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Super-Earths Discovered in Gliese 667C Star’s Habitable Zone

A team of astronomers has combined new observations of Gliese 667C with existing data from HARPS at ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope in Chile, to reveal a system with at least six planets. A record-breaking three of these planets are super-Earths lying in the zone around the star where liquid water could exist, making them possible candidates for the presence of life. This is the first system found with a fully packed habitable zone.

26 Jun 2013

IBM's World Community Grid Enables Extensive Investigation of Quantum Chemicals

The search for more versatile and less expensive materials for solar energy received a boost today as Harvard launched a free database that catalogues the suitability of 2.3 million organic, carbon compounds for converting sunlight into electricity.

25 Jun 2013

Quantum Character of Light Transport Observed in Photosynthesis

Photosynthetic organisms, such as plants and some bacteria can whisk away 95 percent of the sunlight they absorb in less than a couple of trillionths of a second to drive the metabolic reactions that provide them with energy.

24 Jun 2013

Physicists Build Tabletop Particle Accelerator

Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin have built a tabletop particle accelerator that can generate energies and speeds previously reached only by major facilities that are hundreds of meters long and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

21 Jun 2013

Hubble Produces Vivid Image of Interacting Galaxies

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this vivid image of a pair of interacting galaxies known as Arp 142. When two galaxies stray too close to each other they begin to interact, causing spectacular changes in both objects. In some cases the two can merge — but in others, they are ripped apart.

21 Jun 2013

TRIUMF Lab Director to Lead Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada’s TRIUMF laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia, has been selected to become the next director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

21 Jun 2013

Cosmic Dust Being Pushed Away from Black Hole as a Cool Wind

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer has gathered the most detailed observations ever of the dust around the huge black hole at the centre of an active galaxy.

21 Jun 2013

ISOLTRAP Experiment Results Establish New Magic Number for Exotic Calcium Isotopes

The ISOLTRAP collaboration has measured the mass of exotic calcium nuclei using a new instrument installed at the ISOLDE facility at CERN. The measurements, published on 20 June in the journal Nature, clearly establish a new “magic number” related to the stability of this exotic species. The results cast light on how nuclei can be described in terms of the fundamental strong force.

20 Jun 2013

Berkeley Lab-Led Nearby Supernova Factory Creates Benchmark Atlas for Normal Type Ia’s

August, 2011, saw the dazzling appearance of the closest and brightest Type Ia supernova since Type Ia’s were established as “standard candles” for measuring the expansion of the universe. The brilliant visitor, labeled SN 2011fe, was caught by the Palomar Transient Factory less than 12 hours after it exploded in the Pinwheel Galaxy in the Big Dipper.

20 Jun 2013

Brookhaven Lab Physicist Receives Coveted Award for Work on Chiral Magnetic Effect

Dmitri "Dima" Kharzeev, a Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, with a joint appointment as a Senior Scientist in the Physics Department at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), has been awarded the Humboldt Research Award, a prestigious international award issued by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany, for scientific excellence in his respective field.

20 Jun 2013