Category Astronomy/Space

Universe’s coldest fermions open portal to high-symmetry quantum realm. Japanese and U.S. physicists have used atoms about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space to open a portal to an unexplored realm of quantum magnetism.

“Unless an alien civilization is doing experiments like these right now, anytime this experiment is running at Kyoto University it is making the coldest fermions in the universe,” said Rice University’s Kaden Hazzard, corresponding theory author of a studypublished today in Nature Physics. “Fermions are not rare particles. They include things like electrons and are one of two types of particles that all matter is made of.”

A Kyoto team led by study author Yoshiro Takahashi used lasers to cool its fermions, atoms of ytterbium, within about one-billiont...

Astronomers using the VLBA have produced a full, 3-D view of a binary star system with a planet orbiting one of the stars. Their achievement promises important new insights into the process of planet formation.

By precisely tracing a small, almost imperceptible, wobble in a nearby star’s motion through space, astronomers have discovered a Jupiter-like planet orbiting that star, which is one of a binary pair. Their work, using the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), produced the first-ever determination of the complete, 3-dimensional structure of the orbits of a binary pair of stars and a planet orbiting one of them...

Technische Universität Ilmenau (Germany) is using artificial intelligence to improve the detection and classification of unidentified phenomena in the night sky. The research team of the group for data-intensive systems and visualization collaborated with the American Meteor Society, which initiated the AllSky7, an international network of scientists and amateur astronomers that permanently observes the night sky with specially designed cameras and classifies and assigns all events...

A new study could lead to ongoing health monitoring of astronauts to assess possible health risks and prevent disease progression. Astronauts are at higher risk for developing mutations – possibly linked to spaceflight – that can increase the risk of developing cancer and heart disease during their lifetimes, according to a first-of-its kind study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

A team of researchers collected blood samples from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts who flew space shuttle missions between 1998 and 2001. They discovered DNA mutations, known as somatic mutations, in the blood-forming system (hematopoietic stem cells) in all 14 astronauts studied...