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Category: space

Simulations show a path to ‘ideal glass’ with crystal-like entropy

The types of glass that we encounter in everyday life, such as window glass or smartphone screens, are disordered solids. This means that they consist of particles locked in place, like those in solids, but arranged randomly, similarly to how they would be in a liquid.

Almost a century ago, Walter Kauzmann, who was a chemistry professor at Princeton University at the time, was confronted with the possible existence of a so-called ideal glass, an amorphous system with the entropy of a crystal. This is a glass in which particles are still arranged randomly, but the particles fill space so efficiently that there is only one possible arrangement, as opposed to the many disordered arrangements of conventional glass.

Kauzmann’s theoretical proposals inspired numerous other physicists to explore the idea of this perfectly equilibrated glass. Previous studies suggested that this elusive state could not be reached using conventional cooling processes.

Rydberg atoms detect clear signals from a handheld radio

For the first time, a team of US researchers has used sensors containing highly excited Rydberg atoms to detect signals from an ordinary handheld radio. Through a careful approach to demodulating the incoming signals, Noah Schlossberger and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were able to recover audio encoded in multiple public radio channels, with promising implications for everyday uses in consumer electronics. The research has been published in Physical Review Applied.

In a Rydberg atom, a single electron is excited to an extremely high energy level, pushing it far from its host atom’s nucleus. From a distance, these atoms resemble a single electron orbiting a positively charged ion.

When any atom is exposed to an external electric field, the positions of its electrons’ energy levels shift through a process called the Stark effect. Yet in a Rydberg atom, the shift becomes far more pronounced, causing particularly striking changes in the spectral patterns produced when the atom is probed by a laser.

Why Does This Galaxy Have Tentacles? Deep Space Mystery Stuns Astronomers

A newly discovered jellyfish galaxy, seen as it existed 8.5 billion years ago, is challenging assumptions about conditions in the early universe. Astrophysicists at the University of Waterloo have identified a newly discovered jellyfish galaxy that is now the most distant example of its kind ever

Biology, not physics, holds the key to reality

Three centuries after Newton described the universe through fixed laws and deterministic equations, science may be entering an entirely new phase.

According to biochemist and complex systems theorist Stuart Kauffman and computer scientist Andrea Roli, the biosphere is not a predictable, clockwork system. Instead, it is a self-organising, ever-evolving web of life that cannot be fully captured by mathematical models.

Organisms reshape their environments in ways that are fundamentally unpredictable. These processes, Kauffman and Roli argue, take place in what they call a “Domain of No Laws.”

This challenges the very foundation of scientific thought. Reality, they suggest, may not be governed by universal laws at all—and it is biology, not physics, that could hold the answers.

Tap here to read more.

THE ARTEMIS TRAP — Why We’re Designing for Failure

NASA’s Lunar program is destined to fail if BIG changes aren’t made fast. Especially the plans for Artemis II to land humans on the moon.

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Mars volcano formed through multiple eruptive phases

“Our results show that even during Mars’ most recent volcanic period, magma systems beneath the surface remained active and complex,” said Dr. Bartosz Pieterek. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30240/mars-volcano-f…e-phases-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30240/mars-volcano-f…e-phases-2)

How did young volcanoes on Mars form? This is what a recent study published in the journal Geology hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the complex geological processes responsible for forming the first volcanoes on Mars. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the recent environment on Mars over the last several million years and what this could mean for finding signs of life on the Red Planet.

For the study, the researchers used a combination of mapping and orbital data to analyze the mineralogical and geological volcanic features near one of Mars’ largest volcanoes, Pavonis Mons. The goal of the study was to ascertain the eruption history of these volcanoes, specifically whether they formed from single, short-lived eruptions or perhaps something that lasted longer and was more complex. In the end, the researchers found that the processes involved in forming the volcanoes were far more complex than previously thought. Specifically, the interior volcanic activity consisted of several magma chambers that grew and developed over time, resulting in multiple eruption events and several types of minerals that erupted onto the surface over several eruption cycles.

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