Category Astronomy/Space

High-powered lasers melt mineral for planet formation experiments. Researchers observed the melting of forsterite, the most common constituent of Earth’s mantle, to understand how the cores of planets form and develop. The laser is able to create pressures representative of the extreme collisions between objects in space. The target is a 4 millimeter square. Al is aluminum and Qz is quartz. Image by Toshimori Sekine, Hiroshima University. Image may only be re-used with attribution. Credit: Image courtesy of Hiroshima University

New experiments provide insight into how Earth-type planets form when giant asteroids or planetesimals collide and how the interiors of such planets develop...

The Medium Scale High Voltage Test apparatus in TA-53 Building 10 allowed scientists to test electric fields in liquid helium, a crucial part of upcoming experiments into the nature of matter and antimatter. Credit: Image courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory

Why is so much more matter than antimatter present in the universe? A clue to this mystery may be provided by a sensitive search for a separation of positive and negative charges inside the neutron, which is referred to as the neutron’s “electric dipole moment” (EDM). The detection of a nonzero EDM in a particle such as the neutron would imply an asymmetry between matter and antimatter, which may explain the imbalance in the amounts of matter and antimatter now observed in the universe.

Scientists have been searching for evidence...

This image shows trajectory of (a) position and (b) orientation of pliers under repetitive laser irradiation without tracking. Grey lines indicate the projections of the trajectory in the respective coordinate planes. Credit: © the authors doi: 10.1117/1.OE.56.1.011007

Space debris from completed missions – inactive satellites, lens covers, fragments from spaceship disengagements – pose a serious and ongoing threat to active communication and navigation satellites used by billions of people on Earth. An article published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, in Optical Engineering describes a new approach whereby debris orbiting in space could be pushed into Earth’s atmosphere by laser impulses, causing it to burn up.

High definition model of a set of pliers taken...

An artist’s rendering depicts Io’s volcanic plumes creating the atmosphere in sunlight. Credit: Image courtesy of Southwest Research Institute

Research reveals freezing effects of Jupiter’s shadow on moon’s volcanic gases. A study led by SwRI’s Constantine Tsang concluded that Io’s thin atmosphere, which consists primarily of sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas emitted from volcanoes, collapses as the SO2 freezes onto the surface as ice when Io is shaded by Jupiter. When the moon moves out of eclipse and ice warms, the atmosphere reforms through sublimation, where ice converts directly to gas. “This research is the first time scientists have observed this phenomenon directly, improving our understanding of this geologically active moon,” said Tsang, SwRI’s Space Science and Engineering Division.

The ...