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Category: physics – Page 2

Astronomers uncover enormous bubble bigger than our Solar System

A giant bubble of gas and dust surrounds the red supergiant DFK 52, likely created in a powerful outburst 4,000 years ago. Astronomers are baffled at how the star survived without going supernova, and suspect a hidden companion may have played a role. This discovery could reveal clues about the final stages of massive stars.

Astronomers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have discovered a vast and expanding bubble of gas and dust surrounding a red supergiant star – the largest structure of its kind ever seen in the Milky Way. The bubble, which contains as much mass as the Sun, was blown out in a mysterious stellar eruption around 4,000 years ago. Why the star survived such a powerful event is a puzzle, the scientists say.

The new results are published in the scientific journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the team was led by Mark Siebert, Chalmers, Sweden. Using the ALMA radio telescope in Chile, the researchers observed the star DFK 52 – a red supergiant similar to the well-known star Betelgeuse.

Starship IFT-10 & Starlink

SpaceX’s successful Starship IFT-10 test and advancements in Starlink technology are poised to significantly reduce launch costs and disrupt the broadband landscape, paving the way for a more efficient and cost-effective space travel and satellite internet service.

## Questions to inspire discussion.

Starship and Starlink Advancements.

🚀 Q: How does Starship improve Starlink satellite deployment? A: Starship enables deployment of V3 Starlink satellites that are 40-50X cheaper per unit bandwidth compared to Falcon 9, according to Mach33 research.

📡 Q: What advantages do larger satellites on Starship offer? A: Starship’s size allows for larger satellites delivering more bandwidth per mass, improving physics scaling laws and making it 50X more efficient than Falcon 9 for launching bandwidth per kilogram.

Cost and Capacity Improvements.

Continue reading “Starship IFT-10 & Starlink” | >

Uncovering the mysteries of high-temperature cuprate superconductors

In their quest to explore and characterize high-temperature superconductors, physicists have mostly focused on a material that is not the absolute highest. That’s because that crystal is much easier to split into uniform, easily measurable samples. But in 2024, researchers found a way to grow good crystals that are very similar to the highest temperature superconductor.

Now, many from the same group have analyzed these new crystals and determined why the highest temperature superconductor is indeed higher and what details were missed by looking at the more popular crystal. Their work is published in Physical Review Letters.

The cuprate Bi2223, which at (about 100,000 pascals) superconducts at 110 Kelvin (−163°C), has proven easier to study and specify, even though the similar cuprate Hg1223 superconducts at 134 K.

International collaboration doubles detection of cosmic collisions

An international team of researchers has announced a significant advancement in gravitational-wave astronomy, with the detection of 128 new cosmic collisions involving black holes and neutron stars.

This discovery more than doubles the number of known gravitational-wave events and marks a major milestone in our understanding of the universe.

The findings come from the latest data release by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Virgo Gravitational Wave Interferometer (Virgo) Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA) collaboration, a global network of gravitational-wave observatories.

Physicists observe an elusive form of the Hall effect for the first time

A giant anomalous Hall effect (AHE) has been observed in a nonmagnetic material for the first time, as reported by researchers from Japan. This surprising result was achieved using high-quality Cd3As2 thin films, a Dirac semimetal, under an in-plane magnetic field. By modulating the material’s band structure, the team isolated the AHE and traced its origin to orbital magnetization rather than spin, challenging long-held assumptions in condensed matter physics.

In 1879, American physicist Edwin Hall discovered that a voltage develops across a conductor when it carries an in a , caused by the sideways deflection of moving charges. This phenomenon, which later became known as the Hall effect, quickly became a hot topic in the field and led to notable advances in the theoretical, experimental, and practical realms alike. Soon after the initial discovery of the Hall effect, scientists noticed that exhibited a similar phenomenon—this was coined the anomalous Hall effect (AHE).

