Category Astronomy/Space

Shockwaves caused by asteroids colliding with Earth create materials with a range of complex carbon structures, which could be used for advancing future engineering applications, according to an international study led by UCL and Hungarian scientists.

Published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team of researchers has found that diamonds formed during a high-energy shockwave from an asteroid collision around 50,000 years ago have unique and exceptional properties, caused by the short-term high temperatures and extreme pressure.

The researchers say that these structures can be targeted for advanced mechanical and electronic applications, giving us the ability to design materials that are not only ultrahard but also malleable with tunable electronic pro...

It’s been nearly a century since astronomer Fritz Zwicky first calculated the mass of the Coma Cluster, a dense collection of almost 1,000 galaxies located in the nearby universe. But estimating the mass of something so huge and dense, not to mention 320 million light-years away, has its share of problems—then and now. Zwicky’s initial measurements, and the many made since, are plagued by sources of error that bias the mass higher or lower.

Now, using tools from machine learning, a team led by Carnegie Mellon University physicists has developed a deeplearning method that accurately estimates the mass of the Coma Cluster and effectively mitigates the sources of error.

“People have made mass estimates of the Coma Cluster for many, many years...

A team of researchers with affiliations to multiple institutions in the U.S. has found that the metal content of Fermi bubble high-velocity clouds does not match with material in the Milky Way’s galactic center, suggesting that at least some of the material comes from somewhere else. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the group describes their analysis of the makeup of the clouds and their conclusions.

Prior research has shown that massive lobes of plasma extend above and below the center of the galactic plane that forms the Milky Way galaxy. Prior research has also suggested that the lobes are globular gas formations which has led to their nickname—Fermi bubbles...

Astronomers at the University of Arizona have developed a theory to explain the presence of the largest molecules known to exist in interstellar gas.

The team simulated the environment of dying stars and observed the formation of buckyballs (carbon atoms linked to three other carbon atoms by covalent bonds) and carbon nanotubes (rolled up sheets of single-layer carbon atoms). The findings indicate that buckyballs and carbon nanotubes can form when silicon carbide dust—known to be proximate to dying stars—releases carbon in reaction to intense heat, shockwaves and high energy particles.

“We know from infrared observations that buckyballs populate the interstellar medium,” said Jacob Bernal, who led the research...