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    Hubble Spots Flock of Cosmic Ducks

    April 2, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This is a Hubble image of Messier 11.
    Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Dobbie et al.

    This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (the Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a “V” shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight.

    Messier 11 is one of the richest and most compact open clusters currently known. By investigating the brightest, hottest main sequence stars in the cluster, astronomers estimate that it formed roughly 220 million years ago...

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    Engineering for High-Speed Devices

    March 31, 2019, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Physics

    If you use a smartphone, laptop, or tablet, then you benefit from research in photonics, the study of light. The research involved fabricating devices at UD’s Nanofabrication Facility.
    Credit: Kathy F. Atkinson

    New research explores graphene-silicon devices for photonics applications. If you use a smartphone, laptop, or tablet, then you benefit from research in photonics, the study of light. At the University of Delaware, a team led by Tingyi Gu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is developing cutting-edge technology for photonics devices that could enable faster communications between devices and thus, the people who use them.

    The research group recently engineered a silicon-graphene device that can transmit radiofrequency waves in less than a picoseco...

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    Designer Organelles bring new Functionalities into Cells

    March 31, 2019, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    The authors see the newly developed synthetic host as a city. On the one hand, typical cellular processes — seen as encapsulated, isolated, and made up of non-interchangeable elements — are represented as repetitive structures: squared, isolated blocks which are always fenced, just like membranous organelles. On the other hand, the image highlights the making of a new organelle — a new building that is not fenced — which is accessible to the rest of the city while having its own identity, a building which is more dynamic and flexible.
    Credit: Gemma Estrada Girona

    Scientists create membraneless organelle to build proteins in living cell. For the first time, scientists have engineered the complex biological process of translation into a designer organelle in a living mammalian cell...

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    Hubble Watches Spun-up Asteroid Coming Apart

    March 31, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space


    This Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the gradual self-destruction of an asteroid, whose ejected dusty material has formed two long, thin, comet-like tails. The longer tail stretches more than 500,000 miles (800,000 kilometers) and is roughly 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide. The shorter tail is about a quarter as long. The streamers will eventually disperse into space.
    Credits: NASA, ESA, K. Meech and J. Kleyna (University of Hawaii), and O. Hainaut (European Southern Observatory)

    A small asteroid has been caught in the process of spinning so fast it’s throwing off material, according to new data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. Images from Hubble show two narrow, comet-like tails of dusty debris streaming from the asteroid (6478) Gault...

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