Much more puzzling than the ordinary Hall effect, the AHE has stirred up debate among physicists for decades regarding the true nature of its origin. Some theoretical predictions have even hinted that AHE may be possible even in nonmagnetic materials. However, experimental confirmation of these predictions had never been achieved—until now.

Physicists create thin films that unite topological insulators and ferroelectric behavior

RIKEN physicists have created the first thin films featuring a special combination of electrical and topological properties. This demonstration could help to realize new forms of electronics that are highly energy efficient.

For the Singularity to Truly Arrive, We’d Need a Machine That Eats the Sun

However, if you’re rich and you don’t like the idea of a limit on computing, you can turn to futurism, longtermism, or “AI optimism,” depending on your favorite flavor. People in these camps believe in developing AI as fast as possible so we can (they claim) keep guardrails in place that will prevent AI from going rogue or becoming evil. (Today, people can’t seem to—or don’t want to—control whether or not their chatbots become racist, are “sensual” with children, or induce psychosis in the general population, but sure.)

The goal of these AI boosters is known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. They theorize, or even hope for, an AI so powerful that it thinks like… well… a human mind whose ability is enhanced by a billion computers. If someone ever does develop an AGI that surpasses human intelligence, that moment is known as the AI singularity. (There are other, unrelated singularities in physics.) AI optimists want to accelerate the singularity and usher in this “godlike” AGI.

One of the key facts of computer logic is that, if you can slow the processes down enough and look at it in enough detail, you can track and predict every single thing that a program will do. Algorithms (and not the opaque AI kind) guide everything within a computer. Over the decades, experts have written the exact ways information can be sent, one bit—one minuscule electrical zap—at a time through a central processing unit (CPU).

The Star That Almost Vanished: Astronomers Solve a Cosmic Mystery

Stars often reach the end of their lives and fade from view, but astronomers were left baffled when a star that had remained steady for more than ten years suddenly seemed to vanish for nearly eight months.

From late 2024 through early 2025, a star in our galaxy known as ASASSN-24fw lost about 97% of its brightness before returning to normal. The unusual dimming quickly became the subject of debate as researchers searched for an explanation behind such an extraordinary event.

An international research team, led by scientists at The Ohio State University, now believes they may have solved the puzzle. In a study recently published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics, the group reports that because the star’s color did not change during the dimming, the cause was unlikely to be related to stellar evolution. Instead, they conclude that a massive cloud of dust and gas surrounding the star blocked it from Earth’s view.

Hydroxyl adsorption identified as key factor in electrocatalytic ammonia production

Compared with the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process, renewable energy-driven electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction (NO3−RR) provides a low-carbon route for ammonia synthesis under mild conditions. Using nitrate from wastewater as the nitrogen source and water as the hydrogen source, this route has the potential to produce ammonia sustainably while mitigating water pollution.

Copper (Cu)-based catalysts show a good performance for NO3−RR to ammonia. However, they suffer from issues including high overpotential, competing nitrite (NO2–) formation, and low overall energy efficiency.

In a study published in ACS Catalysis, a team led by Prof. Bao Xinhe and Prof. Gao Dunfeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with Prof. Wang Guoxiong from Fudan University, proposed hydroxyl (*OH) as a selectivity descriptor for via NO3−RR over Cu catalysts.

Dusty structure explains near vanishing of faraway star

Stars die and vanish from sight all the time, but astronomers were puzzled when one that had been stable for more than a decade almost disappeared for eight months.

Between late 2024 and early 2025, one star in our galaxy, dubbed ASASSN-24fw, dimmed in brightness by about 97%, before brightening again. Since then, scientists have been swapping theories about what was behind this rare, exciting event.

Now, an international team led by scientists at The Ohio State University may have come up with an answer to the mystery. In a new study recently published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics, astronomers suggest that because the color of the star’s light remained unchanged during its dimming, the event wasn’t caused by the star evolving in some way, but by a large cloud of dust and gas around the star that occluded Earth’s view of it.

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