Two white dwarfs have been discovered on the brink of a merger. In just 900,000 years, material will start to stream from one star to the other (as shown in this artist's conception), beginning the process that may end with a spectacular supernova explosion. Watching these stars fall in will allow astronomers to test Einstein's theory of general relativity as well as the origin of a special class of supernovae. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)
White dwarfs are the burned-out cores of stars like our Sun. Astronomers have discovered a pair of white dwarfs spiraling into one another at breakneck speeds. Today, these white dwarfs are so near they make a complete orbit in just 13 minutes, but they are gradually slipping closer together. About 900,000 years from now - a blink of an eye in astronomical time - they will merge and possibly explode as a supernova. By watching the stars converge, scientists will test both Einstein's theory of general relativity and the origin of some peculiar supernovae.
For more information about Updates, Click on the titles:
A team of scientists has discovered the youngest dinosaur preserved in the fossil record before the catastrophic meteor impact 65 million years ago. The finding indicates that dinosaurs did not go extinct prior to the impact and provides further evidence as to whether the impact was in fact the cause of their extinction.
Narrowest bridges of gold are also the strongest, study finds
At an atomic scale, the tiniest bridge of gold -- that made of a single atom -- is actually the strongest, according to new research by engineers at the University at Buffalo's Laboratory for Quantum Devices.
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of University of Maryland nanotechnology researchers has solved one of the most vexing challenges hindering the use of carbon nanomaterials for better electrical energy storage or enhancing the fluorescence sensing capabilities of biosensors. The findings are published in the July 12 issue of Nature Communications.
A novel application of carbon nanotubes, developed by MIT researchers, shows promise as an innovative approach to storing solar energy for use whenever it’s needed.
(PhysOrg.com) -- By wrapping tiny sulfur particles in graphene sheets, researchers from Stanford University have synthesized a promising cathode material for rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries that could be used for powering electric vehicles on a large scale. When combined with silicon-based anodes, the new graphene-sulfur cathodes could lead to rechargeable batteries with a significantly higher energy density than is currently possible.
25 Tesla, world-record 'split magnet' makes its debut
A custom-built, $2.5 million "split magnet" system with the potential to revolutionize scientific research in a variety of fields has made its debut at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University.
(PhysOrg.com) -- The nucleus of an atom, like most everything else, is more complicated than we first thought. Just how much more complicated is the subject of a Petascale Early Science project led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's David Dean.
The extended Coulomb failure stress (ECFS) criteria and anisotropic porosity and permeability tensor at micro/meso/macro scale under ultra‑high temperature and pressure (UTP) conditions were developed employing the flow driven pore‑network crack (FDPNC) model under multiple temporal–spatial scales and the hybrid hypersingular integral equation‑lattice Boltzmann method (HHIE‑LBM). The correlation of the Zipingpu reservoir and Longmenshan slip was then analyzed and the fluid–solid coupled three‑dimensional facture mechanism of the reservoir and earthquake fault was explored.
Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) have developed a method for evaluating the vulnerability of coastal regions to the impact of storms. The method, which has been applied on the Catalan coastline, shows that one-third of the region's coasts have a high rate of vulnerability to flooding, while 20% are at risk of erosion.
Environmental campaigners on Wednesday accused suppliers to major clothing brands including Adidas and Nike of poisoning China's major rivers with hazardous chemicals linked to hormonal problems.
(AP) -- The 10 astronauts on the orbiting shuttle-station complex can turn all their attention to hauling things back and forth now that their single spacewalk is over.
Private companies, aided by NASA's cash and expertise in human space flight, are rushing to be the first to build a space capsule to replace the retiring US shuttle in the next few years.
A Russian Soyuz rocket successfully carried six US Globalstar satellites into orbit on Wednesday after postponing the launch twice earlier this week, Russia's space agency said.
SpaceX is renovating an old launch pad at the Vandenberg Air Force Base for the world's most powerful rocket.
China said Wednesday it had ordered US oil giant ConocoPhillips to immediately stop operations at several rigs in an area off the nation's eastern coast polluted by a huge slick.
(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA’s pioneering Artemis satellite today marks a decade in space. The Advanced Relay and Technology Mission was a breakthrough in telecommunications satellites for Europe, packed with new technologies such as laser links and ion thrusters for proving in space.
