http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- For the past few years, researchers have been using quantum dots to increase the light absorption and overall efficiency of solar cells. Now, researchers have taken a step further, demonstrating that quantum dots with a built-in electric charge can increase the efficiency of InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cells by 50% or more. http://phys.org/news224489989.html Nanotechnology Fri, 13 May 2011 07:50:01 EST news224489989 Asteroids are hunks of rock that orbit in the outer reaches of space, and scientists have generally assumed that their small size limited the types of rock that could form in their crusts. But two newly discovered meteorites may rewrite the book on how some asteroids form and evolve. Researchers from the Carnegie Institution, the University of Maryland, and the University of Tennessee report in the January 8th edition of Nature that these meteorites are ancient asteroid fragments consisting of feldspar-rich rock called andesite. Similar rocks were previously known only from Earth, making these samples the first of their kind from elsewhere in the Solar System. http://phys.org/news150557683.html Space & Earth Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:34:43 EST news150557683 From troubled beginnings nearly 18 years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized astronomy and its stunning images have stirred the imaginations of people around the globe. http://phys.org/news149951903.html Space & Earth Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:18:23 EST news149951903 Deriving plentiful electricity from sunlight at a modest cost is a challenge with immense implications for energy, technology, and climate policy. A paper in a special energy issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal, describes a relatively new approach to solar cells: lacing them with nanoscopic metal particles. As the authors describe in the article, this approach has the potential to greatly improve the ability of solar cells to harvest light efficiently. http://phys.org/news149266955.html Nanotechnology Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:02:35 EST news149266955 (PhysOrg.com) -- Venus Express has made the first detection of an atmospheric loss process on Venus's day-side. Last year, the spacecraft revealed that most of the lost atmosphere escapes from the night-side. Together, these discoveries bring planetary scientists closer to understanding what happened to the water on Venus, which is suspected to have once been as abundant as on Earth. http://phys.org/news148816159.html Space & Earth Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:49:19 EST news148816159 (PhysOrg.com) -- Earth's magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outward from the Sun, often develops two holes that allow the largest leaks, according to researchers sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation. http://phys.org/news148665600.html Space & Earth Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:00:00 EST news148665600 A new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the periodic "breathing" of Earth's upper atmosphere that has long puzzled scientists is due in part to cyclic solar wind disturbances, a finding that should help engineers track satellites more accurately and improve forecasts for electronic communication disruptions. http://phys.org/news148584220.html Space & Earth Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:23:40 EST news148584220 (PhysOrg.com) -- Solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the solar system. Packing a punch equal to a hundred million hydrogen bombs, they obliterate everything in their immediate vicinity. Not a single atom should remain intact. At least that's how it's supposed to work. http://phys.org/news148570868.html Space & Earth Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:41:08 EST news148570868 Moons outside our Solar System with the potential to support life have just become much easier to detect, thanks to research by an astronomer at University College London (UCL). http://phys.org/news148224530.html Space & Earth Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:28:50 EST news148224530 (PhysOrg.com) -- New research by teams of MIT scientists and students could lead to cheaper and more efficient solar cells in the next few years, either by incorporating materials that are so abundant that they could support a major boom in the industry or by cutting production costs for conventional solar cells. http://phys.org/news148138993.html Physics Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:43:13 EST news148138993 NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Explorer satellite rocketed into space in 2004 on a mission to study some of the highest-energy events in the universe. The spacecraft has detected more than 380 gamma-ray bursts, fleeting flares that likely signal the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. In that time, Swift also has observed 80 exploding stars and studied six comets. http://phys.org/news147542805.html Space & Earth Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:06:45 EST news147542805 (PhysOrg.com) -- New ways of squeezing out greater efficiency from solar photovoltaic cells are emerging from computer simulations and lab tests conducted by a team of physicists and engineers at MIT. http://phys.org/news146926366.html Technology Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:52:46 EST news146926366 Currently, solar cells are difficult to handle, expensive to purchase and complicated to install. The hope is that consumers will one day be able to buy solar cells from their local hardware store and simply hang them like posters on a wall. http://phys.org/news146924399.html Chemistry Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:19:59 EST news146924399 (PhysOrg.com) -- You never know where basic research may lead. For decades materials scientists have been experimenting with a corkscrew-like polymer structure called a gyroid. Now an international team of researchers has shown that the gyroid structure can be used to "self-assemble" a low-cost photovoltaic cell. http://phys.org/news146849259.html Nanotechnology Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:27:39 EST news146849259 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA is officially moving forward on a mission to conduct an unprecedented, in-depth study of Jupiter. http://phys.org/news146762346.html Space & Earth Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:19:06 EST news146762346 (PhysOrg.com) -- New ways of squeezing out greater efficiency from solar photovoltaic cells are emerging from computer simulations and lab tests conducted by a team of physicists and engineers at MIT. http://phys.org/news146758622.html Physics Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:17:02 EST news146758622 A Los Alamos National Laboratory cosmic-ray observatory has seen for the first time two distinct hot spots that appear to be bombarding Earth with an excess of cosmic rays. The research calls into question nearly a century of understanding about galactic magnetic fields near our solar system. http://phys.org/news146742920.html Physics Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:55:20 EST news146742920 Researchers have found new evidence that the atmosphere of Mars is being stripped away by solar wind. It's not a gently continuous erosion, but rather a ripping process in which chunks of Martian air detach themselves from the planet and tumble into deep space. This surprising mechanism could help solve a longstanding mystery about the Red Planet. http://phys.org/news146493498.html Space & Earth Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:38:18 EST news146493498 (PhysOrg.com) -- The hot star Beta Pictoris is one of the best-known examples of stars surrounded by a dusty 'debris' disc. Debris discs are composed of dust resulting from collisions among larger bodies like planetary embryos or asteroids. They are a bigger version of the zodiacal dust in our Solar System. Its disc was the first to be imaged — as early as 1984 — and remains the best-studied system. Earlier observations showed a warp of the disc, a secondary inclined disc and infalling comets onto the star. "These are indirect, but tell-tale signs that strongly suggest the presence of a massive planet lying between 5 and 10 times the mean Earth-Sun distance from its host star," says team leader Anne-Marie Lagrange. "However, probing the very inner region of the disc, so close to the glowing star, is a most challenging task." http://phys.org/news146489683.html Space & Earth Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:34:43 EST news146489683 A team of astronomers from Penn State and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland has discovered a new planet that is closely orbiting a red-giant star, HD 102272, which is much older than our own Sun. The planet has a mass that is nearly six times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. http://phys.org/news146243298.html Space & Earth Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:08:18 EST news146243298 Scientists are tracking the violent convulsions in the giant cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system 4.5 billion years ago via a few tiny particles from comet Wild 2. http://phys.org/news146146200.html Space & Earth Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:10:00 EST news146146200 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea have obtained the first-ever direct images identifying a multi-planet system around a normal star. http://phys.org/news145804457.html Space & Earth Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:14:17 EST news145804457 After two-plus years of few sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun is finally showing signs of life. "I think solar minimum is behind us," says sunspot forecaster David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. http://phys.org/news145546908.html Space & Earth Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:41:48 EST news145546908 Some of the tiniest solar cells ever built have been successfully tested as a power source for even tinier microscopic machines. An article in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE), published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), describes an inch-long array of 20 of these cells -- each one about a quarter the size of a lowercase "o" in a standard 12-point font. http://phys.org/news145197611.html Physics Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:40:11 EST news145197611 According to the international space agencies, "Space Weather" is the single greatest obstacle to deep space travel. Radiation from the sun and cosmic rays pose a deadly threat to astronauts in space. http://phys.org/news145004546.html Physics Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:02:26 EST news145004546 Researchers in China and Switzerland are reporting the highest efficiency ever for a promising new genre of solar cells, which many scientists think offer the best hope for making the sun a mainstay source of energy in the future. http://phys.org/news144926462.html Physics Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:21:02 EST news144926462 Thomas R. Baruch, a member of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Board of Trustees and alumnus of the Class of 1960, has donated a gift that will help to establish a new center at the Institute devoted to bio-energy research. The new center — the Baruch '60 Center for Biochemical Solar Energy Research — will conduct unprecedented research on biochemical solar technology. http://phys.org/news144680779.html Technology Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:06:19 EST news144680779 (PhysOrg.com) -- Meteorites that are among the oldest rocks ever found have provided new clues about the conditions that existed at the beginning of the solar system, solving a longstanding mystery and overturning some accepted ideas about the way planets form. http://phys.org/news144592967.html Space & Earth Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:42:47 EST news144592967 (PhysOrg.com) -- By the eerie light of a Halloween moon, while a chilly wind blows autumn-dry leaves askitter on bare and fingered branches, scary things can happen. Blood-sucking bats, creepy-crawly spiders, and a bevy of Halloween horrors give a fright on October 31. But did you know the weeks surrounding this All Hallow’s Eve mark a haunting milestone? – the 5-year anniversary of some the most powerful solar storms ever recorded. http://phys.org/news144511340.html Space & Earth Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:02:20 EST news144511340 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system. The inner asteroid belt is a virtual twin of the belt in our solar system, while the outer asteroid belt holds 20 times more material. Moreover, the presence of these three rings of material implies that unseen planets confine and shape them. http://phys.org/news144326926.html Space & Earth Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:48:46 EST news144326926