ boson, have taken decades to prove with experiments. But every now and then, a prediction can become established fact in an astonishingly short time. This is what happened with “time crystals”, a new and strange state of matter that…
Quantum Computing and Spacetime Curvature
General Relativity and quantum theory, the two pillars of modern physics, although notoriously difficult to reconcile, may beautifully work together, as a new paper suggests. Moreover, the spacetime curvature and twisting create, manipulate and communicate quantum information encoded in light. Arguably, the reconciliation of General Relativity and quantum physics is probably the most difficult endeavor…
High-speed electrons so fast, they break current physics models
In the region of space just outside Earth’s magnetic field, NASA has detected electrons that are being accelerated to almost the speed of light – and no one can explain why. In fact, our current understanding of particle physics says this kind of acceleration should be impossible so far out from the magnetosphere, and now…
Tweak solves five of the biggest problems in physics in one go
It’s not a bad day at work. Five of the biggest fundamental problems in physics seem sorted in one go. The model that can do this, formulated by Guillermo Ballesteros at the University of Paris-Saclay in France and his colleagues, may explain dark matter, neutrino oscillations, baryogenesis, inflation and the strong CP problem.
Physicists Create World’s First Time Crystal
Time crystals were first predicted in 2012. Now researchers have created time crystals for the first time and say they could one day be used as quantum memories. Crystals are extraordinary objects, not least because of their symmetry. Crystals form repeating patterns that are the same in some directions but not all directions. That’s something…
Time Might Only Exist in Your Head
In physics, they are all the same thing. But to you, me, and everyone else, time moves in one direction: from expectation, through experience, and into memory. This linearity is called the arrow of time, and some physicists believe it only progresses that way because humans, and other beings with similar neurological wiring, exist to…
Physicists successfully stop light
“Optical quantum computing is still a long way off, but our successful experiment to stop light gets us further along the road,” said lead researcher. Physicists have brought quantum computers – which could solve problems too complex for today’s most advanced machines – a step closer to reality by successfully stopping light in a new…
The secret lives of long-lived particles
A theoretical species of particle might answer nearly every question about our cosmos—if scientists can find it. The universe is unbalanced. Gravity is tremendously weak. But the weak force, which allows particles to interact and transform, is enormously strong. The mass of the Higgs boson is suspiciously petite. And the catalog of the makeup…
