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    Category Astronomy/Space

    In Hunt for Life, Astronomers Identify most Promising Stars

    March 28, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space


    Artists’ concept of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite against a background of stars and orbiting planets in the Milky Way.
    Credit: European Space Agency, European Southern Observatory and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

    NASA’s new Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is designed to ferret out habitable exoplanets, but with hundreds of thousands of sunlike and smaller stars in its camera views, which of those stars could host planets like our own?

    TESS will observe 400,000 stars across the whole sky to catch a glimpse of a planet transiting across the face of its star, one of the primary methods by which exoplanets are identified.

    A team of astronomers from Cornell University, Lehigh University and Vanderbilt University has identified the most promising targe...

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    Icy Giant Planets in the Laboratory

    March 27, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Even under extremely high pressure, such as those in the interior of Neptune or Uranus, there are stable crystal structures of carbon (orange) and hydrogen (gray). This discovery by HZDR researchers reveals new possibilities for the inner structure of the ice giants.
    Credit: HZDR / J. Vorberger

    Researchers use plastics to better understand what happens inside planets. Giant planets like Uranus and Neptune may contain much less free hydrogen than previously assumed. Researchers from the German Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) drove shock waves through two different types of plastic to reach the same temperatures and pressures present inside such planets, and observed the behavior using ultra-strong X-ray laser pulses...

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    Evidence for a Human Geomagnetic Sense

    March 24, 2019, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Research shows the changes in alpha wave amplitude — a measure of whether the brain is being engaged or is in a resting or “autopilot” mode — following rotations of an Earth-strength magnetic field. On the left, counterclockwise rotations induce a widespread drop in alpha wave amplitude. No drop is observed after clockwise rotation or in the FIXED condition.
    Credit: Connie X. Wang / Caltech

    Scientists develop a robust experiment that shows human brain waves respond to changes in Earth-strength magnetic fields. Many humans are able to unconsciously detect changes in Earth-strength magnetic fields, according to scientists at Caltech and the University of Tokyo.

    The study, led by geoscientist Joseph Kirschvink (BS, MS ’75) and neuroscientist Shin Shimojo at Caltech as well as neuroenginee...

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    Jupiter’s Unknown Journey Revealed

    March 23, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Jupiter was formed four times further from the sun than its current position would indicate, according to a new simulation.
    Credit: Illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    The giant planet Jupiter was formed four times further from the sun than its current orbit, and migrated inwards in the solar system over a period of 700,000 years. Researchers found proof of this incredible journey thanks to a group of asteroids close to Jupiter.

    It is known that gas giants around other stars are often located very near their sun. According to accepted theory, these gas planets were formed far away and subsequently migrated to an orbit closer to the star.

    Now researchers from Lund University and other institutions have used advanced computer simulations to learn more about Jupiter’s journey through ou...

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