Science | WPN World People News

Astronomers using ALMA and the VLT have discovered that both starburst galaxies in the early Universe and a star-forming region in a nearby galaxy contain a much higher proportion of massive stars than is found in more peaceful galaxies. These findings challenge current ideas about how galaxies evolved, changing our understanding of cosmic star-formation history and the build up of chemical elements.

Glowing brightly about 160 000 light-years away, the Tarantula Nebula is the most spectacular feature of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. The VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile has imaged this region and its rich surroundings in exquisite detail. It reveals a cosmic landscape of star clusters, glowing gas clouds and the scattered remains of supernova explosions. This is the sharpest image ever of this entire field.

The Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with NASA's Mars 2020 rover, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet.

The Cold Atom Lab (CAL) is a new facility that will create a spot ten billion times colder than the vacuum of space, and could help us answer some big questions in modern physics.

Astronomers have used observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to determine that star formation in the very distant galaxy MACS1149-JD1 started at an unexpectedly early stage, only 250 million years after the Big Bang. This discovery also represents the most distant oxygen ever detected in the Universe and the most distant galaxy ever observed by ALMA or the VLT.

(a) Video still showing a tightly focused laser beam making contact with the thermocouple. (b) Graph showing the thermocouple's response over time to different laser powers (3.6 and 1.8 mW) at different repetition rates, on glass and on the silicon nitride membrane (ΔT: change in temperature, τ: time for temperature rise and decay).

Quantum systems can exist in many possible states, here illustrated by groups of spins, each pointing along a certain direction. Thermalization occurs when a system evenly explores all allowed configurations. Instead, when a "quantum scar" forms (as shown in the figure), some configurations emerge as special. This feature allows scarred systems to sustain memory of the initial state despite thermalization.

An international team of astronomers has used ESO telescopes to investigate a relic of the primordial Solar System. The team found that the unusual Kuiper Belt Object 2004 EW95 is a carbon-rich asteroid, the first of its kind to be confirmed in the cold outer reaches of the Solar System. This curious object likely formed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has been flung billions of kilometres from its origin to its current home in the Kuiper Belt.

The colorized electron microscope image shows the gallium nitride towers of the artificial photosynthesis device at 52.5k magnification. These nanostructures rip water molecules apart into hydrogen and oxygen to produce clean hydrogen fuel.

A new mix-and-match toolkit allows researchers to create a library of complex nanoparticles that could be used in medical, energy, and electronic applications. First-generation (G-1) spheres, rods, and plates transform into 47 increasingly sophisticated higher-generation (G-2, G-3, G-4) particles through sequences of chemical reactions. In the image, each color represents a distinct type of material, and electron microscope images are shown for several types of particles.