Sciprint.org's blog in Astrophysics

Scientists Claim New State of Matter Created

2009-08-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

Scientists claim to have created a form of aluminum that's nearly transparent to extreme ultraviolet radiation and which is a new state of matter.

It's an idea straight out of science fiction, featured in the movie "Star Trek IV."

The work is detailed in the journal Nature Physics.

The normal states of matter are solid, liquid and gas, and a fourth state, called plasma, is a superheated gas considered more exotic. Other experiments have created strange states of matter for brief periods. This one, too, existed only briefly.

"What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before," said professor Justin Wark of Oxford University's Department of Physics.

"Transparent aluminum is just the start," Wark said. "The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of 'miniature stars' created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/scientistsclaimnewstateofmattercreated

In praise of astronomy

2009-08-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

In praise of astronomy, the most revolutionary of sciences

On August 25th 1609 an Italian mathematician called Galileo
Galilei demonstrated his newly constructed telescope to the merchants
of Venice. Shortly afterwards he turned it on the skies. He saw
mountains casting shadows on the moon and realised this body was a
world, like the Earth, endowed with complicated terrain.

He saw the
moons of Jupiter--objects that circled another heavenly body in direct
disobedience of the church's teaching. He saw the moonlike phases of
Venus, indicating that this planet circled the sun, not the Earth, in
even greater disobedience of the priests. He saw sunspots,
demonstrating that the sun itself was not the perfect orb demanded by
the Greek cosmology that had been adopted by the church. But he also
saw something else, a thing that is often now forgotten. He saw that
the Milky Way, that cloudy streak across the sky, is made of stars.

That observation was the first hint that, not only is the Earth not the
centre of things, but those things are vastly, almost incomprehensibly,
bigger than people up until that date had dreamed.

source: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14213985

Furthest object said to pave way for probing early cosmos

2009-05-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

An explosion in space detected April 23 marks the most distant, longest-ago event and object known, astronomers say.

Objects seen further away in space also appear as further back in time, since it takes time for their light to get here.

Although there have been a number of such record-breakers in the past, astronomers say each record paves the way for probing earlier and earlier into the history of the universe, allowing an unprecedented understanding of its evolution.

Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090428_grb

Tiny "invisibility cloak" is like a magic carpet

2009-05-13T16:14:00.001-07:00

Researchers have created a "carpet cloak" that
conceals objects under it from detection using light
near the human-visible part of the spectrum.

Researchers have created a tiny “carpet cloak” that conceals objects under it from detection using light near the human-visible part of the spectrum. While the carpet itself is visible, the bulge of the object underneath it “disappears” from the view of instruments that use this near-infrared light.

Researchers say they’re hopeful that with more precise fabrication their strategy should yield a true “invisibility carpet” that works in the area of the color spectrum utilized by human eyes, and at a larger size.

The carpet works such that shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface.

Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090504_carpet

Complex organic molecules detected in space

2009-05-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

Scientists say they have detected two of the most complex molecules yet discovered in space. Their computer models also indicate still larger molecules may be out there, including the so-far elusive amino acids, essential for life as we know it.

The findings from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, Cornell University in New York, and the University of Cologne, Germany, were presented April 21 at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire, U.K.

The researchers used the IRAM 30-meter telescope in Spain to detect light emissions from molecules in the star-forming region Sagittarius B2, near the center of our galaxy. The molecules were identified in a hot, dense gas cloud known as the Large Molecule Heimat, which contains a luminous young star.

Source http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090421_organic

Physicists see the cosmos in a coffee cup

2009-05-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

A professor and a graduate student say they have found a new "universal principle."

A professor and a graduate student have found a “universal principle” that they say unites the interplay of light and shade on the surface of your coffee, with the way gravity distorts distant galaxies’ light.

They think scientists will be able to use violations of this principle to map unseen clumps of mysterious “dark matter” in the universe.

Light rays naturally reflect off a curve like the inside surface of a coffee cup in a curving, ivy leaf pattern that comes to a point in the center and is brightest along its edge.

Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090416_coffee

Martian mountain may answer big question:

2009-05-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

One Martian volcano is about three times Mount
Everest's height. But it's the small details that
two geologists are looking at.

The Martian volcano Olympus Mons is about three times Mount Everest’s height. But it’s the small details that geologists Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan are looking at in thinking about whether the Red Planet ever had – or still supports – life.

In simulating the mountain’s formation by computer, McGovern and Morgan reached the conclusion that ancient water may still be trapped underneath. Their findings are published in February’s issue of the research journal Geology.

Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090305_olympus

New life on Mars -- by Discovery

2009-05-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

New life on Mars -- by Discovery

Source: http://science.discovery.com/stories/mars/mars.html

Magnetic monopoles in spin ice

2009-04-15T01:26:00.000-07:00

Magnetic monopoles in spin ice
C. Castelnovo1, R. Moessner1,2 & S. L. Sondhi
Nature 451, 42-45 (3 January 2008)

Electrically charged particles, such as the electron, are ubiquitous. In contrast, no elementary particles with a net magnetic charge have ever been observed, despite intensive and prolonged searches (see ref. 1 for example). We pursue an alternative strategy, namely that of realizing them not as elementary but rather as emergent particles—that is, as manifestations of the correlations present in a strongly interacting many-body system. The most prominent examples of emergent quasiparticles are the ones with fractional electric charge e/3 in quantum Hall physics2. Here we propose that magnetic monopoles emerge in a class of exotic magnets known collectively as spin ice3, 4, 5: the dipole moment of the underlying electronic degrees of freedom fractionalises into monopoles. This would account for a mysterious phase transition observed experimentally in spin ice in a magnetic field6, 7, which is a liquid–gas transition of the magnetic monopoles. These monopoles can also be detected by other means, for example, in an experiment modelled after the Stanford magnetic monopole search8.

Spin-ice materials are characterized by the presence of magnetic moments.

Source: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7174/full/nature06433.html

Magnetism: Freedom for the poles

2009-04-15T01:23:00.000-07:00

Magnetism: Freedom for the poles
By Oleg Tchernyshyov
Nature 451, 22-23 (3 January 2008)

Magnetic poles always come in twos, a north and a south. That received wisdom has not stopped physicists from searching for 'monopoles' in accelerators and cosmic rays. Theory now indicates a better place to look.

Despite some tantalizing clues for their existence from the realms of quantum physics, magnetic monopoles — single magnetic poles without a partner — remain elusive after decades of searching. Do they exist at all in the real world? On page 42 of this issue1, Castelnovo, Moessner and Sondhi argue yes: monopoles are alive and well in an exotic class of magnetic material known as spin ice2.

This asymmetry extends to the subatomic level. Elementary particles can carry a positive or negative electric charge, but the magnetic charge is zero without exception. Yet theory offers some hints that single magnetic poles might exist in nature. In the 1930s, Paul Dirac showed that magnetic monopoles could explain the observed quantization of electric charge. Extensions of the standard model of particle physics include particles with magnetic charge.

One environment in which monopoles might pop up is crystalline solids. In a crystal at a low temperature, excitations above the ground state often behave like elementary particles: they carry a quantized amount of energy, momentum, electric charge and spin. In their theoretical study, Castelnovo et al. find the first instance of such an excitation with a non-zero magnetic charge. Under certain conditions, these magnets behave as a gas of independent magnetic poles. There is even a phase transition at which a thin vapour of these monopoles condenses into a dense liquid.

URL:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7174/full/451022b.html

See also: http://scidok.sulb.uni-saarland.de/volltexte/2009/2083/pdf/CPALPhD2009.pdf

NASA researchers find clues to a secret of life

2009-04-01T01:26:00.000-07:00

GREENBELT, Md. - NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites have discovered new clues to a long-standing mystery about how life works on its most basic, molecular level.

"We found more support for the idea that biological molecules, like amino acids, created in space and brought to Earth by meteorite impacts help explain why life is left-handed," said Dr. Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "By that I mean why all known life uses only left-handed versions of amino acids to build proteins." Glavin is lead author of a paper on this research appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences March 16.

Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions. Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acids in a huge variety of arrangements. Amino acid molecules can be built in two ways that are mirror images of each other, like your hands. Although life based on right-handed amino acids would presumably work fine, "you can't mix them," says Dr. Jason Dworkin of NASA Goddard, co-author of the study. "If you do, life turns to something resembling scrambled eggs -- it's a mess. Since life doesn't work with a mixture of left-handed and right-handed amino acids, the mystery is: how did life decide -- what made life choose left-handed amino acids over right-handed ones?"

Over the last four years, the team carefully analyzed samples of meteorites with an abundance of carbon, called carbonaceous chondrites. The researchers looked for the amino acid isovaline and discovered that three types of carbonaceous meteorites had more of the left-handed version than the right-handed variety – as much as a record 18 percent more in the often-studied Murchison meteorite. "Finding more left-handed isovaline in a variety of meteorites supports the theory that amino acids brought to the early Earth by asteroids and comets contributed to the origin of only left-handed based protein life on Earth," said Glavin.

Contact: Bill Steigerwald
william.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov
301-286-5017
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Source:
- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/nsfc-nrf031709.php
- http://www.eurekalert.org/bysubject/space.php

Queen's scientists discover giant solar twists

2009-04-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

Scientists at Queen's University have made a finding that will help us to understand more about the turbulent solar weather and its affect on our planet.

Along with scientists at the University of Sheffield and California State University, the researchers have detected giant twisting waves in the lower atmosphere of the Sun.

The discovery sheds some light on why the Sun's corona, the region around the Sun, has a much higher temperature than its surface - something that has always puzzled scientists.

The recent discovery by the scientists, published today in the respected journal Science, has revealed the existence of a new breed of solar wave, called the Alfvén wave. This solar wave has been shown to transport energy into the Corona or outer layer.

Contact: Lisa Mitchell
lisa.mitchell@qub.ac.uk
44-781-442-2572
Queen's University Belfast

source:
- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/qub-qsd032009.php
- http://www.eurekalert.org/bysubject/space.php

Finding Twin Earths: Harder Than We Thought

2009-04-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

Cambridge, MA - Does a twin Earth exist somewhere in our galaxy? Astronomers are getting closer and closer to finding an Earth-sized planet in an Earth-like orbit. NASA's Kepler spacecraft just launched to find such worlds. Once the search succeeds, the next questions driving research will be: Is that planet habitable? Does it have an Earth-like atmosphere? Answering those questions will not be easy.

In a new study, L. Kaltenegger (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and W. Traub (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) examined the ability of JWST to characterize the atmospheres of hypothetical Earth-like planets during a transit, when part of the light of the star gets filtered through the planet's atmosphere. They found that JWST would be able to detect certain gases called biomarkers, such as ozone and methane, only for the closest Earth-size worlds.

Source:
- http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2009/pr200909.html
- http://www.eurekalert.org/bysubject/space.php

AGU journal highlights -- March 12, 2009

2009-04-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).

In this release:

- Exploring how corals build their skeletons
- Earth cyclones may help explain Venusian vortices
- Model relates South Polar ozone concentrations and wind patterns
- Laboratory crystals give clues to deep Earth puzzle
- Spacecraft characterize perturbations that can affect orbiting satellites

Anyone may read the scientific abstract for these papers by clicking on the link provided at the end of each Highlight. You can also read the abstract by going to http://www.agu.org/pubs/search_options.shtml and inserting into the search engine the full doi (digital object identifier), e.g. 10.1029/ 2008GL036782. The doi is found at the end of each Highlight below.

Journalists and public information officers (PIOs) at educational or scientific institutions, who are registered with AGU, also may download papers cited in this release by clicking on the links below.

