Lifeboat Foundation

“Of all currently known temperate exoplanets, LHS 1,140 b could well be our best bet to one day indirectly confirm liquid water on the surface of an alien world beyond our Solar System,” said Charles Cadieux.

The search for Earth’s twin just got a little closer as astronomers recently presented findings regarding a potential icy or watery “super-Earth” called LHS 1,140 b, which is located approximately 49 light-years from Earth and whose radius is approximately 1.7 times our planet, along with orbiting within its star’s habitable zone. What makes this finding unique is LHS 1,140 b was previously hypothesized to be a mini-Neptune and astronomers speculate could be completely covered in either ice or water.

The findings were recently accepted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and hold the potential to help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanets, and specifically Earth-sized exoplanets within their star’s habitable zone.

Continue reading “LHS 1140 b: From Mini-Neptune to Potential Water World” »

For decades now, scientists have argued about how the universe is shaped, in the sense of complex parameters that govern the rules of space and time. Is it a simple open expanse, like a bigger version of the spaces we’re used to? Does it wrap around on itself like a donut? Or something even stranger?

Now, new research published in the journal Physical Review Letters, in the inaugural paper from a new consortium of cosmologists known as the COMPACT Collaboration, found that the “topology” of the universe — the shape of its geometry, basically — is likely anything but simple.

The researchers looked at the universe’s cosmic microwave background, which is basically the inherent “glow” of space, dating back to ancient radiation at the dawn of time.

Using the CARMENES spectrograph, astronomers have found evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of a hot Saturn exoplanet designated HD 149,026 b, dubbed Smertrios. The finding, reported in a research paper published on the preprint server arXiv, could be key to a better understanding of the structure and formation scenario of this alien world.

Smertrios is a metal-rich hot Saturn orbiting HD 149026—a yellow subgiant star of spectral type G0 IV, at a distance of some 248.5 light years. The planet has a radius of about 0.81 Jupiter radii and is approximately three times less massive than Jupiter. Previous observations have found that Smertrios orbits its host every 2.876 days, about 0.043 AU from it. The planet’s equilibrium temperature is estimated to be 1,693 K.

The team of astronomers led by Sayyed A. Rafi of the University of Tokyo in Japan employed CARMENES at the Calar-Alto Observatory to conduct high-resolution cross-correlation spectroscopy of Smertrios. Their main aim was to get more insights into the composition of this exoplanet’s atmosphere.

A crystal is an arrangement of atoms that repeats itself in space, in regular intervals: At every point, the crystal looks exactly the same. In 2012, Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek raised the question: Could there also be a time crystal—an object that repeats itself not in space but in time? And could it be possible that a periodic rhythm emerges, even though no specific rhythm is imposed on the system and the interaction between the particles is completely independent of time?

For years, Frank Wilczek’s idea has caused much controversy. Some considered time crystals to be impossible in principle, while others tried to find loopholes and realize time crystals under certain special conditions.

Now, a particularly spectacular kind of time crystal has successfully been created at Tsinghua University in China, with the support from TU Wien in Austria.

Researchers used supercomputers to create nearly 4 million simulated images depicting the cosmos.

Researchers are diving into a synthetic universe to help us better understand the real one. Using supercomputers at the U.S. DOE’s (Department of Energy’s) Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, scientists have created nearly 4 million simulated images depicting the cosmos as NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by NSF (the National Science Foundation) and DOE, in Chile will see it.

Michael Troxel, an associate professor of physics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, led the simulation campaign as part of a broader project called OpenUniverse. The team is now releasing a 10-terabyte subset of this data, with the remaining 390 terabytes to follow this fall once they’ve been processed.

A levitating microparticle is observed to recoil when a nucleus embedded in the particle decays—opening the door to future searches of invisible decay products.

For centuries, physicists have exploited momentum conservation as a powerful means to analyze dynamical processes, from billiard-ball collisions to galaxy formation to subatomic particle creation in accelerators. David Moore and his research team at Yale University have now put this approach to work in a new setting: they used momentum conservation to determine when a radioactive atom emitted a single helium nucleus, known as an alpha particle (Fig. 1) [1]. The demonstration suggests that—with further improvements—researchers might be able to use this technique to detect other nuclear-decay products, such as neutrinos and hypothetical dark-matter particles (see also Special Feature: Sensing a Nuclear Kick on a Speck of Dust).

The basic idea is simple: if the radioactive atom is embedded in a larger object, then an outgoing decay product will exert a backreaction on that object, causing it to recoil in the opposite direction. But is it really possible to detect the recoil kick from a particle as small as a helium nucleus? The answer lies in how precisely we can measure the larger object’s momentum. One of the main limitations is friction: if the larger object is slowed down by frictional forces, then its motion won’t reflect the impulse from the decaying particle.

WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected the startup Scout Space to participate in the BRIDGES (Bringing Classified Innovation to Defense and Government Systems) consortium.

BRIDGES, launched by DARPA in 2023, aims to connect innovative small companies and nontraditional defense contractors with classified Department of Defense research and development efforts. The initiative seeks to bridge the gap between cutting-edge commercial technologies and classified defense needs, particularly in areas considered critical to maintaining U.S. military superiority.

Scout Space, based in Reston, Virginia, develops satellite flight software and space domain awareness sensors. The company announced July 8 it was selected by DARPA for its proposal outlining an approach to “advancing autonomous in-space threat response.”

TAMPA, Fla. — Mandala Space Ventures, a Californian venture studio and incubator, announced July 8 the nine United Kingdom-based startups participating in its UK Space Agency-funded accelerator program this fall.

The eight-week virtual course starts Sept. 3 and culminates with an in-person investor pitch day at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California.

The SoCal-UK Space Accelerator creates a “transatlantic portal for great ideas from the U.K.,” said Mandala founder and CEO Leon Alkalai, helping prepare them for venture capital and access to the U.S. market.

Mind-blowing experiments are bringing ancient cosmic conditions into modern labs.