Physics and Astronomy

New Young Sub-stellar Companion Imaged with the VLT

Since the discovery in 1995 of the first planet orbiting a normal star other than the Sun, there are now more than 150 candidates of these so-called exoplanets known. Most of them are detected by indirect methods, based either on variations of the radial velocity or the dimming of the star as the planet passes in front of it (see ESO PR 06/03, ESO PR 11/04 and ESO PR 22/04).

Astronomers would, however, prefer to obtain a

European space scientists have strongly recommended a mission equipped with a rover as the next scientific mission to Mars as part of the European Space Agency’s [ESA] Aurora programme of planetary exploration. The mission would conduct a detailed analysis of the Martian environment and search for traces of past or present life. A launch in June 2011, followed by a two year journey, would arrive on the Red Planet in June 2013. A detailed proposal will be prepared for consideration by ESA member

Distant galaxies undergoing intense bursts of star formation have been shown by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to be fertile growing grounds for the largest black holes in the Universe. Collisions between galaxies in the early Universe may be the ultimate cause for both the accelerated star formation and black hole growth.

By combining the deepest X-ray image ever obtained with submillimeter and optical observations, an international team of scientists has found evidence that

It’s nature’s fastest quick-change artist: In less than the time it takes a beam of light to travel a tenth of a millimeter, vanadium dioxide can switch from a transparent to a reflective, mirror-like state.

How this material (VO2) can turn from a transparent insulator into a reflective metal so rapidly has physicists scratching their heads, but a collaboration among researchers at Vanderbilt, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have clocked the

Ares Research Technology, a new start-up company which will design and assemble scientific equipment that works at ultra-high vacuum, was launched today at CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory. The company will supply advanced instruments for use on X-ray sources in laboratories and at synchrotron light sources around the world.

Company founder Dr Dave Teehan said, “There’s a rapidly expanding global market for vacuum instruments, which already play a key role in research into the developm

For the last five years, a team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge and the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia, has been building a special instrument to search for the most distant galaxies in the Universe.

Known as DAZLE (Dark Age Redshift Lyman Explorer), the 21st century “time machine” will be able to look back 12,800 million years to the end of the Dark Ages, when the very first stars were appearing from the gloom that dominated the Universe shortly aft