July 25, 2017 Pan-STARRS image of the quadruple gravitational lens candidate. The four images of the quasar are marked A-D. The lensing galaxy is very faint and it was discovered only after careful analysis of the image, its position is marked with an x. Credit: United States Naval Observatory (USNO)

Astronomers from the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) in conjunction with colleagues from the University of California, Davis, and Rutgers University have discovered the first quadruple gravitational lens candidate within data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid

Response System (Pan-STARRS) using a combination of all-sky survey data from the USNO Robotic Astrometric Telescope (URAT) and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

USNO graduate student George Nelson, who was performing a URAT variability study of the brightest quasars identified by USNO astronomers using WISE colors, discovered the lens while investigating the optical properties of a bright quasar sample. The paper describing this serendipitous discovery has been accepted for publication in the

Astrophysical Journal. A preprint of the paper may be found at arxiv.org/abs/1705.08359. A paper confirming the discovery by a separate team of astronomers using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters. A preprint of this paper may be found at arxiv.org/abs/1707.05873.

Since the discovery of the first gravitationally lensed quasar in 1979, gravitational lenses have become powerful probes of astrophysics and cosmology. Because they require a very specific configuration between a background quasar (a bright, distant object powered by a supermassive black hole) and a foreground lensing galaxy, quadruply lensed quasars are especially rare. In fact, to date there are only about three-dozen such objects known over the entire sky.

Gravitational lenses are a manifestation of gravity's ability to bend light, which was predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1915. Since then many experiments have been carried out to test this theory starting with Sir Arthur Eddington's observations of light bending during a solar eclipse in 1919. When a galaxy acts as a gravitational lens to a background quasar, the lensed quasar appears as dual or quadruple images, depending on the relative location of the lens and the source. Lenses are rare because they require that the galaxy and the quasar be located within a few arcseconds of each other on the sky.

Gravitational lenses are at the forefront of current research in cosmology and astrophysics. In astrophysics, they have been used to uncover the structure of massive galaxies, to study how supermassive black holes relate to their host galaxies, and to gain insight into quasar accretion disks as well as their black hole spin. In cosmology, they have contributed to measuring the distribution of dark matter around galaxies and the expansion history of the universe.

Future radio, X-ray, Hubble Space Telescope and adaptive optics imaging, as well as spectroscopic studies, are already planned to further the study of this lens and to contribute to fundamental research.

Explore further: New Type Ia supernova discovered using gravitational lensing

More information: Discovery of the first quadruple gravitationally lensed quasar candidate with Pan-STARRS. arXiv. arxiv.org/abs/1705.08359

Journal reference: Astrophysical Journal Letters arXiv

Provided by: United States Naval Observatory (USNO)

(Phys.org)Using gravitational lensing, an international team of astronomers has detected a new Type Ia supernova. The newly discovered lensed supernova was found behind the galaxy cluster known as MOO J1014+0038. The findings ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found several examples of galaxies containing quasars, which act as gravitational lenses, amplifying and distorting images of galaxies aligned behind them.

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have discovered the first known case of a distant galaxy being magnified by ...

Astronomers have just made a new measurement of the Hubble Constant, the rate at which the universe is expanding, and it doesn't quite line up with a different estimate of the same number. That discrepancy could hint at "new ...

A quasar acting as a gravitational lens has now been observed for the first time. This discovery, made by the EPFL's Laboratory of Astrophysics in cooperation with Caltech, represents an advance in the field, since it will ...

Mini-jets of material ejected from a central supermassive black hole appear to be the culprits behind faint radio wave emissions in 'radio-quiet' quasars. A study of gravitationally lensed images of four radio-quiet quasars ...

As NASA's Cassini spacecraft makes its unprecedented series of weekly dives between Saturn and its rings, scientists are findingso farthat the planet's magnetic field has no discernable tilt. This surprising observation, ...

About eighty-five percent of the matter in the universe is in the form of dark matter, whose nature remains a mystery. The rest of the matter in the universe is of the kind found in atoms. Astronomers studying the evolution ...

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Astronomers have used an Australian radio telescope to observe molecular signatures from stars, gas and dust in our galaxy, which could lead to the detection of complex molecules that are precursors to life.

The death of a massive star in a distant galaxy 10 billion years ago created a rare superluminous supernova that astronomers say is one of the most distant ever discovered. The brilliant explosion, more than three times as ...

Astronomers have finally solved the mystery of peculiar signals coming from a nearby star, a story that sparked intense public speculation this week that perhaps, finally, alien life had been found.

