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    Moon or Mars? NASA’s future at a crossroads under Trump

    February 24, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A file photo taken 27 August 2003 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows Mars snapped within minutes of the planet's closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years
    A file photo taken 27 August 2003 by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows Mars snapped within minutes of the planet’s closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years.

    Is NASA still Moonbound, or will the next giant leap mean skipping straight to Mars?

    Speculation is mounting that the Trump administration may scale back or cancel NASA’s Artemis missions following the departure of a key official and Boeing’s plans to lay off hundreds of employees working on its lunar rocket.

    Late Wednesday, NASA abruptly announced the retirement of longtime associate administrator Jim Free, effective Saturday.

    No reason was given for Free’s departure after his 30-year rise to NASA’s top civil-service position...

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    Topological quantum processor uses Majorana zero modes for fault-tolerant computing

    February 22, 2025, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Photo Credit
    Used with permission from Microsoft
    Majorana 1, the eight-qubit topological quantum processor unveiled at Microsoft Station Q’s 2025 conference

    In a leap forward for quantum computing, a Microsoft team led by UC Santa Barbara physicists on Wednesday unveiled an eight-qubit topological quantum processor, the first of its kind. The chip, built as a proof-of-concept for the scientists’ design, opens the door to the development of the long-awaited topological quantum computer.

    “We’ve got a bunch of stuff that we’ve been keeping under wraps that we’re dropping all at once now,” said Microsoft Station Q Director Chetan Nayak, a professor of physics at UCSB and a Technical Fellow for Quantum Hardware at Microsoft...

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    Did astronomers just witness the formation of a ‘strange star?’

    February 22, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Did astronomers just witness the formation of a
    Chandra observations of RX J1856.5-3754 suggest that the matter in this collapsed star is even denser than nuclear matter, the most dense matter found on Earth. X-ray and optical data indicate that RX J1856 has a diameter of only 7 miles. This size is too small to reconcile with the standard models of neutron stars. One exciting possibility is that the high density inside the star has caused the neutrons to dissolve into a soup of up, down, and strange quarks to form a strange quark star, which would have a smaller radius. Observations of 3C58, the remnant of a supernova noted on Earth in AD 1181, reveal that the pulsar in the core has a temperature much lower than expected. This suggests that an exotic, denser state of matter might exist inside this collapsed star...
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    Magnetic semiconductor preserves 2D quantum properties in 3D material

    February 21, 2025, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    The atomic lattice structure of the layered magnetic semiconductor chromium sulfide bromide (CrSBr) have magnetic moments, or spins, that align with each other and alternate on each layer. This ordering enables the confinement of excitons — which are bound electron and hole pairs — to a single layer of CrSBr even inside the 3D material, according to the researchers.  Credit: Provided by Yinming Shao. All Rights Reserved.

    Physicists have developed a novel approach to maintain special quantum characteristics, even in 3D materials, with potential applications in optical systems and advanced computing.

    There is a big problem with quantum technology — it’s tiny...

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