Physical Sciences

New Process Builds Electronic Function into Optical Fiber
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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SDSS-II images of a Type Ia supernova on the rise
Huge Star Cluster Discovered in Neighborhood of Milky Way
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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
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Fish
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