ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

---

• Rare stellar alignment offers opportunity to hunt for planets
• Best ultraviolet maps of the nearest galaxies
• Dense hydrogen in a new light
• Solar system's Milky Way neighborhood gets more respect
• Path to compact, robust sources for ultrashort laser pulses
• Cosmic rays: Galactic knee and extragalactic ankle
• Cool electron acceleration: Electron pulses from laser accelerator
• Structure of videogames examimed
• Using cattails for insulation
• Lightest exoplanet to be directly observed so far? Faint object moves near bright star

Rare stellar alignment offers opportunity to hunt for planets Posted: 03 Jun 2013 03:32 PM PDT NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. The opportunities will occur in October 2014 and February 2016 when Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun, passes in front of two other stars.

Best ultraviolet maps of the nearest galaxies Posted: 03 Jun 2013 03:32 PM PDT Astronomers have used NASA's Swift satellite to create the most detailed ultraviolet light surveys ever of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two closest major galaxies.

Dense hydrogen in a new light Posted: 03 Jun 2013 01:42 PM PDT Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. The way it responds under extreme pressures and temperatures is crucial to our understanding of matter and the nature of hydrogen-rich planets. New work using intense infrared radiation shines new light on this fundamental material at extreme pressures and reveals the details of a surprising new form of solid hydrogen.

Solar system's Milky Way neighborhood gets more respect Posted: 03 Jun 2013 01:36 PM PDT Our Solar System's Milky Way neighborhood just went upscale. We reside between two major spiral arms of our home galaxy, in a structure called the Local Arm. New research indicates that the Local Arm, previously thought to be only a small spur, instead is much more like the adjacent major arms, and is likely a significant branch of one of them.

Path to compact, robust sources for ultrashort laser pulses Posted: 03 Jun 2013 10:53 AM PDT Laser researchers are challenging a basic assumption of engineering: "You can't have it all." They have shown that for applications in biomedical optics, material processing, and communications, a new approach could deliver desired capabilities with no problematic tradeoffs: In compact, inexpensive, efficient and long-lived lasers that produce ultrashort, high-energy light pulses. They present experimental results with pulses as short as 60 picoseconds and predict that this technique will allow practical subpicosecond devices.

Cosmic rays: Galactic knee and extragalactic ankle Posted: 03 Jun 2013 08:33 AM PDT A new experiment has yielded the important result that a characteristic bend in the energy spectrum of high-energy cosmic rays, also called "knee", is located at different energies for light and heavy primary particles. Astronomers have found that these cosmic radiation particles are accelerated in galaxies other than the Milky Way.

Cool electron acceleration: Electron pulses from laser accelerator Posted: 03 Jun 2013 08:33 AM PDT Physicists have produced electron pulses from a laser accelerator whose individual particles all have nearly the same tuneable energy.

Structure of videogames examimed Posted: 03 Jun 2013 06:24 AM PDT Researchers analyzed the content of videogames and their interaction with the player in depth. The study of this material shows the importance of this industry, which is experiencing exponential growth.

Using cattails for insulation Posted: 03 Jun 2013 06:17 AM PDT Cattails (Typha sp) have long been used for various purposes, like cleaning wastewater at sewage treatment plants, for detoxifying soils, as raw material for handcrafted wickerwork, as means of nutrition and, in traditional medicine, as a healing plant for various illnesses. Researchers now want to use this gift of nature as a building material – to wit, for the insulation of outer walls or reinforcement of plaster.

Lightest exoplanet to be directly observed so far? Faint object moves near bright star Posted: 03 Jun 2013 06:17 AM PDT A team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope has imaged a faint object moving near a bright star. With an estimated mass of four to five times that of Jupiter, it would be the least massive planet to be directly observed outside the Solar System. The discovery is an important contribution to our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Top Technology News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610