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Discovery of a rare quadruple gravitational lens candidate with Pan-STARRS - Phys.Org

Renowned Indian scientist Yash Pal passed away at the age of 90 at his Noida house late on Monday night, according to media reports.

He was born in 1926 in Jhang, now in Pakistan, and was raised in Kaithal.

A recipient of Padma Bhushan in 1976, Pal studied physics from Punjab University. He later earned his PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958, India Today reported.

File image of Yash Pal. Screen grab from YouTube/ Rima Chibb

He was also featured in a popular science series, Turning Point, on Doordarshan in the 1980s. He was known for breaking down scientific concepts and making them easy to understand for the layman,reported Hindustan Times

A report in The Hindu states that he made significant contributions to the field of science and to the study of cosmic rays, high-energy physics, astrophysics and development, among others. He was also instrumental in establishing institutions that were key to India's space programme.

In 2009, he received the Kalinga Prize, awarded by UNESCO for the popularisation of science, the Indira Gandhi Prize for Popularization of Science in 2000 and The Meghnad Saha Medal in 2006.

In October 2011, he was awarded the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for excellence in public administration, academics and management.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condoled his death.

With inputs from IANS

Link:

Famed Indian scientist and academic Yash Pal dies at 90; made significant contributions to study of cosmic rays and ... - Firstpost

The Town of Spring City announced Wednesday that Professor Brian Dennison, Ph.D., from the University of North Carolina-Asheville Department of Physics, will be holding two free community meetings to speak about the upcoming solar eclipse on Aug. 21.

The meetings will be held at the Spring City Municipal Building, located at 229 Front Street on Monday, July 31, at 6 p.m. and on Tuesday, Aug. 8, at 6 p.m.

Dennison will be speaking on what happens to cause an eclipse, what we can expect, why this is so unique, and why Spring Citys location is so special for this event. He will also be talking about the importance of eye protection. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Brian Dennison served as the endowed UNC-Asheville Glaxo-Wellcome Professor from 2004 to 2014. Previously, he was a professor of physics and the Director of the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics at Virginia Tech.

He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden, and he has worked as a radio astronomer at the E.O. Hulbert Center for Space Research of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.

Dennisons fields of interest include astrophysics, radio astronomy and optical astronomy of the interstellar medium. He has received extensive funding primarily from the National Science Foundation in support of these efforts. He is Campus Director for the North Carolina Space Grant Program at UNCA. He teaches astronomy, astrophysics, and has recently taught cosmology and observational astronomy.

Dennisons research has utilized radio observatories throughout the U.S. and Europe. Most recently he participated in the development of Lookout Observatory on the campus of UNCA.

This facility is operated jointly by UNCA and the Astronomy Club of Asheville and is used extensively for student research, undergraduate instruction and outreach to the community.

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Spring City to host free solar eclipse meetings - Rheaheraldnews

Featured One would haveassumed thatgender-positive changes would take placeearlierthan in other circles among such highly educated scientists.

Jocelyn Bell. Source: YouTube

The gender ratio of women in editor-in-chief roles of major mainstream journals in astronomy and astrophysics is typically about 5-10 % these days. In the last 50 years of academic records, it is not difficult to find nowomen in such roles at any given time. The same ratio is just about 10-15 % when it comes to the number of keynote speakers, chairpersons of important conference sessions and distinguished award recipients in major conferences and meetings in astronomy/astrophysics.

On New Years Day in 2016, the Oxford University officially appointed a female vice-chancellor for the first time in its entire 921-year history. This goes to show how very few female vice-chancellors there really arein this world,especially when it comes to the top universities. In developing countries like India, recent surveys have shown that the typical gender ratio for female vice-chancellorships hovers around three. Although this situation is slightly better in developed nations, the gender gap in top academic roles remains abysmal. In fact, nation-wide surveys of this kindare almost non-existent in the developed worldas well.

Ironically, the severest levels of gender imbalance occur in the most educated circles among the brightestscholars in colleges, universities, boards of scientific journals and on the committees of prestigious academic prizes. And it is not difficult to note that the gender-balance situation at the top is much better in other areas of taxpayer-funded professional jobs, such like diplomacy, bureaucracy, police, the military and politics.

