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Category: space – Page 450

A Gigantic Solar Eruption Just Emerged From The Far Side of The Sun

The Sun has been up to some pretty intense shenanigans lately, but a recent eruption on the far side looks to be absolute science gold.

On the evening of September 5 GMT, an enormous coronal mass ejection (CME) was recorded exploding on the far side of the Sun, sending a radiation storm out across the Solar System. It was a type known as a halo CME, in which an expanding halo of hot gas can be seen spewing out around the entire Sun.

Sometimes this means that the CME is headed straight for Earth. However, this eruption was on the far side, so it’s heading away, and we won’t see any of the usual effects of a solar storm here on our home planet.

Physicists invent intelligent quantum sensor of light waves

University of Texas at Dallas physicists and their collaborators at Yale University have demonstrated an atomically thin, intelligent quantum sensor that can simultaneously detect all the fundamental properties of an incoming light wave.

The research, published April 13 in the journal Nature, demonstrates a new concept based on quantum geometry that could find use in health care, deep-space exploration and remote-sensing applications.

“We are excited about this work because typically, when you want to characterize a wave of light, you have to use different instruments to gather information, such as the intensity, wavelength and polarization state of the light. Those instruments are bulky and can occupy a significant area on an optical table,” said Dr. Fan Zhang, a corresponding author of the study and associate professor of physics in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Chiral quasi bound states in the continuum for a high-purity circularly polarized light source

An ultracompact circularly polarized light source is a crucial component for the applications of classical and quantum optics information processing. The development of this field relies on the advances of two fields: quantum materials and chiral optical cavities. Conventional approaches for circularly polarized photoluminescence suffer from incoherent broadband emission, limited DOP, and large radiating angles. Their practical applications are constrained by low efficiency and energy waste to undesired handedness and emission directions. The chiral microlasers can have large DOPs and directional output, but only in specific power ranges. Most importantly, their subthreshold performances plummet significantly. Up to now, the strategy for simultaneous control of chiral spontaneous emission and chiral lasing is still absent.

In a new paper published in Science, researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology and Australian National University employ the physics of chiral quasi in the continuum (BICs) and demonstrate the efficient and controllable emission of circularly polarized light from resonant metasurfaces.

BICs with integer topological charge in momentum space and a theoretically infinite Q factor have been explored for many applications including nonlinear optics and lasing. By introducing in-plane asymmetry, BICs turn to be quasi-BICs with finite but still high Q factors. Interestingly, the integer topological charge of BICs mode would split into two half integer charges, which symmetrically distribute in momentum space and correspond to left-and right-handed circular polarization states, also known as C points.

Space radar tech reveals hundreds of ships hiding outside North Korean port

New artificial intelligence and space radar technology has uncovered scores of vessels hiding outside North Korea’s largest port, laying bare the sheer number of ships looking to cover their tracks in unprecedented detail.

The finding comes courtesy of Global Fishing Watch’s (GFW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, which reveals hundreds of vessels, many of them cargo ships, outside of Nampho in recent weeks despite not broadcasting over traditional maritime channels.

While vessels entering North Korean waters often switch off their automatic identification system (AIS) transponders to avoid detection by sanctions monitors, open-source satellite.

Amazon rainforest fires 2022: Facts, causes, and climate impacts

Based on the live fire Map from nasa south America has too many fires to count probably estimating in the millions of acres burned circa 2022.

The Amazon rainforest is shrinking. The fires in the Amazon are growing.

Just six weeks before the crucial 2022 Brazilian presidential election, a historic day of Amazon burning was detected by satellite monitoring. On 22 August, 3,358 fires were detected in the Brazilian Amazon, according to the Brazilian space agency, INPE. This was the highest number of fires recorded for any 24-hour period since 2007.

That alarming day of fire was no anomaly, but simply another day in a tragic trend of destruction in the Amazon rainforest since Jair Bolsonaro became president of Brazil in 2019. Just in the month of August 2022, there were 33,116 illegal fire hotspots registered in the Amazon, the highest level in 12 years.

Here’s where YC’s latest batch of founders are placing fintech bets

Y Combinator’s latest cohort of founders have opinions on the future of fintech. One-fifth of the accelerator’s Summer 2022 batch, which spans 240 companies, is working on solving issues in the financial space. The pitches range from building the Square for micro-merchants in Latin America to creating a way to angel invest in your favorite athlete.

And while the pitches are diverse, some concentrations show key ways that a group of vetted entrepreneurs are thinking about the landscape’s shift in light of finicky venture markets, a downturn, and some public market meltdowns. The most popular problem area among this batch’s fintech cohort has to do with payments, which is unsurprising. The story really begins with which focus made second place: neobanks.

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