Contact: Maria-Jose Vinas
mjvinas@agu.org
202-777-7530
American Geophysical Union

Source:
- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/agu-ajh031209.php
- http://www.eurekalert.org/bysubject/space.php

==========

Laboratory crystals give clues to deep Earth puzzle

Perovskite is the major mineral phase in the lower mantle—it dominates the seismic properties and viscous deformation of the deep Earth. At high pressures and temperatures, perovskite transforms into an altered crystal-packing form called postperovskite. The region where the transformation occurs, known as the D'' layer, is directly above the core-mantle boundary and is distinguished by large seismic velocity jumps. Using forms of a synthetic, solid compound containing calcium, iridium and oxygen as analogs for perovskite and postperovskite, Walte et al. conduct laboratory experiments to simulate the perovskite transitions under high temperatures and pressures. Expanding on past research that demonstrated that crystal lattice orientations in the analog postperovskite alter when deformed, the authors find that the transformation of the analog perovskite to analog postperovskite itself yields a crystal lattice structure different from postperovskite deformation textures. If the analogue between the compound used in the experiments and the perovskite crystal-packing system holds true, such lattice orientation transitions may explain the observed seismic jumps. On a more local level, the fast spikes in certain seismic velocities may be explained by downwelling material that underwent these observed crystal lattice transformations.

Like Earth, if you overlook the lava

2009-02-09T06:19:00.001-08:00

A European satellite has revealed a planet only
twice as large as Earth orbiting a distant star,
astronomers say.

Ref: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090204_exo-7b

Distant moons may have liquid oceans

2009-02-09T06:18:00.001-08:00

Tidal motions may generate enough heat to maintain
liquid oceans within the outer planets' icy moons, a
scientist says.

Ref: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081210_moons

Our galaxy no longer "little sister"

2009-02-09T06:16:00.002-08:00

Fasten your seat belts: our galaxy spins faster,
weighs more, and is more likely to collide than we
thought, researchers claim.

Ref: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090106_milkyway

Materials for "Earths" may be common in unvierse

2009-02-09T06:16:00.001-08:00

New findings suggest rocky planets are a normal
occurrence, astronomers say.

Ref: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090105_planets

Wobbly planets could reveal Earth-like moons

2009-02-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

Moons outside our Solar System capable of supporting
life may have just become easier to find.

Ref:http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081212_moons

Vast underground glaciers reported on Mars

2008-12-09T06:28:00.000-08:00

The findings could present new avenues for the search for life or provide water to support future exploration, scientists claim.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected vast glaciers of water ice under Martian ground, researchers say. The findings could present new avenues for the search for life on Mars, they add, or provide water to support future human exploration.

Scientists analyzed data from the spacecraft’s ground-penetrating radar and report in the Nov. 21 issue of the research journal Science that buried glaciers extend for dozens of miles (kilometers) from the edges of mountains or cliffs.

A layer of rocky debris blanketing the ice may have preserved the underground glaciers as remnants from an ice sheet that covered middle latitudes during a past ice age, scientists said. This finding is similar to massive ice glaciers that have been detected under rocky coverings in Antarctica.

“Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that is not in the polar caps,” said John W. Holt of the University of Texas at Austin, lead author of the report. “Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to half a mile thick.”

Scientists have puzzled over what are known as aprons—gently sloping areas containing rocky deposits at the bases of taller geographical features—since NASA’s Viking orbiters first observed them on the Martian surface in the1970s. One theory has been that the aprons are flows of rocky debris lubricated by a small amount ice.

Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081120_mars

Did a modern-day scourge save ancient Earth?

2008-12-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

A gas blamed for global warming may once have helped Earth escape a deep freeze, some scientists propose.

The researchers claim Earth never froze over completely during the so-called Cryogenian period. This view contradicts the “Snowball Earth” hypothesis, which claims Earth was locked in ice owing to a runaway, planet-cooling chain reaction.

What might have let the planet escape this fate is unclear, but the scientists point to recent research from the University of Toronto. This speculates that advancing ice was stalled by the interaction of the climate system and the carbon cycle of the ocean, with carbon dioxide playing a key role in insulating the planet.

Carbon dioxide is by the same token today blamed for global warming.

