https://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. How far the Milky Way's disk extends has long been difficult to define—it doesn't end sharply, but fades away gradually at its outer edges. Now, for the first time, an international team of astronomers has identified the edge of the Milky Way's star-forming disk by studying the ages of stars, revealing that the bulk of our galaxy's star formation occurs within 40,000 light-years of the Galactic Center. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-edge-milky-star-disk-revealed.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:40:03 EDT news695986421 The longest partial lunar eclipse in nearly 600 years, which will bathe the Moon in red, was visible for a big slice of humanity on Friday. https://phys.org/news/2021-11-moon-partial-lunar-eclipse-longest.html Space Exploration Thu, 18 Nov 2021 16:29:18 EST news556475356 A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds Saturday morning on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-nasa-asteroid-hunter-lucy-soars.html Space Exploration Sat, 16 Oct 2021 06:19:45 EDT news553583974 Stars scattered throughout the cosmos look different, but they may be more alike than once thought, according to Rice University researchers. https://phys.org/news/2021-08-cool-stars-unique.html Astronomy Mon, 09 Aug 2021 11:12:23 EDT news547726337 Advanced materials with more novel properties are almost always developed by adding more elements to the list of ingredients. But quantum research suggests some simpler materials might already have advanced properties that scientists just couldn't see, until now. https://phys.org/news/2021-05-neutrons-piece-year-puzzle-iron-iodide.html General Physics Thu, 20 May 2021 04:37:27 EDT news540704240 Computer simulations are showing astrophysicists how massive clumps of gas within galaxies scatter some stars from their orbits, eventually creating the smooth, exponential fade in the brightness of many galaxy disks. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-astronomers-disk-galaxies-evolve-smoothly.html Astronomy Fri, 25 Sep 2020 09:34:32 EDT news520245268 The cell membrane, the wall-like boundary between the cell interior and its outside environment, is primarily made up of two kinds of biomolecules: lipids and proteins. Different lipid species closely pack together to form a double layer, or "bilayer," the membrane's fundamental structure, while proteins are embedded within or attached to the bilayer. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-cell-membrane-key-uncovering-protein.html Biochemistry Thu, 24 Sep 2020 05:36:25 EDT news520144578 Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, an international team of astronomers has conducted deep imaging observations of a high-redshift radio galaxy known as 4C 63.20. The observational campaign has revealed an extended X-ray emission from this source. The finding is reported in a paper published July 20 on the arXiv pre-print paper. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-x-ray-emission-radio-galaxy-4c.html Astronomy Wed, 29 Jul 2020 09:00:02 EDT news515226524 Astronomers have made the first measurement of spin-orbit alignment for a distant 'super-Jupiter' planet, demonstrating a technique that could enable breakthroughs in the quest to understand how exoplanetary systems form and evolved. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-spin-orbit-alignment-planet-beta-pictoris.html Astronomy Mon, 29 Jun 2020 04:48:29 EDT news512624901 Polarized light is a familiar phenomenon because the scattering or reflection of light results in one of its two components being preferentially absorbed. The majority of sunlight on Earth, for example, is preferentially polarized due to scattering in the atmosphere (this helps make polarized sunglasses effective). Electromagnetic radiation from astrophysical sources can also be polarized, typically because of scattering from elongated dust grains that are aligned with each other by the local magnetic fields. These fields are thought to play a major, perhaps even a dominant role in controlling the shapes and motions of interstellar gas clouds and are extremely difficult to measure directly. Observations of polarization by dust grains offer a unique way to probe the magnetic fields. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-inferring-temperature-circumstellar-disks-polarized.html Astronomy Fri, 26 Jun 2020 11:05:46 EDT news512388344 Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have boosted their control of the fundamental properties of molecules at the quantum level by linking or "entangling" an electrically charged atom and an electrically charged molecule, showcasing a way to build hybrid quantum information systems that could manipulate, store and transmit different forms of data. