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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Chemical Sleuthing unravels possible path to forming life’s Building Blocks in Space

    March 6, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An asteroid belt orbits a star in this artist's rendering. In a new study, experiments at Berkeley Lab explored possible chemical pathways that could form complex hydrocarbons -- like those found in some meteorite samples - in space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    An asteroid belt orbits a star in this artist’s rendering. In a new study, experiments at Berkeley Lab explored possible chemical pathways that could form complex hydrocarbons — like those found in some meteorite samples – in space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Experiments reveal how a hydrocarbon called pyrene could form near stars. Scientists have used lab experiments to retrace the chemical steps leading to the creation of complex hydrocarbons in space, showing pathways to forming 2D carbon-based nanostructures in a mix of heated gases...

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    Massive Astrophysical Objects Governed by Subatomic Equation

    March 6, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Schrödinger in Space: An artist's impression of research presented in Batygin (2018), MNRAS 475, 4. Propagation of waves through an astrophysical disk can be understood using Schrödinger's equation - a cornerstone of quantum mechanics. Credit: James Tuttle Keane, California Institute of Technology

    Schrödinger in Space: An artist’s impression of research presented in Batygin (2018), MNRAS 475, 4. Propagation of waves through an astrophysical disk can be understood using Schrödinger’s equation – a cornerstone of quantum mechanics. Credit: James Tuttle Keane, California Institute of Technology

    A surprising new discovery from a Caltech researcher suggests that the Schrödinger Equation – the fundamental equation of quantum mechanics – is remarkably useful in describing the long-term evolution of certain astronomical structures. Massive astronomical objects are frequently encircled by groups of smaller objects that revolve around them, like the planets around the sun...

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    When do Aging Brown Dwarfs Sweep the Clouds away?

    March 4, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist's conception of a different brown dwarf to the one studied by Jonathan Gagné and his team. The brown dwarf depicted here is also part of a moving group, although a different one than AB Doradus. Credit: NASA/JPL, slightly modified by Jonathan Gagné

    Artist’s conception of a different brown dwarf to the one studied by Jonathan Gagné and his team. The brown dwarf depicted here is also part of a moving group, although a different one than AB Doradus. Credit: NASA/JPL, slightly modified by Jonathan Gagné

    Astronomers measure temperature at which brown dwarfs go from cloudy to cloudless. Brown dwarfs, the larger cousins of giant planets, undergo atmospheric changes from cloudy to cloudless as they age and cool. A team of astronomers measured for the first time the temperature at which this shift happens in young brown dwarfs. Their findings may help them better understand how gas giant planets like our own Solar System’s Jupiter evolved.

    Brown dwarfs are too small to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that fuels stars and allows them to ...

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    Can strongly Lensed Type 1a Supernovae resolve cosmology’s biggest controversy?

    March 4, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image - This composite of two astrophysics simulations shows a Type Ia supernova (purple disc) expanding over different microlensing magnification patterns (colored fields). Because individual stars in the lensing galaxy can significantly change the brightness of a lensed event regions of the supernova can experience varying amounts of brightening and dimming, which scientists believed would be a problem for cosmologists measuring time delays. Using detailed computer simulations at NERSC, astrophysicists showed that this would have a small effect on time-delay cosmology. (Credit: Danny Goldstein/UC Berkeley)

    This composite of two astrophysics simulations shows a Type Ia supernova (purple disc) expanding over different microlensing magnification patterns (colored fields). Because individual stars in the lensing galaxy can significantly change the brightness of a lensed event, regions of the supernova can experience varying amounts of brightening and dimming, which scientists believed would be a problem for cosmologists measuring time delays. Using detailed computer simulations at NERSC, astrophysicists showed that this would have a small effect on time-delay cosmology. (Credit: Danny Goldstein/UC Berkeley)

    Researchers think so – and they’re using NERSC supercomputers to find them...

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