The Toronto scientists say that as Earth’s temperatures cooled, oxygen was drawn into the ocean, where it reacted chemically with organic matter, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081130_snowball

Scientists say Copernicus' remains, grave found

2008-12-09T05:55:00.000-08:00

Researchers said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer's books. The findings could put an end to centuries of speculation about the exact resting spot of Copernicus, a priest and astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe.

Polish archaeologist Jerzy Gassowski told a news conference that forensic facial reconstruction of the skull, missing the lower jaw, his team found in 2005 buried in a Catholic Cathedral in Frombork, Poland, bears striking resemblance to existing portraits of Copernicus.

The reconstruction shows a broken nose and other features that resemble a self-portrait of Copernicus, and the skull bears a cut mark above the left eye that corresponds with a scar shown in the painting.

Moreover, the skull belonged to a man aged around 70 — Copernicus's age when he died in 1543.

"In our opinion, our work led us to the discovery of Copernicus's remains but a grain of doubt remained," Gassowski said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081121/ap_on_re_eu/eu_poland_copernicus

New evidence for colored leptons

2008-12-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Vic,

During October I worked out a model of CDF anomaly (new light longlived particle) plus at least three other particles whose masses have been estimated by experimenters.

TGD predicts leptons to have colored excitations and I explained the anomalous production of electron positron pairs in heavy ion collisions observed already at seventies in terms of production of electropions at 1990: the two articles about this were actually my last published papers before the big silence.

CDF anomaly can be understood in terms of production of taupions, both charged and neutral and in free different p-adic mass scales differing powers of 2 and decaying to lighter ones such that decay products are almost at rest in cm system by the kinematics of the situation. The model predicts correctly lifetime of the long lived particle and also masses of the neutral states. Also production cross section comes out correctly using same assumptions as in the original electropion model as well as jet like production of muons.

I summarize the model in article "New evidence for colored leptons".

With Best Regards,

Mat Pitkanen

ps: the article can be found in sciprint.org --> hadron section

Working Theory - Magnetic Dipole Contours

2008-11-27T04:09:00.000-08:00

By M. Snyder

Remember Birefringence? Some crystals have a different speeds of light based on the
direction and polarization of the light ray. Basically you have an ordinary ray moving at one speed and an extraordinary ray moving at another speed of light.

Since the 1800’s Birefringence has been studied. For example, the Faraday Effect was
studied by Michael Faraday in 1845. He was able to rotate polarizations of a light waves using transparent dielectric materials and a strong magnetic field.

So, a molecule can act as an optical component via optical anisotropy, and a group of molecules can vary the refractive index for lights incident normally to the film. The conclusion is that light within a liquid based lens can be directed into circles or even spirographs by the externally aligned optical elements in the liquid.

M. Snyder

To read further on his experiment results, you can file his paper "Magnetic Dipole Contours" in 'hadron' folder of sciprint.org, or visit his video site in this URL:

http://sirzerp.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc

Pioneer Anomaly and Hubble Constant

2008-11-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

Marco wrote:

I presented a solution to the Pioneer Anomaly and sent the paper to the
authors of the Pioneer Anomaly paper.

My calculation led me to a correction to Hubble equation and to the age of
the Universe (real age as opposed to what one can observe).

The perceived slowing down of Pioneer is due to the curvature of the 3D
Hypersphere within the 4D Spatial Manifold where our 3D Universe is
embedded.

It just happens that one has to make adjustments to the Hubble equation to
calculate red-shifting for different epochs of the evolution of the
Universe.

The calculation and paper are presented within my site.

I wrote this blog about the red shift and the required modification to the
Hubble Constant equation.

http://hypergeometricaluniverse.blogspot.com/2008/09/pioneer-anomaly_24.html

The maximum red shift depends upon when the first star started shinning
since it defines the angle of observation. This is a simple geometrical
arguments.

The paper is interesting in the sense that it introduces rotation to the
whole Universe. The same result would be expected if one consider that the
3D Universe is a light speed expanding Hypersphere as I proposed. My
proposition has the advantage of not offending conservation of energy (Tired
Photon Paradigm).

MP

Visit:
http://hypergeometricaluniverse.blogspot.com/2008/09/pioneer-anomaly_24.html