Scientist have spotted a strange type of quantum movement occurring in electrons travelling between the atomic layers of a material. Instead of travelling from the top to the bottom layer through the middle, the electrons were caught disappearing from the top layer and reappearing in the bottom layer a fraction of a second later – with…
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…
Some Of The Most Bizarre Books Ever Written
If literary history teaches us one thing, it’s that people were just as confused and immature in the Middle Ages as they are now. From unsolvable codes to 13th-century penis doodles in the margins of bibles, history is like an all-encompassing high school cliche that never comes to an end. These books span the course…
The Beauty of Lenticular Clouds
Lenticular clouds are stationary lens-shaped clouds that form in the troposphere, normally in perpendicular alignment to the wind direction. Lenticular clouds can be separated into altocumulus standing lenticularis (ACSL), stratocumulus standing lenticular (SCSL), and cirrocumulus standing lenticular (CCSL). Because of their shape, they have been offered as an explanation for some unidentified flying object…
Black Hole Swallowing a Star Mistaken for Brightest Supernova
The universe’s brightest supernova ever may be something far more rare. An extraordinary display of light in a distant galaxy that had been previously dubbed brightest supernova ever turned out to be a giant black hole tearing apart a massive star. The luminous event, named ASASSN-15lh, took place in 2015, inside a galaxy 4 billion…
3 Earth-like exoplanets discovered
Talk about lucky number seven. Astronomers have discovered not one, not two, but seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star called TRAPPIST-1. What’s more, three of them are in the habitable zone— the happy place where liquid water can exist on the surface of rocky planets, as it’s not too hot or cold. (Although liquid water…
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…
3,400-Year-Old Graveyard Unearthed in Egypt
Part of a graveyard dating back around 3,400 years has been unearthed in southern Egypt at the site of Gebel el Silsila, Egypt’s antiquities ministry has announced.
A tour of our solar system
Our solar system is a fascinating place. For decades, ambitious engineers and scientists around the world have been sending brave humans and robotic emissaries deep into our solar system to see what they could find. They’ve learned a lot, with 2016 marking major milestones in space exploration. The Cassini spacecraft has revealed previously unknown truths…
Tornado Cluster Sizes Skyrocket
Tornados are behaving strangely: The number of tornado outbreaks per year is fairly constant, but the number of tornados per outbreak has skyrocketed. And scientists aren’t entirely sure why. In an effort to learn more, researchers looked at meteorological factors related to tornado outbreaks, and then dug into the data to see whether these factors…
Moose battle frozen in ice
The sight of two powerful bull moose locking horns in combat is something that metaphorically can become frozen in time for those lucky enough to experience such an event, but for a pair of Alaskan hikers, they were lucky enough to see such a battle literally frozen in time. As National Geographic explained on Friday,…
10 Times More Galaxies Than Previously Thought
The universe suddenly looks a lot more crowded, thanks to a deep-sky census assembled from surveys taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. Astronomers came to the surprising conclusion that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than previously thought. The results have clear implications for galaxy formation,…
