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Astronomers have discovered a strange spinning star that appears to be older than the explosion that gave birth to it, scientists say. The star is a pulsar, a rotating, super-dense core left behind after a massive star goes supernova. This pulsar, known as SXP 1062, is spinning quite slowly, suggesting an advanced age.
But the pulsar can't be as old as it looks, because the star probably exploded less than 40,000 years ago, researchers said. They've just now begun delving into this newly discovered cosmic mystery.
A pulsar is born
Pulsars are created after supernova explosions, when a star's remnant collapses and becomes so dense that protons and electrons squish together to form neutrons. [ Supernova Photos: Great Images of Star Explosions ]
Conservation of angular momentum causes these newly formed, city-size neutron stars to rotate, often extremely rapidly. They're called pulsars because this rotation makes their light appear to pulse at regular intervals.
Astronomers feel fortunate to have detected SXP 1062.
"Not many pulsars have been observed within their supernova remnant, and this is the first clear example of such a pair in the [Small Magellanic Cloud]," study leader Vincent Hénault-Brunet, of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, said in a statement.
The Small Magellanic Cloud is one of the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way.
A second team, led by Frank Haberl of the Max-Planck Institute in Germany, independently confirmed Hénault-Brunet's findings that the leftover supernova debris is between 10,000 and 40,000 years old.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45800105/ns/technology_and_science-space/
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Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN Laboratory in Switzerland, are trying to slam particles together hard enough to break them into never-before-seen pieces, which could solve some of the biggest puzzles in nature.
But UFOs — unidentified falling objects, that is — keep getting in their way.
The LHC is a 17-mile (27-km) circular tunnel lined with powerful magnets, which accelerate protons (particles in the nuclei of atoms) to 99.9999991 percent the speed of light. Beams of these super-brisk protons are accelerated clockwise around the ring and collide with beams traveling counter-clockwise, and, like a well-struck piñata, a dead-on hit produces a thrilling outburst of subatomic goodies. When they turn the proton beams up to full power, the physicists hope to find the Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle," which is believed to create the drag that gives everything else mass, among the collision debris. They'll also look for dark matter, the invisible substance that permeates the outskirts of galaxies.
However, since last year, something has been fluttering in the way of the proton beams and dampening the force of their blows, the physicists say. These "UFOs" aren't from outer space — they're probably microscopic dust particles of unknown origin — but they're still mysterious, and while they're around, the prize goodies will likely remain stashed. [LHC On Hold Until 2012]
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http://www.space.com/13754-ufos-lhc-large-hadron-collider.html
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GENEVA — The chances have risen that Einstein was wrong about a fundamental law of the universe. Scientists at the world's biggest physics lab said Friday they have ruled out one possible error that could have distorted their startling measurements that appeared to show particles traveling faster than light.
Many physicists reacted with skepticism in September when measurements by French and Italian researchers seemed to show subatomic neutrino particles breaking what Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein considered the ultimate speed barrier.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research said more precise testing has now confirmed the accuracy of at least one part of the experiment.
"One key test was to repeat the measurement with very short beam pulses," the Geneva-based organization, known by its French acronym CERN, said in a statement.
The test allowed scientists to check if the starting time for the neutrinos was being measured correctly before they were fired 454 miles (730 kilometers) underground from Geneva to a lab in Italy.
The results matched those from the previous test, "ruling out one potential source of systematic error," said CERN.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/cern-experiment-faster-than-light_n_1101151.html
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A laser powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of space could be built in Britain as part major new scientific project that aims to answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe.
Due to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider, the latest "big science" experiment being proposed by physicists will see the world's most powerful laser being constructed.
Capable of producing a beam of light so intense that it would be equivalent to the power received by the Earth from the sun focused onto a speck smaller than a tip of a pin, scientists claim it could allow them boil the very fabric of space – the vacuum.
Contrary to popular belief, a vacuum is not devoid of material but in fact fizzles with tiny mysterious particles that pop in and out of existence, but at speeds so fast that no one has been able to prove they exist.
The Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility would produce a laser so intense that scientists say it would allow them to reveal these particles for the first time by pulling this vacuum "fabric" apart.
They also believe it could even allow them to prove whether extra-dimensions exist.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8857154/Worlds-most-powerful-laser-to-tear-apart-the-vacuum-of-space.html
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(Reuters) - Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.
The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.
"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon -- i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun," said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/us-planet-diamond-idUSTRE77O69A20110825
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