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Physicists Precisely ‘Weigh’ Mass of the Electron

Electrons are the quantum glue of our world. Without electrons there would be no chemistry, and light would be unable to interact with matter. If electrons were only a little heavier or lighter than they are, the world would look radically different. But how can a particle which is so tiny that it has so far been considered point-like actually be weighed?

27 Feb 2014

Stellar Nurseries Grow Within the Snake Nebula

New images from the Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA) telescope provide the most detailed view yet of stellar nurseries within the Snake nebula. These images offer new insights into how cosmic seeds can grow into massive stars.

27 Feb 2014

Physicists Discover New Semiconductor Quasiparticle

JILA physicists used an ultrafast laser and help from German theorists to discover a new semiconductor quasiparticle—a handful of smaller particles that briefly condense into a liquid-like droplet.

27 Feb 2014

Hubble Photographs SN 2014J Supernova Explosion in the M82 Galaxy

This is a Hubble Space Telescope composite image of a supernova explosion designated SN 2014J in the galaxy M82. At a distance of approximately 11.5 million light-years from Earth it is the closest supernova of its type discovered in the past few decades.

27 Feb 2014

Study of ‘Fossil Light’ at the South Pole

In order to study what happened in the seconds immediately following the Big Bang, John Carlstrom went to Antarctica. It just so happens that one of the most inhospitable places on Earth provides some of the best conditions for pointing a telescope to the stars and glimpsing the remnants of "fossil light" emitted when the universe was born almost 14 billion years ago.

26 Feb 2014

Astronomers Identify Smallest Example of Galactic Merger

Galaxies grow by attracting and ingesting smaller galaxies, or by merging with other galaxies of comparable size. Now, a team of astronomers, including Glenn van de Ven from the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy, have identified the smallest example of a remnant of such a galactic merger: the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Andromeda II (AndII), a satellite of the well-known Andromeda galaxy.

26 Feb 2014

Quantum Chemistry Pioneer Honored with Humboldt Research Award

Rodney J. Bartlett, University of Florida graduate research professor in chemistry and physics, has received the Humboldt Research Award recognizing lifetime achievements in research.

26 Feb 2014

Quantum Computer Implementation Remains an Extraordinary Challenge

How do you build a universal quantum computer? Turns out, this question was addressed by theoretical physicists about 15 years ago. The answer was laid out in a research paper and has become known as the DiVincenzo criteria. The prescription is pretty clear at a glance; yet in practice the physical implementation of a full-scale universal quantum computer remains an extraordinary challenge.

26 Feb 2014

Particle Physics at the Crossroads

Professor Mikhail Shifman, recent Pomeranchuk prize winner, says that particle physicists are experiencing a crucial time. And he ought to know. Shifman has written several books on the history of elementary particle physics. "We are at a crossroads, we will go to the left or to the right or nowhere" Shifman says, referring to the fact that supersymmetry, the theory that states that there are superpartners for every known particle, has not yet been discovered at the Large Hadron Collider.

26 Feb 2014

NASA to Host an Opportunities Forum as Part of Asteroid Initiative

As the next step in advancing NASA’s asteroid initiative, the agency will host an Opportunities Forum March 26 at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

25 Feb 2014

Scientists Find the Final Predicted Way of Creating a Top Quark

Scientists on the CDF and DZero experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have announced that they have found the final predicted way of creating a top quark, completing a picture of this particle nearly 20 years in the making.

25 Feb 2014

Stream of Stars Detected in Andromeda II Dwarf Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy is surrounded by a swarm of small satellite galaxies. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have detected a stream of stars in one of the Andromeda Galaxy's outer satellite galaxies, a dwarf galaxy called Andromeda II.

24 Feb 2014

RIKEN and NIMS Successfully Visualize Electron Spin Vortex State with Topological Charge 2

RIKEN, the University of Tokyo, and NIMS succeeded for the first time in generating and visualizing electron spin vortex state "skyrmion molecules" with topological charge 2 within a thin film of "La1+2xSr2-2xMn2O7," a layered manganese oxide which is a ferromagnetic material with uniaxial anisotropy.

24 Feb 2014

Zircon Fragment May Help Confirm How the Earth Became Habitable

With the help of a tiny fragment of zircon extracted from a remote rock outcrop in Australia, the picture of how our planet became habitable to life about 4.4 billion years ago is coming into sharper focus.

24 Feb 2014