Our Amazing Planet: Top To Bottom New kind of light created in physics breakthrough Physicists have created a new kind of light by chilling photons into a blob state. Just like solids, liquids and gases, this recently discovered condition represents a state of matter. Called a Bose-Einstein condensate, it was created in 1995 with super-cold atoms of a gas, but scientists had thought it could not be done with photons, which are basic units of light. However, physicists Jan Klärs, Julian Schmitt, Frank Vewinger and Martin Weitz of the University of Bonn in Germany reported accomplishing it. Particles in a traditional Bose-Einstein condensate are cooled down close to absolute zero, until they glom onto each other and become indistinguishable, acting as one giant particle. The scientists needed to find a way to cool the photons without decreasing their numbers. "Many scientists believed that it would not be possible, but I was pretty sure that it would work," Weitz told LiveScience. The mirrors trapped the photons by keeping them bouncing back and forth in a confined state.
Timeline of the Universe | Future | Timeline The hypernova of Eta Carinae is affecting our region of the galaxy Eta Carinae is among the largest, most volatile stars in our galaxy. Its temperature is so high that it is unable to hold onto its own gas, with constant streams being ejected from the surface. It first came to attention in 1843 when it flared to magnitude -0.8, becoming the second brightest star in the night sky. It subsequently died down, before brightening again in the late 1990s. This fluctuation continues – with periodic flaring and dimming – until one day the inevitable happens. For a brief period, this colossal explosion outshines the entire galaxy. Of much greater concern, however, are the lethal jets of gamma radiation released by the dying star. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Dana Berry Our Sun is exiting the Local Interstellar Cloud By 12,000 AD, our Sun has exited the Local Interstellar Cloud and is heading towards the neighbouring G-Cloud, which contains the stars Alpha Centauri, Proxima Centauri and Altair Click to enlarge
Brief Answers to Cosmic Questions Structure of the Universe Does the Universe have an edge, beyond which there is nothing? Are the galaxies arranged on the surface of a sphere? Why can't we see the whole universe? Evolution of the Universe Did the Universe expand from a point? More about the Big Bang When they say "the universe is expanding," what exactly is expanding? Structure of the Universe Does the Universe have an edge, beyond which there is nothing? Are the galaxies arranged on the surface of a sphere? Why can't we see the whole universe? If you could suddenly freeze time everywhere in the universe, and magically survey all of creation, you would find galaxies extending out far beyond what we can see today. Does the term "universe" refer to space, or to the matter in it, or to both? Today, the situation is reversed. Discovering the properties of space remains one of the deepest and most important problems in modern science. Evolution of the Universe Did the Universe expand from a point? More about the Big Bang
Scientists Discover The Oldest, Largest Body Of Water In Existence--In Space Scientists have found the biggest and oldest reservoir of water ever--so large and so old, it’s almost impossible to describe. The water is out in space, a place we used to think of as desolate and desert dry, but it's turning out to be pretty lush. Researchers found a lake of water so large that it could provide each person on Earth an entire planet’s worth of water--20,000 times over. Yes, so much water out there in space that it could supply each one of us all the water on Earth--Niagara Falls, the Pacific Ocean, the polar ice caps, the puddle in the bottom of the canoe you forgot to flip over--20,000 times over. The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy (such an active black hole is called a quasar), and the waves of energy the black hole releases make water by literally knocking hydrogen and oxygen atoms together. The new cloud of water is enough to supply 28 galaxies with water.