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Category: physics – Page 220

Astronomers take best pictures of Kleopatra’s ‘portrait’

The huge “dog-boned” asteroid hurling through the solar system has now been imaged in unprecedented detail.

A team of astronomers has seemingly obtained the best pictures and data to date of the peculiar asteroid, Kleopatra. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), observers from the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France, captured images to help two teams of scientists answer some interesting questions.

“Kleopatra is truly a unique body in our Solar System,” says Franck Marchis, who led a study on the asteroid published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. “Science makes a lot of progress thanks to the study of weird outliers. I think Kleopatra is one of those and understanding this complex, multiple asteroid system can help us learn more about our Solar System.”

The asteroid, which orbits in the central region of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, was initially discovered on April 10 1880. However, it wasn’t until just 20 years ago that radar observations revealed it had two lobes which were connected by a thick “neck.” In 2,008 Marchis and his colleagues discovered that the asteroid was orbited by two moons, named AlexHelios and CleoSelene, after the Egyptian queen’s children.

Optical Antennas Promise ‘Unlimited’ Data Capacity

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have outlined details of an optical antenna they claim could provide almost limitless bandwidth.

They suggest the key to the breakthrough is a method of being able to take full advantage of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) properties of a coherent light source, thus enabling multiplexing, or simultaneous transmission.

According to Boubacar Kante, the principal investigator of the Berkeley project “it is the first time that lasers producing twisted light have been directly multiplexed.” He is an associate professor in the university’s Electronic Engineering and Computer Sciences Department, and the initial results of the work have just been published in Nature Physics.

New Evidence against the Standard Model of Cosmology

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This video’s topic is close to my own research, cosmology. The current standard model of cosmology rests on the “cosmological principle” — the idea that the universe looks, on the average, the same everywhere. Alas, it doesn’t look good for the cosmological principle. Just what does the evidence say and, if it holds up, what does this mean? At the end of this video, you’ll know.

0:00 Intro.
0:43 Sponsor Message.
1:41 The Cosmological Principle.
5:58 Trouble for the Cosmological Principle.
10:20 What does it mean?

#physics #cosmology #astrophysics

Fundamental mechanics help increase battery storage capacity and lifespan

Batteries are widely used in everyday applications like powering electric vehicles, electronic gadgets and are promising candidates for sustainable energy storage. However, as you’ve likely noticed with daily charging of batteries, their functionality drops off over time. Eventually, we need to replace these batteries, which is not only expensive but also depletes the rare earth elements used in making them.

A key factor in life reduction is the degradation of a battery’s structural integrity. To discourage structural degradation, a team of researchers from USC Viterbi School of Engineering are hoping to introduce “stretch” into battery materials so they can be cycled repeatedly without structural fatigue. This research was led by Ananya Renuka-Balakrishna, WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and USC Viterbi Ph.D candidate, Delin Zhang, as well as Brown University researchers from Professor Brian Sheldon’s group. Their work was published in the Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids.

A typical battery works through a repetitive cycle of inserting and extracting Li-ions from electrodes, Zhang said. This insertion and extraction expands and compresses the lattices. These volume shifts create microcracks, fractures and defects over time.