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The discovery “reinforces our confidence that we understand how stars work.”

New Life

Scientists had already found neutrinos given off when the Sun fuses hydrogen into helium, a hallmark process of lighter stars that gives off 99 percent of the sun’s energy. The new discovery not only extended the lifespan of the Borexino detector — which was scheduled to be decommissioned next month — but also revitalized scientists’ understanding of the cosmos.

“Confirmation of CNO burning in our sun, where it operates at only one percent, reinforces our confidence that we understand how stars work,” UMass Amherst physicist Andrea Pocar said in the release.

Continue reading “Scientists Decipher the Sun’s Nuclear Fusion for the First Time” | >

Hell, our own evolution on Earth was pure luck.

In newly published research from Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, scientists study the likelihood of key times for evolution of life on Earth and conclude that it would be virtually impossible for that life to evolve the same way somewhere else.

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Continue reading “Intelligent Life Really Can’t Exist Anywhere Else” | >

Researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope to visualize quantum dots in bilayer graphene, an important step toward quantum information technologies.

Trapping and controlling electrons in bilayer graphene quantum dots yields a promising platform for quantum information technologies. Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have now achieved the first direct visualization of quantum dots in bilayer graphene, revealing the shape of the quantum wave function of the trapped electrons.

The results, published on November 23, 2020, in Nano Letters, provide important fundamental knowledge needed to develop quantum information technologies based on bilayer graphene quantum dots.

Continue reading “Direct Visualization of Quantum Dots Reveals Shape of Quantum Wave Function of the Trapped Electrons” | >

Analysis of an ancient meteorite from Mars suggests that the mineral zircon may be abundant on the surface of the red planet.

By determining the age and hafnium isotope composition of zircons, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have shown that a population of these crystals were sourced from the deep interior of Mars. If the researchers are correct, it means that the young zircons contain information about the deep, inaccessible interior of Mars, which provides insights into the internal structure of the planet.

“Zircon are incredibly durable crystals that can be dated and preserve information that tell us about their origins. Having access to so many zircons is like opening a time window into the geologic history of the planet.” —

Neutrinos Yield First Experimental Evidence of Catalyzed Fusion Dominant in Many Stars

An international team of about 100 scientists of the Borexino Collaboration, including particle physicist Andrea Pocar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, report in Nature this week detection of neutrinos from the sun, directly revealing for the first time that the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) fusion-cycle is at work in our sun.

The CNO cycle is the dominant energy source powering stars heavier than the sun, but it had so far never been directly detected in any star, Pocar explains.

Continue reading “Neutrinos Yield First Experimental Evidence of the CNO Energy-Production Mechanism of the Universe” | >