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-hybrid-quantum-entangling-molecule-atom.html Quantum Physics Wed, 20 May 2020 11:00:04 EDT news509187115 An ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the NGC 1313 galaxy, known as NGC 1313 X-1, showcases an unusual X-ray spectral variability, according to a new study recently conducted by an international team of astronomers. The finding is reported in a paper published November 21 on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2019-12-unusual-x-ray-spectral-variability-ngc.html Astronomy Wed, 04 Dec 2019 09:10:01 EST news494665360 Electrons in atoms are pretty talented. They can form chemical bonds, get kicked out of the atom and even "jump" to different locations based on their energetic states. https://phys.org/news/2019-11-team-golden-lollipop-elusive-effect.html Nanophysics Fri, 08 Nov 2019 06:57:35 EST news492418640 Italian astronomers have conducted multi-band observations of the high-redshift blazar S5 0836+710 during its period of high activity. The monitoring campaign resulted in the detection of two major gamma-ray flares from this source and provided more insights on the object's properties. The findings are available in a paper published October 18 on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-astronomers-blazar-s5-high-period.html Astronomy Tue, 29 Oct 2019 09:05:48 EDT news491558736 Astronomers are poised Wednesday to unveil the first direct image of a black hole and the surrounding whirlwind of white-hot gas and plasma inexorably drawn by gravity into its ravenous maw, along with the light they generate. https://phys.org/news/2019-04-black-holes-picturing-heart-darkness.html Astronomy Tue, 09 Apr 2019 06:43:58 EDT news474010909 New photonic tools for medical imaging can be used to understand the nonlinear behavior of laser light in human blood for theranostic applications. When light enters biological fluids it is quickly scattered, however, some cell suspensions can induce nonlinear responses in laser beams to self-focus and enhance the penetration of light for biomedical applications as a quantifiable marker of disease. In a recent study now published in Light: Science and Applications, Rekha Gautam and her colleagues at the San Francisco State University and an international team of co-workers showed that a laser beam shining through red blood cell suspensions could become "self-trapped." The process reduced light scattering to retain the power of the beam of laser light within the biological samples. https://phys.org/news/2019-03-optical-force-induced-self-guiding-human-red.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 21 Mar 2019 09:30:03 EDT news472284182 In the blink of an eye, squid can change from sandy brown to vibrant red or ripple with bright metallic rainbows. Their color-changing abilities (and those of their fellow cephalopods, octopus and cuttlefish) are more sophisticated than any found in the animal kingdom. https://phys.org/news/2019-03-secret-squid-ability-unexpected-skin.html Plants & Animals Wed, 06 Mar 2019 07:36:28 EST news471080180 The Cigar Galaxy (also known as M82) is famous for its extraordinary speed in making new stars, with stars being born 10 times faster than in the Milky Way. Now, data from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, have been used to study this galaxy in greater detail, revealing how material that affects the evolution of galaxies may get into intergalactic space. https://phys.org/news/2019-03-galactic-clues-evolution-galaxies.html Astronomy Tue, 05 Mar 2019 13:52:54 EST news471016366 Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have "flash-frozen" a flat crystal of 150 beryllium ions (electrically charged atoms), opening new possibilities for simulating magnetism at the quantum scale and sensing signals from mysterious dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2019-02-physicists-flash-freeze-crystal-ions.html Quantum Physics Wed, 20 Feb 2019 11:25:41 EST news469884318 Hydrogels are polymer networks infiltrated with water, widely used for tissue engineering vehicles of drug delivery and novel platforms for biomedical engineering. Emerging applications for new hydrogel materials call for robustness under cyclic mechanical loads. Materials scientists have developed tough hydrogels that resist fracture under a single cycle of mechanical load, yet these toughened gels still suffer from fatigue fracture under multiple cycles of loads. The present fatigue threshold for synthetic hydrogels is reported in the order of 1 to 100 J/m2. https://phys.org/news/2019-02-anti-fatigue-fracture-hydrogels.html Polymers Mon, 11 Feb 2019 09:30:03 EST news469096348 The strange orbits of some objects