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| ©NASA |
| Trees on Mars? |
Science & Technology
SAN FRANCISCO - About twice a year, an asteroid smashes into Earth's atmosphere with the force of a Hiroshima-size atomic blast. And those are small ones, scientists say; the space rocks vaporize before they can do any harm.
When the big one hits, we won't be as fortunate.
When the big one hits, we won't be as fortunate.
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| ©ESA |
| Image of Mars seen by OSIRIS: A cloudy day on Mars |
Astronomers have found a neutron star spinning at an astonishing 1122 rotations per second, 1.5 times faster than any other star.
Till now, no neutron star has ever been found to spin faster than 716 times per second, which was the previous record.
But now, new observations have revealed a neutron star that appears to be spinning much faster than that supposed speed limit.
If confirmed, the finding could bolster the possibility of exotic "soft" states of matter inside dense stars, as it is highly possible that the star might not have been ripped apart by its ultra-fast rotation.
Till now, no neutron star has ever been found to spin faster than 716 times per second, which was the previous record.
But now, new observations have revealed a neutron star that appears to be spinning much faster than that supposed speed limit.
If confirmed, the finding could bolster the possibility of exotic "soft" states of matter inside dense stars, as it is highly possible that the star might not have been ripped apart by its ultra-fast rotation.
A star that is visible to the naked eye in the night skies of Southern Arizona has properties nearly identical to the sun's, researchers announced Thursday.
A study done at the Fairborn Observatory in the Patagonia Mountains and at the Lowell Observatory in Flag-staff found that 18 Scorpii, a star that is more than 270 trillion miles away, is "just about as close to a twin of the sun as you can find," said Jeffrey Hall, an astronomer at Lowell who has been observing the star for more than 10 years.
A study done at the Fairborn Observatory in the Patagonia Mountains and at the Lowell Observatory in Flag-staff found that 18 Scorpii, a star that is more than 270 trillion miles away, is "just about as close to a twin of the sun as you can find," said Jeffrey Hall, an astronomer at Lowell who has been observing the star for more than 10 years.
The European comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta has been sending back "beautiful new images" after swooping over the surface of Mars overnight, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Sunday.
Houston - Long before NASA was confronted with an off-duty astronaut's bizarre behavior and arrest in Florida earlier this month, the agency had developed procedures to deal with a mental breakdown in space.
The guidelines were developed to respond to an attempted suicide or severe anxiety, paranoia or hysteria aboard the international space station. Astronauts are instructed to bind the stricken flier's wrists and ankles with duct tape, restrain the torso with bungee cords and administer strong tranquilizers.
The guidelines were developed to respond to an attempted suicide or severe anxiety, paranoia or hysteria aboard the international space station. Astronauts are instructed to bind the stricken flier's wrists and ankles with duct tape, restrain the torso with bungee cords and administer strong tranquilizers.
Jackson Pollock couldn't possibly have been thinking of fractals when he started flinging and dripping paint from a stick onto canvas. After all, mathematicians didn't develop the idea of a fractal until a couple of decades later. But if one physicist is right, Pollock ended up painting fractals anyway. And that mathematical quality may explain why Pollock's seemingly chaotic streams of paint come together into an ordered, beautiful whole, and why the technique brought Pollock acclaim as a master of American abstract painting.
A fractal is a geometric structure in which the shapes at a large scale reflect the shapes at a small scale, forming an interlocking set of patterns that nest inside each other like Russian dolls. Approximations of fractal structures have been noticed throughout nature. For example, the overall crystal structure of a snowflake looks remarkably like the structure in a single arm. And the ridges of a mountain range jut into the sky, forming patterns similar to the crags thrusting out from a single peak.
A fractal is a geometric structure in which the shapes at a large scale reflect the shapes at a small scale, forming an interlocking set of patterns that nest inside each other like Russian dolls. Approximations of fractal structures have been noticed throughout nature. For example, the overall crystal structure of a snowflake looks remarkably like the structure in a single arm. And the ridges of a mountain range jut into the sky, forming patterns similar to the crags thrusting out from a single peak.
The swirling Arabesque ceramic tiles used in medieval Islamic mosaics and architecture were produced using geometry not understood in the West until the 1970s, a new study suggests.
The inlaid patterned tiles grace the walls of many structures worldwide, in patterns of mind-boggling intricacy called "girih." Historians have always assumed that medieval architects meticulously developed the patterns with basic tools.
But manuals written by the architects to share tricks of the trade actually include model tiles - like geometrical tracings - that helped lay out the complex "girih" designs [image] on a large scale, researchers discovered recently. The efficient system eventually allowed artisans to produce "quasicrystalline" wall patterns - a concept that was discovered by Western mathematicians just three decades ago.
The inlaid patterned tiles grace the walls of many structures worldwide, in patterns of mind-boggling intricacy called "girih." Historians have always assumed that medieval architects meticulously developed the patterns with basic tools.
But manuals written by the architects to share tricks of the trade actually include model tiles - like geometrical tracings - that helped lay out the complex "girih" designs [image] on a large scale, researchers discovered recently. The efficient system eventually allowed artisans to produce "quasicrystalline" wall patterns - a concept that was discovered by Western mathematicians just three decades ago.
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| ©Livermore National Laboratory |
| Stages in the penetration of an aluminium target by the Solid State Heat Capacity Laser (SSHCL). The time between frames is 167 milliseconds. |
A laser developed for military use is a few steps away from hitting a power threshold thought necessary to turn it into a battlefield weapon.
