Supernova link to gamma-ray bursts
A supernova explosion marks the death of a certain type of star. During the evolution of these stars, nuclear reactions take place at their cores, creating light elements like hydrogen and helium. Hea...
The great atom race
Atoms move through the crystal lattice of a solid by a process called diffusion. The atoms migrate by swapping places with ‘point defects’ such as vacancies – empty spaces in the lat...
Read article: Liquid hydrogen turns superfluid
Liquid hydrogen turns superfluid
Superfluids are among the most peculiar and counterintuitive of all materials. They have no viscosity, which allows an object travelling in a pure superfluid to move without friction. Similarly, they ...
Read article: No space like home
No space like home
Space station commander Bill Shepherd (US), Soyuz commander Yuri Gidzenko and flight engineer Sergei Krikalev have trained for four years in both Russia and the US in preparation for the expedition, w...
Physicists discover new kind of radioactivity
Galindo-Uribarri and co-workers chose an isotope of neon with an energy structure that prevents it from emitting protons one at a time. This means that the two protons are certainly ejected simultaneo...
Southwood named as ESA’s new science chief
Southwood received his PhD from Imperial College, London, in 1966 and was appointed as lecturer in the physics department in 1971, where he rose to become head of department in 1984. He studied the pr...
Magnetic media: faster and smaller
Conventional magnetic recording works by changing the magnetisation states of different domains. An in-plane applied magnetic field takes a few nanoseconds to ‘switch’ the domain state. Bu...
Clouds gather on Titan
Titan’s atmosphere has much in common with our own: it consists mainly of nitrogen, contains organic material, and exerts a pressure one-and-a half times what we feel on Earth. But Titan receive...
Molecular fingerprints in sonoluminescence
Although researchers have proposed a wide variety of explanations for sonoluminescence, they are in broad agreement that the oscillating bubbles reach very high temperatures. Until now, however, singl...
Read article: ESA space missions: the next generation
ESA space missions: the next generation
The Bepi-Colombo mission will begin its trip to Mercury, the solar system’s innermost planet, in 2009. The spacecraft is expected to solve some long-standing puzzles about Mercury and provide in...