in the farthest reaches of our solar system, hypothesised by some astronomers to be shaped by an unknown ninth planet, can instead be explained by the combined gravitational force of small objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, say researchers. https://phys.org/news/2019-01-mystery-orbits-outermost-solar-planet.html Astronomy Mon, 21 Jan 2019 04:40:09 EST news467268002 An international team of astronomers has discovered an ancient and dramatic head-on collision between the Milky Way and a smaller object, dubbed the "Sausage" galaxy. The cosmic crash was a defining event in the early history of the Milky Way and reshaped the structure of our galaxy, fashioning both its inner bulge and its outer halo, the astronomers report in a series of new papers. https://phys.org/news/2018-07-gaia-sausage-major-collision-milky.html Astronomy Wed, 04 Jul 2018 06:14:32 EDT news449903662 An international team of astronomers headed by Dutch researchers from Leiden University has coincidently found a small companion around the young double star CS Cha. The astronomers examined the dust disc of the binary, while they stumbled upon the companion. The researchers suspect that it is a planet in his toddler years that is still growing. The astronomers used the SPHERE instrument on the European Very Large Telescope in Chile. They will soon publish their findings in an article that is accepted by the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. https://phys.org/news/2018-05-dutch-astronomers-toddler-planet-chance.html Astronomy Tue, 08 May 2018 09:39:02 EDT news444991133 Biological tissues have complex mechanical properties – soft-yet-strong, tough-yet-flexible – that are difficult to reproduce using synthetic materials. An international team has managed to produce a biocompatible synthetic material that replicates tissue mechanics and alters color when it changes shape, like chameleon skin. These results, to which researchers from CNRS, Université de Haute-Alsace and ESRF, the European Synchrotron, have contributed with colleagues in the US (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Akron), are published on March 30, 2018 in Science. They promise new materials for biomedical devices. https://phys.org/news/2018-03-polymers-mimic-chameleon-skin.html Polymers Fri, 30 Mar 2018 06:36:49 EDT news441610592 By hitting electrons with an ultra-intense laser, researchers have revealed dynamics that go beyond 'classical' physics and hint at quantum effects. https://phys.org/news/2018-02-intense-laser-evidence-electrons.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 07 Feb 2018 11:00:01 EST news437038739 Using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, an international team of researchers has studied the disc surrounding the star MWC 758. The new observations reveal further insights into the complex morphology of this disc. The study was presented in a paper published December 23 on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2018-01-complex-morphology-protoplanetary-disc-star.html Astronomy Mon, 08 Jan 2018 09:30:02 EST news434613751 An international group of scientists has found that Jupiter is the oldest planet in our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2017-06-evidence-jupiter-oldest-planet-solar.html Space Exploration Tue, 13 Jun 2017 05:54:40 EDT news416552071 Rice University nanophotonics researcher Isabell Thomann uses lasers, light-activated materials and light-measuring nanoscale tips to push the boundaries of experimental nanoscience, but light is providing the pull in her latest study. https://phys.org/news/2016-12-photonics-lab-photon-induced-microscopy.html Nanophysics Thu, 15 Dec 2016 07:37:57 EST news401009852 (Phys.org)—Astronomers have uncovered a new low-mass companion residing inside a massive debris disc surrounding a nearby star designated HD 206893. The discovery could provide new important clues on how low-mass stellar companions form and evolve. The findings were presented in a paper published Dec. 1 on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2016-12-low-mass-companion-debris-disc-nearby.html Astronomy Mon, 12 Dec 2016 09:00:01 EST news400747749 Sharp new observations have revealed striking features in planet-forming discs around young stars. The SPHERE instrument, mounted on ESO's Very Large Telescope, has made it possible to observe the complex dynamics of young solar systems. The recently published results from three teams of astronomers showcase SPHERE's impressive capability to capture the way planets sculpt the discs that form them—exposing the complexities of the environment in which new worlds are formed. https://phys.org/news/2016-11-sculpting-solar-sphere-instrument-reveals.html Astronomy Wed, 09 Nov 2016 06:00:01 EST news397836302