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...
Read article: ESA space missions: the next generation
“We know that cosmic radiation at aircraft altitudes is several orders of magnitude more intense than that experienced at ground level because there is less protection from our atmosphere”...
Heeger, MacDiarmid and Shirakawa made their breakthrough in the late 1970s, when they discovered that the electrical conductivity of a certain form of polyacetylene increased by a factor of ten millio...
In the late 1950s, Weber became intrigued by the relationship between gravitational theory and laboratory experiments. His book, General Relativity and Gravitational Radiation, was published in 1961, ...
Kroemer and Alferov share the prize for their work on semiconductor heterostructures – devices that contain thin layers of different semiconductors, usually based on gallium arsenide, stacked on...
During the rapid expansion of the universe after the big bang, the ‘outward’ kinetic energy of the explosion fought against the ‘inward’ gravitational pull of matter. The evolu...
Read article: Shadow cast on dark matter
In a photonic crystal the periodic variation of the dielectric constant results in a range of ‘forbidden’ frequencies called a photonic bandgap (PBG). Electromagnetic waves with a ‘f...
Many planets have been discovered outside our solar system, but they are usually detected by observing the wobble of the parent star induced by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet. Zapatero ...
Read article: ‘Floating planets’ challenge theorists
Superconducting magnets are a common tool in many physics and chemistry laboratories, and are used in a host of research applications, including solid-state physics, nuclear-magnetic-resonance chemist...
Read article: Superconductivity leaves the lab
Computer chips are made using a process called optical lithography, in which light traces out patterns on a photosensitive substrate covering the silicon. The problem for chipmakers who want to make e...