A next-generation plasma rocket being developed by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz called the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) has been touted as a way to get astronauts to Mars in weeks rather than months, as well as an innovative, cheap way to re-boost the International Space Station. But in a biting commentary posted on Space News and the Mars Society website, “Mars Direct” advocate Robert Zubrin calls VASIMR a “hoax” saying the engine “is neither revolutionary nor particularly promising. Rather, it is just another addition to the family of electric thrusters, which convert electric power to jet thrust, but are markedly inferior to the ones we already have,” adding, “There is thus no basis whatsoever for believing in the feasibility of Chang Diaz’s fantasy power system.”
Commercial space company XCOR Aerospace has signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” with the Planetary Science Institute, laying the groundwork for flying a human-operated telescope on board XCOR’s Lynx spacecraft. The Atsa Suborbital Observatory is a specially designed telescope for use in suborbital space vehicles, and when used with commercial suborbital vehicles, PSI says it will provide low-cost space-based observations above the contaminating atmosphere of Earth, while avoiding some operational constraints of satellite telescope systems.
According to a new study, it could become much warmer towards the end of the century than originally anticipated. The study has found that the average temperatures calculated are much higher than the IPCC’s worst-case scenario to date.
(AP) -- The astronauts making NASA's last shuttle flight turned into moving men and garbage haulers Wednesday with no time to dwell on their place in space history, after enjoying a special salute from the original "Rocket Man," Elton John.
(PhysOrg.com) -- In one of those odd scientific debates where people who ought to know better, speak up, and in this case, print articles on arXiv, making claims about personal issues rather than science, buzz has been created that might lead to little more than rhetoric. In this case, it’s first Sidney van den Bergh, a Canadian astronomer, who has published a paper on arXiv citing evidence that Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaitre's paper on cosmological observations appeared to have been intentionally censored when translated into English, and then David Block, a South African mathematician and amateur historian adding fuel to the fire by publishing to the same site an article where he asserts he has proof that American, Edwin Hubble (of whom the Hubble telescope is named) was involved in a conspiracy of sorts, to censor the paper previously mentioned by van den Bergh.
White dwarfs are the burned-out cores of stars like our Sun. Astronomers have discovered a pair of white dwarfs spiraling into one another at breakneck speeds. Today, these white dwarfs are so near they make a complete orbit in just 13 minutes, but they are gradually slipping closer together. About 900,000 years from now - a blink of an eye in astronomical time - they will merge and possibly explode as a supernova. By watching the stars converge, scientists will test both Einstein's theory of general relativity and the origin of some peculiar supernovae.
More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes soil to release the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, new research published in this week's edition of Nature reveals. "This feedback to our changing atmosphere means that nature is not as efficient in slowing global warming as we previously thought," said Dr Kees Jan van Groenigen, Research Fellow at the Botany department at the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, and lead author of the study.
(PhysOrg.com) -- On Sunday, July 17, the moon will acquire its second new companion in less than a month. That's when the second of two probes built by the University of California, Berkeley, and part of NASA's five-satellite THEMIS mission will drop into a permanent lunar orbit after a meandering, two-year journey from its original orbit around Earth.
A new study combining data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory has turned up a surprise. Most of the huge black holes in the centres of galaxies in the past 11 billion years were not turned on by mergers between galaxies, as had been previously thought.
New method for making human-based gelatin
Scientists are reporting development of a new approach for producing large quantities of human-derived gelatin that could become a substitute for some of the 300,000 tons of animal-based gelatin produced annually for gelatin-type desserts, marshmallows, candy and innumerable other products. Their study appears in ACS's Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.
A major new review of scientific knowledge on kava — a plant used to make dietary supplements and a trendy drink with calming effects — has left unsolved the mystery of why Pacific Island people can consume it safely, while people in the United States, Europe, and other Western cultures sometimes experience toxic effects. The article appears in ACS' journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
The widely known PSA blood test for prostate cancer in men may get a second life as a much-needed new test for breast cancer, the most common form of cancer in women worldwide, scientists are reporting in a new study in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry.
(PhysOrg.com) -- A breakthrough in sensing at Rice University could make finding signs of Alzheimer's disease nearly as simple as switching on a light.
A cancer cell may seem out of control, growing wildly and breaking all the rules of orderly cell life and death. But amid the seeming chaos there is a balance between a cancer cell's revved-up metabolism and skyrocketing levels of cellular stress. Just as a cancer cell depends on a hyperactive metabolism to fuel its rapid growth, it also depends on anti-oxidative enzymes to quench potentially toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by such high metabolic demand.
Provided by PhysOrg.com
