Physics and Astronomy

This area deals with the fundamental laws and building blocks of nature and how they interact, the properties and the behavior of matter, and research into space and time and their structures.

innovations-report provides in-depth reports and articles on subjects such as astrophysics, laser technologies, nuclear, quantum, particle and solid-state physics, nanotechnologies, planetary research and findings (Mars, Venus) and developments related to the Hubble Telescope.

Star Tiger to unveil submillimetre wave secrets

The Star Tiger team today begins a four-month pioneering research and development project at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories (RAL), which could lead to a real breakthrough for submillimetre wave imaging.

For the first time under the ESA Star Tiger initiative, eleven scientists and specialists from seven different European countries (The United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Spain) are working together in an innovative way. The idea is to get together a small

Black hole dynamo may be cosmos’ ultimate electricity generator

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory believe that magnetic field lines extending a few million light years from galaxies into space may be the result of incredibly efficient energy-producing dynamos within black holes that are somewhat analogous to an electric motor. Los Alamos researchers Philipp Kronberg, Quentin Dufton, Stirling Colgate and Hui Li today discussed this finding at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Albuquerque, N.M.

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Laser beams help take the twinkle out of starlight

If you have ever peered down a highway on a sunny day, you have probably seen the rising, wavelike ripples of heated air that distort the appearance of objects near the horizon. Similar disturbances in the atmosphere above us make stars twinkle as their light is distorted on the way down to Earth.

Although twinkling stars inspired a well-known nursery rhyme, the effect hampers astronomers’ attempts to study the heavens. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are now build

Mars Express has the sophisticated science to find the water ice on Mars

“The presence of such a large amount of water ice under Mars`s surface is very surprising. Especially so close to the surface!” says Gerhard Schwehm, Head of the Planetary Missions Division at ESA. The team working on ESA`s Mars Express, the next mission to the Red Planet, is thrilled by NASA`s Mars Odyssey detection of hydrogen-rich layers under the Martian surface. This hydrogen indicates the presence of water ice in the top surface of the Martian soil in a large region surrounding the planet`s so

Is life the rule or the exception? The answer may be in the interstellar clouds

Is life a highly improbable event, or is it rather the inevitable consequence of a rich chemical soup available everywhere in the cosmos? Scientists have recently found new evidence that amino acids, the `building-blocks` of life, can form not only in comets and asteroids, but also in the interstellar space. This result is consistent with (although of course does not prove) the theory that the main ingredients for life came from outer space, and therefore that chemical processes leading to life are l

Mars Odyssey’s Measurements Reveal a Wet, Red Planet

Dry valleys, channels, and networks of gullies scar the arid Martian landscape. Along with other evidence, these physical vestiges of conditions on ancient Mars suggest a planet once saturated with liquid water. Where is this water now? Scientists have posited that a portion of it evaporated into the atmosphere, but that the rest lies beneath the surface. Findings announced today offer the strongest support yet to that hypothesis: according to new data, large deposits of water ice may in fact exist u

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