cosmic rays, milky way, new discoveries, research

Unveiling a Century-Old Mystery: Where the Milky Way’s Cosmic Rays Come From

where the Milky Way’s cosmic rays come from is a step closer to being revealed. Astronomers have succeeded for the first time in quantifying the proton and electron components of cosmic rays in a supernova remnant. At least 70 percent of the very-high-energy gamma rays emitted from cosmic rays are due to relativistic protons, according ...

Troy Oakes

The Milky Way galaxy.

Clays, Not Water, Are Likely Source of Lakes on Mars

Lakes on Mars might not be lakes after all. Three studies published in the past month have cast doubt on the premise of there being subsurface lakes below the Martian south pole. Where there’s water, there’s life. That’s the case on Earth, at least, and also why scientists remain tantalized by any evidence suggesting there’s ...

Troy Oakes

The Apollinaris Patera volcamno on Mars.

Astronomers Discover What to Feed Black Holes

The black holes at the centers of galaxies are the most mysterious objects in the Universe, not only because of the huge quantities of material within them, millions of times the mass of the Sun, but because of the incredibly dense concentration of matter in a volume no bigger than that of our Solar System. ...

Troy Oakes

A wormhole.

Metallic Water Detected at BESSY II

Under normal conditions, pure water is an almost perfect insulator. Water only develops metallic properties under extreme pressure, such as exists deep inside of large planets. Now, an international collaboration has used a completely different approach to produce metallic water and documented the phase transition at BESSY II. The study has been published in Nature. ...

Troy Oakes

As the droplet grows, water vapor flows into the sample chamber and forms a thin skin on the drop's surface.

A Device That Cracks Milk Protein

After gaining world attention by “unboiling” egg protein, Flinders University scientists have now used an Australian-made novel thin film microfluidic device to manipulate Beta-lactoglobulin (β-lactoglobulin), the major whey milk protein in cows, sheep, and other mammal milk. The so-called Vortex Fluidic Device (VFD) has previously been used in an array of experiments to successfully “unboil” ...

Troy Oakes

A drop of milk splashing.

New Research Reveals Hidden Processes at Work in the Hearts of Massive Stars

Massive stars Astronomers commonly refer to massive stars as the chemical factories of the Universe. They generally end their lives in spectacular supernovae, events that forge many of the elements on the periodic table. How elemental nuclei mix within these massive stars has a major impact on our understanding of their evolution prior to their ...

Troy Oakes

Camping under the stars.

Continental Crust Emerged 500 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought

The first emergence and persistence of the continental crust on Earth during the Archaean Eon (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) have important implications for plate tectonics, ocean chemistry, and biological evolution, and it happened about half a billion years earlier than previously thought, according to new research being presented at the EGU General Assembly 2021. ...

Troy Oakes

Earth's continental crust forming.

What Happens Below Earth’s Surface When the Most Powerful Earthquakes Occur

At 03:34 local time on February 27, 2010, Chile was struck by one of the most powerful earthquakes in a century. The shock triggered a tsunami, which devastated coastal communities. The combined events killed more than 500 people. So powerful was the shaking that, by one NASA estimate, it shifted Earth’s axis of spin by a full 8 ...

Troy Oakes

A cracked brick wall.

Consumers Are Searching Online But Not Buying. Why?

Online marketers have seen the pattern: 95-98 percent of online visitors search for something, but the search never converts into a purchase and they leave the site without buying. For marketers, this results in speculation and assumptions that can lead to wasted time and investments in ineffective marketing programs. One of the more common ways ...

Troy Oakes

Online shopping.

21 Percent of All Citations Go to the Elite

In the last 15 years, elite researchers have increased their share of citations from 14 to 21 percent, according to new research from Aarhus BSS at Aarhus University. The uneven distribution can have negative consequences for research. In the span of only 15 years, a small academic elite has increased its share of academic citations ...

Troy Oakes

A microscope and slide.