Physics Buzz

Two separate discoveries this week show how spectacular the weather can be on other planets in our solar system. First, a paper from Nature Geoscience explains a mechanism that can create snowstorms on Mars. A separate paper from Nature Astronomy discusses how diamonds can rain down on giant icy planets such as Neptune and Uranus.

As the Flint water crisis so vividly highlights, those of us lucky enough to live in places with clean tap water often take it for granted. The problem is that when something goes awry, it’s usually discovered after people have already started getting sick. Even without criminal negligence and cover-ups, like those in the Flint crisis, contaminated water can have devastating consequences.

It's almost here...the first total solar eclipse to grace the mainland US in close to 40 years! While this is a big one for the USA— visible as a total solar eclipse in 16% of the country  and as a partial eclipse everywhere else—we know that not everyone is going to be able to make it to the path of totality. Even for those of us who've traveled to see this astronomical phenomenon in its full glory, chancy weather and the threat of clouds mean that nothing is a guarantee. To that end, the Physics Buzz team is deployed across the country to bring you coverage of totality—from our home base's (College Park, MD) Eclipse at the Ellipse event to the relative wilderness of Idaho Falls, selected for its relatively low incidence of cloud cover this time of year. Because of course we were nerds about this. Image Credit:   eclipse2017.org That means that our readers on the east coast will hopefully get a preview of the eclipse, roughly an hour and a half before it comes

Greyson wrote in this week to ask: What would happen if you put a metal object in between the earth and a magnet that had the same pull as gravity?

The 2017 total solar eclipse is almost upon us, and we’re sure you’ve been hearing a lot about it over the past few weeks (including our eclipse posts Part I and Part II ). Whether it’s your first solar eclipse or one of many you’ve witnessed, the event promises to be a show-stopper—weather permitting, of course.

If you want to see a stunning demonstration of nature colliding with modern technology, do a simple image search for lighting strikes a power line . A chance strike can wreak havoc on the daily lives of those nearby and on the wallets of those responsible for restoring power. Most of us lucky enough to live with stable electric grids take for granted the traffic lights, internet connections, refrigerators, air conditioning, lights, coffee makers, and credit card readers that are essential to our way of life. A major interruption to the grid is a serious and often dangerous issue.

Are you ready? We* are just one week away from a total solar eclipse, an event NASA calls “one of nature’s most awe inspiring sights.” Considering all of the inspiring sights NASA has unveiled over the years, that’s saying a lot! The total solar eclipse will be visible from a narrow band of the United States stretching from coast to coast on August 21. Weather permitting, everyone in the United States (including Hawaii and Alaska) along with people in regions of South America, Africa, and Europe will have the opportunity to see at a least partial solar eclipse. For more on logistics and geography, check out The Great American Eclipse, Part I .

The particles in your body, the device you’re reading this on and everything else around you once swam in a primordial soup that existed just after the universe came into being. This bizarre fluid is the hottest, densest and freest-flowing substance ever known to exist. And the physicists who recreated it believe it can claim a new record: fastest-spinning.

From the gecko’s sticky feet to the sophisticated sniffing ability of dogs , nature often provides inspiration for new materials and technologies. Recently, nature has inspired something that could help many people see life a little more clearly; in research recently published in the journal Scientific Reports , researchers from the University of Oregon show that fractal-inspired retinal implants could be the first viable approach to helping people with retinal diseases regain sight to the point where they can navigate without assistance.

Not too long ago, I had an internet run-in with a "flat Earth" type who hit me with an argument I'd never heard before: the sun, they insisted, is actually only a few hundred miles from Earth, as can be proven with some simple mathematical analysis of sunbeams. By measuring the apparent angle between sunbeams striking the opposite sides of a valley that they knew the width of, they could trace back and use geometry to calculate how far away the source must be! I want to share this little anecdote because it's a great reminder of how important a diverse and well-rounded education is: someone with training in visual arts would never have missed the error that this person made.

Under some conditions, quantum fluctuations of light can put real, physical pressure on an object. In new research that came out just yesterday in the journal Physical Review Letters , a team of scientists from the RIKEN research institute in Japan show that it’s theoretically possible to “see” and study the virtual photons that make up these quantum fluctuations.

Summer may be winding down for those readers in the United States, but don’t despair—there is at least one fantastic reason to be excited about August. THE SOLAR ECLIPSE IS COMING!

Imagine hefting a liter of water in your hands. That's a kilogram of weight. Divide that by a billion, and you've got a quantity called a microgram—a thousandth of a single milligram. Divide that  amount by a billion, and you've got a femtogram —which it's almost impossible to get an intuitive sense for. But divide by a billion yet again , you've got roughly the mass of a single proton—and that's what scientists have measured with unprecedented precision in a surprising new experiment at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

When you know the laws of the universe, many things become predictable—the next full moon, the trajectory of a bullet, and even the fate of the Earth. Physics can be an excellent tool for predicting how objects behave under certain conditions. It turns out that physics may also be a valuable tool for predicting where dialects emerge, according to research published this week in the American Physical Society journal Physical Review X .

A vacuum is a space absolutely devoid of matter, at least according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. But if you talk to a physicist you may get a different answer. According to quantum physics, even vacuums are not completely empty. Constant fluctuations in energy can spontaneously create mass not just out of thin air, but out of absolutely nothing at all.

Graphene is one of the lightest, strongest, and highest-conductivity materials in existence. Since it was introduced to the world in 2004 , many scientists have focused on understanding and harnessing the incredible potential of this two-dimensional form of carbon—but the discovery of graphene also kicked off a search for similar forms of other elements, in hopes that they might have unique and valuable properties as well.

Stellar nurseries, the birthplace of new stars, are not as cozy and color-coordinated as Pinterest nurseries. Stellar nurseries feature dust and gas rather than lovable characters and perfect shades of blue or pink—cold expanses rather than cozy nooks. As scientists have pieced together the story of how stars form, a model has emerged that highlights the role of a strong magnetic field. However, research recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters reveals that stellar nurseries may have environments that are much more varied and complex than previously thought. This information could help us better understand how stars like our sun form.

Nothing, not even light, can come out of a black hole. At least, that’s the conventional wisdom, and it’s certainly true that—once the event horizon is crossed—there’s no going back. But for rotating black holes, there’s a region outside the event horizon where strange and extraordinary things can happen, and these extraordinary possibilities are the focus of a new paper in the American Physical Society journal Physical Review Letters .

Materials science is one field where structure makes all the difference in the world. Take carbon, for example—it has two crystalline forms, one of which is soft enough that it can be crumbled with your fingers, while the other is the hardest substance found in nature. The component atoms are identical, but the arrangement of those atoms determines whether they make common graphite or a sparkling diamond.

O Time, thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a knot for me t' untie.  -Viola in Twelfth Night  by William Shakespeare The knot Viola speaks of in Twelfth Night is a complex love triangle. Knots are often used to symbolize complicated situations, in addition to anxiety and lasting commitments. Like Viola, when most of us think about knots our focus is on how tightly they are tied. For the scientists who study them however, knots are much more—they represent a unique approach to understanding the universe.