50 years ago, scientists dreamed of lasers that could kick off nuclear fusion
Excerpt from the September 29, 1973 issue of Science News Nearly 200 powerful lasers at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, Calif., blast a fuel pellet (illustrated), igniting nuclear fusion that can release more energy than the lasers put in. LLNL A powerful pulse of laser light: Step toward fusion — Science News, September 29, 1973 One […]
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx has returned bits of the asteroid Bennu to Earth
Seven years is a long time to wait for your carrier service to deliver a package. That’s how long it’s been since NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft set off to gather rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu. But the package has now been safely delivered. On September 24, the spacecraft flew near Earth and dropped off […]
New JWST images suggest our understanding of the cosmos is flawed
The greatest puzzle in cosmology just got even more puzzling. Images from the James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed that the universe appears to be expanding significantly faster than it should be, researchers report in a study accepted in the Astrophysical Journal. The observation is in conflict with an esteemed theory, the standard model of […]
‘Polar ring’ galaxies might not be as rare as once thought
It’s big. It’s beautiful. It looks a bit like a sparkly, starry, slightly smooshed Eye of Sauron. It’s the galaxy NGC 4632, and new radio telescope images suggest that it sports a rare “polar ring” — a halo of mostly hydrogen gas tilted about 90 degrees from the plane of the galaxy’s disk. These spectacular […]
JWST’s hunt for distant galaxies keeps turning up surprises
When Brant Robertson saw a new measurement of the distance to a familiar galaxy, he laughed out loud. For more than a decade, the galaxy had been a contender for the most distant ever observed. In 2012, Robertson and colleagues used data from the Hubble Space Telescope to show that the galaxy’s light had shone […]
Astronomers call for renaming the Magellanic Clouds
Names have significance, especially when they’re written in the stars. A group of astronomers is coalescing around an idea to rename two neighbors of the Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Named after explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the satellite galaxies are visible with the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere. But Magellan’s name is […]
How drones are helping scientists find meteorites
Meteorites offer tantalizing clues about what the early solar system was like. But finding them is far from rocket science. Often, researchers simply fan out across a landscape and walk for hours while staring at the ground. Now, some scientists are turning to drones and machine learning to help spot freshly fallen meteorites much more […]
50 years ago, the quest for superheavy elements was just getting started
Searching for superheavies — Science News, September 8, 1973 Physicists and chemists have been actively searching for superheavy elements, substances with atomic weights and numbers greater than the 105 [elements] now known. Results of two searches are reported … none were found…. Future searches will have to involve direct fusion of heavy nuclei by driving […]
How to stop quantum computers from breaking the internet’s encryption
Keeping secrets is hard. Kids know it. Celebrities know it. National security experts know it, too. And it’s about to get even harder. There’s always someone who wants to get at the juicy details we’d rather keep hidden. Yet at every moment, untold volumes of private information are zipping along internet cables and optical fibers. […]
A laser gyroscope measured tiny variations in the lengths of days on Earth
Some days really are longer than others. And now scientists know by precisely how much. Using a laser gyroscope, scientists have measured variations in Earth’s rotation rate smaller than a millionth of a percent. The technique could help scientists understand the complex flows of water and air that cause the tiniest of tweaks to the […]