Physics Buzz

The world as we perceive might not actually exist. It could just be a hologram. This statement sounds more like a thought you've had at 3 am than a scientific theory, but the existence of a holographic universe is more possible than you think. Some theoretical work shows that the universe could exist in a dimension lower than the one our minds perceive. The debate over what’s called “the holographic principle” has largely remained theoretical, but new research in Physical Review Letters shows how scientists can resolve this cosmological conundrum.

What can antique telescopes reveal about finding exoplanets? Originally published: Sep 19 2013 - 11:00am, Inside Science News Service By: Amanda Alvarez, ISNS Contributor (ISNS) -- A team of French researchers has shed light on an important moment of astronomical history by testing the old lenses used by astronomer Jean-Dominique Cassini when he observed a minuscule gap between two of Saturn's rings in 1675. Questions have lingered over whether it was possible to see this gap, which was later named the "Cassini Division," with the optics he had at his disposal. "I don't think I've ever been able to see the Cassini Division clearly with my own backyard telescope," said Laird Close, an astronomer at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory. The 3000-mile wide gap "is not a trivial thing to see." At its closest, Saturn is nearly 750 million miles from Earth. At this distance, the Cassini Division has an angular size of 0.65 sec

Deep in space, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has collected evidence that the massive explosion of stars long ago is responsible for the cosmic rays that bombard the surface of the Earth. Video Credit: NASA Cosmic rays are high-energy charged particles that zip through the universe. About 90 percent of cosmic rays are protons, the rest being electron and atomic nuclei — all shooting through the galaxy near the speed of light.

At the end of their lives, massive stars can rapidly collapse onto their core and explode within a matter of seconds. As matter and particles rush toward the star's center, they pack together extremely tightly until they hit the limits at which nuclear forces flex their muscles. This "bounce" against the nuclear forces leads to the massive explosion and shockwave whose remnants we can see with telescopes. During the bounce, there's some strange physics going on that remains to be fully understood. Many scientists believe that the collapsing nuclei, protons, and neutrons from the star form strange formations during the bounce: nuclear pasta. The particles form spaghetti, meatballs, and lasagna density formations. Now, physicists can add a new pasta combination to the mix thanks to new research. Stellini pasta image courtesy add1sun via flickr .

The astrophysicists behind the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) have an ambitious goal: Pinpoint roughly 1.5 million galaxies from the past 6 billion years and over one hundred thousand quasars stretching back to the universe's infancy 12 billion years ago. They're about one third of the way there. With the latest data released yesterday, the team has composed a 3-d map of hundreds of thousands of galaxies and stars surveyed thus far. Additionally, the researchers have unveiled a teaser video , seen below, that allows you to drift through a cosmic sea. Aside from providing a breathtaking view of our cosmic surroundings, BOSS scientists are discovering more about the dark energy and matter that comprise 96 percent of our universe. Additionally, the survey should reveal more details about our universe's expansion. Mapping this huge chunk of the universe, while aesthetically pleasing, was motivated by scientific necessity. Artifacts from the early univers

Physical beauty may lie in the eye of the beholder, but astronomers seem to have a different concept of beauty. Results for the 5th Interferometric Imaging Beauty Contest were announced earlier this summer and detailed in a paper posted to the arXiv yesterday. What kind of beauty contest is this, you ask? Think less swimsuit modeling and more supergiant stars for starters. Simulating a technique known as interferometry (more on that later), the organizers tested astronomers on their ability to turn raw data into pictures. Using their choice of astronomical software, competitors had to create the most beautiful reconstruction of two test images. The contestant who created the best match to the original "truth" image won the beauty contest. Now we can reduce beauty to a standard, quantifiable measure: calculating pixel-to-pixel differences. Stargazing truly is romantic. Image Courtesy ESO/J. Girard

Since the advent of radio and television broadcasts, humans have been sending chatter deep into the cosmos, ranging from Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast to the latest Jersey Shore masterpiece. But is anyone out there listening? No one has a definitive answer to that question, but a team of researchers has unraveled what kinds of signals that aliens are most likely to see (we can only hope that Jersey Shore flies under their radar). Additionally, relatively close alien eavesdroppers could detect our signals with a radio telescope as big as one soon to be built on Earth, according to the team's paper on the ArXiv. Ironically, aliens are more likely to see our accidental signals from TV, radio and radar than our intentional, direct messages. So why do these accidental signals survive, and what sort of message, if anything, should we be sending into the unknown? The Arecibo Observatory, where messages to alien worlds have been sent in the past.

Amateur scientists find niche in locating new planets. The field of view for the Kepler spacecraft, which is collecting data for the search for exoplanets.Image Credit: Carter Roberts By Brian Jacobsmeyer, ISNS Contributor (ISNS) -- Over the past decade, scientists have found evidence of hundreds of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. A group of volunteers has also joined the search, and they have found several additional planets that initially fell through the cracks.