Physical Sciences

New Process Builds Electronic Function into Optical Fiber
Credit: Neil Baril, Penn State This photo shows a glass fiber with a bundle of semiconductor wires emanating from it. Each wire is just 2 microns in diameter — 20 times smaller than a human hair. The glass fiber is glowing from blue laser light.
Scientists Piece Together the Most Distant Cosmic Explosion
Image credit: Dr. Neil Gehrels Figure above: Shows the counting rate in the gamma-ray instrument on Swift for two gamma-ray bursts. The top panel is for the high redshift burst observed on September 4, 2005 (GRB 050904). The bottom panel shows a typical burst for comparison; it is the one Swift detected on March 26, 2005 (GRB 050326). GRB 050904 is fainter and much longer than typical.
Swift Satellite Detects Unusual Cosmic Explosion
The collapsing star scenario that is one of the leading contenders as the cause of gamma-ray bursts. Dr. Stan Woosley of the University of California at Santa Cruz proposed the collapsar theory in 1993. This artist's concept of the collapsar model shows the center of a dying star collapsing minutes before the star implodes and emits a gamma-ray burst that is seen across the universe. Credit: NASA/Dana Berry
Deep X-ray Surveys Reveal Black Hole Population, Glimpse at the Universe
Planet Discovered by a New Detection Technique
An artist’s rendition shows a planet orbiting a very young, active star pocked with dark star spots and speckled with flares and other surface activity.
New Method Developed for Exploring Frustrated Systems
This magnetic-force microscope image shows the magnetic moments of artificial spin ice. The peaks and valleys show the orientations of the magnetic moments. Credit: William McConville and Ruifang Wang, Penn State
Cosmic Jet Looks Like Giant Tornado in Space
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed an object that looks like a giant tornado in space. The helical structure actually results from shock waves where a powerful protostellar jet hits neighboring gas and dust. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / J. Bally (University of Colorado)
Supernova Survey Explodes with New Findings
SDSS-II images of a Type Ia supernova on the rise
Huge Star Cluster Discovered in Neighborhood of Milky Way
The figure, a map by Mario Juric of Princeton University, shows the counts of faint blue stars selected from a narrow magnitude and color range and corresponding to a distance from Earth of about 10 kpc. Credit: M. Juric/SDSS-II Collaboration
Unified Physics Theory Explains Animals' Running, Flying, Swimming
Fish
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