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Physicists identify antiferromagnet with high heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency

RIKEN physicists have found a magnetic material that converts heat into electricity with high efficiency, making it promising for use in energy-harvesting devices. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Photos you take on your smartphone are saved as a series of zeros and ones in a —magnetic materials that resemble iron in that their magnetic moments all point in the same direction.

Ferromagnets are easy to manipulate, making it easy to save data. However, because their magnetic moments are all aligned, they generate , and so it is not possible to cram a lot of them into a small space.

NASA Is Watching a Huge Anomaly Growing in Earth’s Magnetic Field

For years, NASA has monitored a strange anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies above the planet, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa.

This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for years, and perhaps none more so than NASA researchers.

The space agency’s satellites and spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to the weakened magnetic field strength within the anomaly, and the resulting exposure to charged particles from the Sun.

Astronomers capture giant planet forming 440 light-years from Earth

Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disc with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a disc spiral.

“We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light-years away, we may be watching a planet come into existence in real time,” says Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, Italy, and lead author of this study, published on July 21 in Astronomy & Astrophysics.