Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Music-making and the flow of aerosols      (via sciencedaily.com) 

If simply breathing can spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus to others nearby, what about blowing into a tuba? Researchers used fluid mechanics to study the movement of aerosols generated by professional musicians.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Neutrino factories in deep outer space      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Highly energetic and difficult to detect, neutrinos travel billions of light years before reaching our planet. Although it is known that these elementary particles come from the depths of our Universe, their precise origin is still unknown. Researchers are now shedding light on one aspect of this mystery: neutrinos are thought to be born in blazars, galactic nuclei fed by supermassive black holes.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Eco-friendly sound absorbers from seaweed      (via sciencedaily.com) 

From airplanes to apartments, most spaces are now designed with sound-absorbing materials that help dampen the droning, echoing and murmuring sounds of everyday life. But most of the acoustic materials that can cancel out human voices, traffic and music are made from plastic foams that aren't easily recycled or degraded. Now, researchers have created a biodegradable seaweed-derived film that effectively absorbs sounds in this range.

Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

NASA Reveals Webb Telescope's first images of unseen universe      (via sciencedaily.com) 

NASA has revealed groundbreaking new views of the cosmos from the James Webb Space Telescope. The images include the deepest infrared view of our universe that has ever been taken.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Undead planets: The unusual conditions of the first exoplanet detection      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The first ever exoplanets were discovered 30 years ago around a rapidly rotating star, called a pulsar. Now, astronomers have revealed that these planets may be incredibly rare.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

The ultimate fate of a star shredded by a black hole      (via sciencedaily.com) 

In 2019, astronomers observed the nearest example to date of a star that was shredded, or 'spaghettified,' after approaching too close to a massive black hole. That tidal disruption of a sun-like star by a black hole 1 million times more massive than itself took place 215 million light years from Earth. Luckily, this was the first such event bright enough that astronomers could study the optical light from the stellar death, specifically the light's polarization, to learn more about what happened after the star was torn apart.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Scientists invent 'quantum flute' that can make particles of light move together      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Physicists have invented a 'quantum flute' that, like the Pied Piper, can coerce particles of light to move together in a way that's never been seen before.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Shedding new light on dark matter      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of physicists has developed a method for predicting the composition of dark matter -- invisible matter detected only by its gravitational pull on ordinary matter and whose discovery has been long sought by scientists.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

8000 kilometers per second: Star with the shortest orbital period around black hole discovered      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A newly discovered star only takes four years to travel around the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Hearing better with skin than ears      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A research team develops a sound-sensing skin-attachable acoustic sensor. The new sensor decreased in size and increased in flexibility and is applicable as auditory electronic skin.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Gemini North spies ultra-faint fossil galaxy discovered on outskirts of Andromeda      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An unusual ultra-faint dwarf galaxy has been discovered on the outer fringes of the Andromeda Galaxy thanks to the sharp eyes of an amateur astronomer. Follow-up by professional astronomers revealed that the dwarf galaxy -- Pegasus V -- contains very few heavier elements and is likely to be a fossil of the first galaxies.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Falling stardust, wobbly jets explain blinking gamma ray bursts      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astrophysicists have developed the first 3D simulation of the entire evolution of a jet -- from its birth by a rotating black hole to its emission far from the collapsing star. Simulation shows that as the star collapses, its material falls on the disk that swirls around the black hole. This falling material tilts the disk, and, in turn, tilts the jet, which wobbles as it struggles to return to its original trajectory. The wobbling jet explains the longstanding mystery of why gamma ray bursts blink and shows that these bursts are even rarer than previously thought.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Physicists confront the neutron lifetime puzzle      (via sciencedaily.com) 

To solve a long-standing puzzle about how long a neutron can 'live' outside an atomic nucleus, physicists entertained a wild but testable theory positing the existence of a right-handed version of our left-handed universe. They designed a mind-bending experiment to try to detect a particle that has been speculated but not spotted. If found, the theorized 'mirror neutron' -- a dark-matter twin to the neutron -- could explain a discrepancy between answers from two types of neutron lifetime experiments and provide the first observation of dark matter.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Long-term liquid water also on non-Earth-like planets?      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Liquid water is an important prerequisite for life to develop on a planet. As researchers report in a new study, liquid water could also exist for billions of years on planets that are very different from Earth. This calls our currently Earth-centred idea of potentially habitable planets into question.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Flicker from the dark: Reading between the lines to model our galaxy's central black hole      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have shown in a single model the full story of how gas travels in the center of the Milky Way -- from being blown off by stars to falling into the black hole.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Optical microphone sees sound like never before      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A camera system can see sound vibrations with such precision and detail that it can reconstruct the music of a single instrument in a band or orchestra. Even the most high-powered and directed microphones can't eliminate nearby sounds, ambient noise and the effect of acoustics when they capture audio. The novel system uses two cameras and a laser to sense high-speed, low-amplitude surface vibrations. These vibrations can be used to reconstruct sound, capturing isolated audio without inference or a microphone.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Martian meteorite upsets planet formation theory      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study of an old meteorite contradicts current thinking about how rocky planets like the Earth and Mars acquire volatile elements such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and noble gases as they form.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Dead star's cannibalism of its planetary system is most far-reaching ever witnessed      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The violent death throes of a nearby star so thoroughly disrupted its planetary system that the dead star left behind -- known as a white dwarf -- is sucking in debris from both the system's inner and outer reaches, astronomers report.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Astronomers find evidence for most powerful pulsar in distant galaxy      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers using data from the VLA Sky Survey have discovered one of the youngest known neutron stars -- possibly as young as only 14 years. The dense remnant of a supernova explosion was revealed when bright radio emission powered by the pulsar's powerful magnetic field emerged from behind a thick shell of debris from the explosion.

Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

NASA telescope to help untangle galaxy growth, dark matter makeup      (via sciencedaily.com) 

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study wispy streams of stars that extend far beyond the apparent edges of many galaxies. Missions like the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes would have to patch together hundreds of small images to see these structures around nearby galaxies in full. Roman will do so in a single snapshot. Astronomers will use these observations to explore how galaxies grow and the nature of dark matter.