News tagged with space physics

Wild blue yonder: Engineers tackle challenges of hypersonic flight

(Phys.org) -- Aeronautical engineers believe hypersonic planes flying at seven to 15 times the speed of sound will someday change the face of air and space travel. That is, if they can master such flight's known unknowns.

Technology / Engineering

created May 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 2

Finding ET may require giant robotic leap

(Phys.org) -- Autonomous, self-replicating robots -- exobots -- are the way to explore the universe, find and identify extraterrestrial life and perhaps clean up space debris in the process, according to a Penn State engineer, ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (7) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Physicists continue work to abolish time as fourth dimension of space

(Phys.org) -- Philosophers have debated the nature of time long before Einstein and modern physics. But in the 106 years since Einstein, the prevailing view in physics has been that time serves as the fourth ...

Physics / General Physics

created Apr 14, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (78) | comments 717 | with audio podcast report

H3+: The molecule that made the Universe

(Phys.org) -- In a study that pushed quantum mechanical theory and research capabilities to the limit, University of Arizona researchers have found a way to see the molecule that likely made the universe - ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Apr 12, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (18) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Interview with lead spacewalker on Endeavour's final mission

In an exclusive interview with Physics World, astronaut Drew Feustel gives a vivid account of his two missions into space and recalls his determination to make his childhood ambition – space flight – come true. ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Scientists launch rocket into aurora

(PhysOrg.com) -- With the full sky shimmering in green aurora, Saturday night (Feb. 18, 2012) a team of scientists, including space physicist Marc Lessard and graduate students from the University of New Hampshire's ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Feb 20, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Borexino Collaboration succeeds in spotting pep neutrinos emitted from the sun

(PhysOrg.com) -- To learn more about how the sun works, scientists study particles that are emitted from it into space due to thermonuclear reactions that occur inside; by applying known physics principles, ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Hubble zooms in on a magnified galaxy

(PhysOrg.com) -- Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope got a uniquely close-up look at the brightest "magnified" galaxy yet discovered.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (13) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Astronomers solve mystery of vanishing energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt

UCLA researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt, using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft.

Physics / General Physics

created Jan 29, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Scientists create first free-standing 3-D cloak

Researchers in the US have, for the first time, cloaked a three-dimensional object standing in free space, bringing the much-talked-about invisibility cloak one step closer to reality.

Physics / General Physics

created Jan 26, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

As Voyager 1 nears edge of solar system, scientists look back

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1977, Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president, Elvis died, Virginia park ranger Roy Sullivan was hit by lightning a record seventh time, and two NASA space probes destined to turn planetary ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (11) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Physicists set strongest limit on mass of dark matter

Brown University physicists have set the strongest limit for the mass of dark matter, the mysterious particles believed to make up nearly a quarter of the universe. The researchers report in Physical Review Le ...

Physics / General Physics

created Nov 23, 2011 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (12) | comments 43 | with audio podcast

Putting artificial atoms on the clock

Around the turn of the century, scientists began to understand that atoms have discrete energy levels. Within the field of quantum physics, this sparked the development of quantum optics in which light is ...

Physics / General Physics

created Nov 07, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

NASA's Fermi finds youngest millisecond pulsar, 100 pulsars to date

An international team of scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a surprisingly powerful millisecond pulsar that challenges existing theories about how these objects form.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 04, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

German scientists ready for the hunt on dark energy

The German and Russian partners of the new eROSITA X-ray space observatory have now agreed on how to split the data from the first four years of an all sky survey. This decision was announced today at the ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 20, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 3