Our laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics. But maths itself is only as dependable as the axioms it is built on, and we have to assume those axioms are true.
The world of the very, very small is a wonderland of strangeness. Molecules, atoms, and their constituent particles did not readily reveal their secrets to the scientists that wrestled with the physics of atoms in the early 20th century. Drama, frustration, anger, puzzlement, and nervous breakdowns abounded, and it is hard for us now, a full century later, to understand what was at stake. What happened was a continuous process of worldview demolition. You might have to give up believing everything you thought to be true about something. In the case of the quantum physics pioneers, that meant changing their understanding about the rules that dictate how matter behaves.
In 1913, Bohr devised a model for the atom that looked somewhat like a solar system in miniature. Electrons moved around the atomic nucleus in circular orbits. Bohr added a few twists to his model — twists that gave them a set of weird and mysterious properties. The twists were necessary for Bohr’s model to have explanatory power — that is, for it to be able to describe the results of experimental measurements. For example, electrons’ orbits were fixed like railroad tracks around the nucleus. The electron could not be in between orbits, otherwise it could fall into the nucleus. Once it got to the lowest rung in the orbital ladder, an electron stayed there unless it jumped to a higher orbit.
Clarity about why this happened started to come with de Broglie’s idea that electrons can be seen both as particles and waves. This wave-particle duality of light and matter was startling, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle gave it precision. The more precisely you localize the particle, the less precisely you know how fast it moves. Heisenberg had his own theory of quantum mechanics, a complex device to compute the possible outcomes of experiments. It was beautiful but extremely hard to calculate things with.
NASA and Roscosmos are adjusting the International Space Station (ISS) flight plan after completing an investigation into a coolant leak on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked to the station.
NASA hosted a joint media briefing on Wednesday, January 11, about the Roscosmos-led investigation to update the public on the Soyuz status and the forward strategy.
As a part of the work, Roscosmos engineers determined the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft is not viable for a normal crew return, but is available for crew return in an emergency aboard the space station. The Soyuz MS-22 will be replaced by the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft that will launch to the space station without a crew on Monday, February 20. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will return to Earth in the replacement Soyuz after spending several additional months on the station.
An international team of scientists have successfully mapped the magnetic field of our galaxy, the Milky Way, using telescopes that observe the sky in the microwave range. The new research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The team used the QUIJOTE (Q-U-I JOint TEnerife) Collaboration, sited at the Teide Observatory on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This comprises two 2.5 m diameter telescopes, which observe the sky in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the mapping began in 2012. Almost a decade later, the Collaboration has presented a series of 6 scientific articles, giving the most accurate description to date of the polarization of the emission of the Milky Way at microwave wavelengths. Polarization is a property of transverse waves such as light waves that specifies the direction of the oscillations of the waves and signifies the presence of a magnetic field.
A comet zooming towards the inner solar system could soon be visible to the naked eye if current astronomical predictions turn out to be true.
C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF)—an astronomical survey conducted by the Palomar Observatory in California—on March 2, 2022.
Comets are astronomical objects made up of frozen gases, dust and rock that orbit the sun. Sometimes referred to as cosmic snowballs, these objects are blasted with increasing amounts of radiation as they approach our star releasing gases and debris.
The US space agency selected 14 projects that are focused on “making the impossible possible”.
Part of the value of space exploration comes from the fact it will open new frontiers to science that we don’t yet know exist.
Continue reading “NASA considers Titan hybrid aircraft mission and other visionary space concepts” »
Year 2022 Basically this can create diamonds from trash.
Laser compression of PET plastics mimics the chemistry inside Uranus and may offer a way to simply produce nanodiamonds.
The new observations using ALMA’s Band 6 (1.3mm wavelength) receiver— developed by the U.S. National Science Foundation‘s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)— allowed scientists to zoom into three key regions in extreme detail, and for the first time, build a clear picture of how the hydrogen gas is moving and being shaped on a continuous basis.
“The power of ALMA is obvious in these observations, providing astronomers new insights and better understanding of these previously unknown processes,” said Joe Pesce, Program Officer for ALMA at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).
NASA’s new JWST space telescope has revealed some cosmic surprises, including galaxies that might have assembled earlier than previously thought.
