Beyond awesome for so many reasons… Frothy Magnetic-Bubble Sea Found at Solar System’s Edge: “The edge of the solar system may be a frothy sea of giant magnetic “bubbles,” a new NASA study says. The new findings may mean that our system’s magnetic barrier—once thought to be a smooth shield—may be letting in more harmful [...]
Squirrelium and Griffinium?
It’s official… Observations: Two New Superheavy Chemical Elements Formally Recognized: “The elements with atomic numbers of 114 and 116 have been recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), which credited a Russia–U.S. collaboration with their discovery.” Now, what to name them?? Hmm… squirrelium and griffinium sound good to me.
X-Wing from Supplies
Well I know what I’m doing this weekend… Here are the instructions: X-Wing Fighter from Office Supplies Fantastic.
So Can We Ever Travel at the Speed of Light?
Go read (covered this so many times in class but this post does a great job to sum things up with where we stand)… Striving for the Speed of Light : Starts With A Bang: “It’s always easy to point out the difficulties with a dream. The stars, after all, are so incredibly far away, [...]
Seeing Quantum Mechanics
Wow… Aaron O’Connell: Making sense of a visible quantum object | Video on TED.com: “Physicists are used to the idea that subatomic particles behave according to the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics, completely different to human-scale objects. In a breakthrough experiment, Aaron O’Connell has blurred that distinction by creating an object that is visible to [...]
Photos of a Neutrino Detector
Neutrinos are uncharged particles and are so light that, for decades, most physicists assumed they were actually massless. As if that weren't enough, they only interact with other matter via the weak force, which is only significant at short distances. Thus, for the most part, they generally pass through matter without incident—trillions go through your body every minute, but most of us will only have them hit anything a total of about three times in our entire lives.John Timmer, Ars Technica
So very cool… go look at the pics.
43,000 Galaxies on One Map
CfA Press Room: “Cambridge, MA – Today, astronomers unveiled the most complete 3-D map of the local universe (out to a distance of 380 million light-years) ever created. Taking more than 10 years to complete, the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) also is notable for extending closer to the Galactic plane than previous surveys – a [...]
Supernovae Sounds
Supernova Sonata from Alex Parker on Vimeo. Observations: The Real Explosions in the Sky: Supernovae Translated into Music [Video]: “What does a supernova sound like? Hopefully we will never find out directly—getting within earshot of an exploding star is probably a bad idea. “ Incredible! Head over to the link above and see how they [...]
What Shape is an Electron??
From New Scientist… WHAT shape is an electron? The standard model of particle physics predicts that electrons are egg-shaped, but that the amount of distortion from a perfect sphere is so tiny that no existing experiment could possibly detect it. However, a rival theory called supersymmetry predicts that this egg-shaped distortion should be large enough [...]
Bye Bye Comet!
Wow! Bye Bye Comet! [HD Video] | Flickr – Photo Sharing!: “SOHO watched as a fairly bright comet dove towards the Sun in a white streak and was not seen again after its close encounter (May 10-11, 2011). The comet, probably part of the Kreutz family of comets, was discovered by amateur astronomer Sergey Shurpakov. [...]
Social Media