Physical Sciences

Two discoveries by international collaborations involving Penn State scientists make list of Physics World Top Ten Breakthroughs of 2017
Physics World Top 10 logo. Credit: Physics World.
Squire Booker named Eberly Family Distinguished Chair in Science
Hilary Dellapenta to receive the Gerald Wendt Award for Excellence in Support of Research and Graduate Programs
Experiment Near South Pole Reveals How Earth Blocks High-Energy Particles Produced by Nuclear Reactions
This image shows a visual representation of one of the highest-energy neutrino detections superimposed on a view of the IceCube Lab near the South Pole. Credit: IceCube Collaboration
New quest to map stars and galaxies across the entire sky
This artist's impression shows a cutaway view of the parts of the Universe that SDSS-V will study. SDSS-V will study millions of stars to create a map of the entire Milky Way...and way far beyond. Credit: Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science/SDSS
Sky-high observatory sheds light on origin of excess anti-matter: New study excludes nearby pulsars, points to dark matter as possible culprit
High-energy photon emission around the pulsars Geminga and PSR B0656+14, as captured by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory. Credit: High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Collaboration (moon image Gregory H. Revera)
Astronomers discover sunscreen snow falling on hot exoplanet
Giant Exoplanet Dwarfs Solar System Family. This is an artist's impression of the gas giant planet Kepler-13Ab as compared in size to several planets in our solar system. The behemoth exoplanet is six times more massive than Jupiter. Kepler-13Ab is also one of the hottest known planets, with a dayside temperature of nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It orbits very close to the star Kepler-13A, which is 1,730 light-years from Earth. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)
Two-dimensional materials gets a new theory for control of properties
A grain boundary forms when graphene growth advances past an apex on a conical bump, where the curvature resembles that on a sphere; it terminates at the foot of the bump, where curvature is saddle-like. Credit: Crespi Lab / Penn State
Renewable resource: sulfur is used, replenished to produce lipoic acid
Model of the crystal structure of the lipoyl synthase enzyme (LipA) from the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis revealing the destruction of one of its iron-sulfur clusters (orange and yellow balls) to use as a sulfur source for the production of lipoic acid. New research demonstrates that the iron-sulfur cluster that is destroyed during the production of lipoic acid is replaced by an iron-sulfur carrier protein, NfuA, so that LipA can continue to produce lipoic acid. Credit: Booker laboratory, Penn State
Rechtsman awarded 2017 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering
Mikael Rechtsman
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