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    Category Astronomy/Space

    ALMA spots Baby Star’s growing blanket

    March 3, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist's impression of the baby star TMC-1A. The star is located in the center and surrounded by a rotating gas disk. Gas is infalling to the disk from the envelope further out. Credit: Image courtesy of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

    Artist’s impression of the baby star TMC-1A. The star is located in the center and surrounded by a rotating gas disk. Gas is infalling to the disk from the envelope further out. Credit: Image courtesy of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

    The first direct observations delineating the gas disk around a baby star from the infalling gas envelope has been made. This finding fills an important missing piece in our understanding of the early phases of stellar evolution. The baby star TMC-1A is 450 light years away in the constellation Taurus. TMC-1A is a protostar, a star still in the process of forming. Large amounts of gas still surround TMC-1A.

    Stars form in dense gas clouds. Baby stars grow by taking in the surrounding gas. In this process, gas cannot flow directly into the star...

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    The Origins of the Universe

    March 2, 2016, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    The nuclear phase diagram: RHIC sits in the energy "sweet spot" for exploring the transition between ordinary matter made of hadrons and the early universe matter known as quark-gluon plasma. Credit: Image courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

    The nuclear phase diagram: RHIC sits in the energy “sweet spot” for exploring the transition between ordinary matter made of hadrons and the early universe matter known as quark-gluon plasma. Credit: Image courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

    An in-depth look at the origins of matter and the environmental conditions that helped shape the universe today. Our understanding is shaped by re-creating events that constituted the Big Bang and by studying the primordial soup of fundamental particles of the very early universe. One of the best science tools for this is the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

    RHIC, a particle collider, is the first machine capable of mashing together heavy ions, which are atoms that h...

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    Birth of Rare Massive Stars Deep within Crimson Gas Clouds

    March 2, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In this huge image of part of the southern constellation of Norma (The Carpenter's Square) wisps of crimson gas are illuminated by rare, massive stars that have only recently ignited and are still buried deep in thick dust clouds. These scorching-hot, very young stars are only fleeting characters on the cosmic stage and their origins remain mysterious. The vast nebula where these giants were born, known as RCW 106, is captured here in fine detail by ESO's VLT Survey Telescope (VST), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The brightest part appears just above the center of the image. Many other interesting objects are also captured in this wide-field image. For example the filaments to the right of the image are the remnants of an ancient supernova (SNR G332.4-00.4, also known as RCW 103), and the glowing red filaments at the lower left surround an unusual and very hot star (RCW 104, surrounding the Wolf-Rayet star WR 75). Patches of dark obscuring dust are also visible across the entire cosmic landscape. Credit: ESO

    In this huge image of part of the southern constellation of Norma (The Carpenter’s Square) wisps of crimson gas are illuminated by rare, massive stars that have only recently ignited and are still buried deep in thick dust clouds. These scorching-hot, very young stars are only fleeting characters on the cosmic stage and their origins remain mysterious. The vast nebula where these giants were born, known as RCW 106, is captured here in fine detail by ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The brightest part appears just above the center of the image. Many other interesting objects are also captured in this wide-field image. For example the filaments to the right of the image are the remnants of an ancient supernova (SNR G332.4-00...

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    New method may find Elusive Flaws in Medical Implants and Spacecraft

    March 1, 2016, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    NIST researchers demonstrated an approach for detecting hidden flaws in ceramic capacitors, which store energy in the electronics for medical implants and spacecraft. NIST studied 3-millimeter-long capacitors (top photo), looking for cracks similar to the one shown in the NASA photo (bottom). Credit: NIST/NASA

    NIST researchers demonstrated an approach for detecting hidden flaws in ceramic capacitors, which store energy in the electronics for medical implants and spacecraft. NIST studied 3-millimeter-long capacitors (top photo), looking for cracks similar to the one shown in the NASA photo (bottom). Credit: NIST/NASA

    Medical implants and spacecraft can suddenly go dead, often for the same reason: cracks in ceramic capacitors, devices that store electric charge in electronic circuits. These cracks, at first harmless and often hidden, can start conducting electricity, depleting batteries or shorting out the electronics...

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