In June 2013, the astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell gave an enlightening talk at the European Parliament Office in Dublin, aboutthe unbalanced gender ratios and heavy gender gaps at thehigher levels of STEM subjects, and academia in general. Even the personal experience of such an excellent astrophysicist as Bell having beenoverlooked for the Nobel Prize in physics (for the discovery of pulsars) is another example of the prejudices female scientists face this one of winning sciences top honours. Her own personal experience and struggles against male-dominated astrophysics have encouraged more female students in the UK to pursue a career in the subject, so Bells involvement inhighlighting gender issues have brought the issuessomemainstream attention.

In my short career as an astrophysicist, I have had the privilege to attend various meetings, conferences, workshops, summer schools and events related to science and research in about 20 different countries. I have consistently noticed the conspicuouslack of female scientists onorganising committees, as committee chairs, keynote speakers, chairpersons in important conference sessions, among invited speakers and distinguished award recipients. The typical female gender ratio tends to be in the10-15% range. And it didnt matter what the specific branch of astrophysics was: matters were equally poor instellar physics, solar physics, solar system astronomy, galactic astronomy, cosmology andastroparticle physics.

However, there exists an extreme case, one domain ofastrophysics in which there have beeneven fewerfemale scientists.In the last50 years, fewer than 10% of the editor-in-chiefs of the top astronomy and astrophysics journals have been women. The recent historical group of editors-in-chief is a boys club. This travesty renders what enlightenment we have been able to claim as a species that grapples with the universes mysteries suspect.

Also read: Indian science journals produce March editions authored entirely by women

Some senior male scientists have given the excuse thatcore observational astronomy requires scientists to travel to remote, anddifficult-to-reachplaces like the peaks of Ladakh or Hawaii,the deserts at Chile andthe isolated Canary Islands for astronomical observations.They cite safety and the needs of womenas an issue. Some male colleagues have even casually said that women are not fit or ready for such challenges. But from whatever interactions I have had with my female colleagues, they are more than brave and happy to take on such adventures. It is only the male attitudes and their reluctance to give womena chance that are stopping them.

Similarly, some senior men in space agencies have prejudices when it comes to recruiting female astronaut candidates, citing petty excuses of compromised standards in health, fitness and the tough exercise regimen. Again, from whatever I have noticed, female students and researchers are usually quiteenthusiastic to take up such challenges. To be fair,this particular gender gap, among astronauts, is improving faster than it is among astronomers. There are more active female astronauts today thanthere have ever been.

Modern astrophysics projects (compared to other branches of pure science) today often require a a high level of computational expertise and make use of hi-tech supercomputing clusters forsolving research problems. Some international consortia require national andinternational supercomputing collaborations. There are times when I have noticed some senior male colleagues comparing womens programming skills to their driving skills, a decidedly immature argument that seeks to disparage the opportunities women have to be involved in these collaborations and to imply that they may not be good learners.

Such unfair attitudes have a direct effect in the recruitment and appointment of top astronomy jobs. Some older male scientists have alsomade crude remarks about a female speakers or chairpersons way of dressing when they have beenonstage in conferences, which is nothing short ofgross objectification and harassment. An unfortunate number ofwomen astronomers have had togo throughsuch experiences, and for along time.

Arecent group email sent tothe members of a Belgian university instructing female candidates to wear skirts and revealing necklines tobeautify their convocation ceremonytypifies the kind ofdark attitudes some senior men in academia possess, imposing their own illogical agendas on womens choice of attire. It stated: From an aesthetic point of view, we recommend the young ladies wear a dress or skirt, as well as a nice dcollet [a revealing neckline], and for the gentlemen, a suit. The root of all these issues originates from an inherent prejudice the patriarchy hasharboured against womens skills and talents. A bias of a similar nature persists with respect to the number of timesscientific papers written by women have been cited.

I remember an anecdote Bell shared in her talk:all the boys in her university class had beenhowling and jeeringat her because she was the only female student in their class. These boys had been genuinely confused aboutwhat a girl wasdoing in the men-only universe of astrophysics. But later, Bellwent on to become one of the greatest astronomers of our time.Most of the bestwomen astronomers will have a similar story to share(varying in degree and intensity, of course). Asking when such deep-rooted prejudices and restrictive mindsets will change in the context of appointments in mainstream science remains a legitimate question because the answers have not been forthcoming. One would have assumed thatgender-positive changes would take place earlierthan in other circles among such highly educated scientists.

Aswin Sekhar is an Indian astrophysicist working at the Centre for Earth Evolution andDynamics, Faculty of Mathematics andNatural Sciences, University of Oslo.

Categories: Featured, Science, Women

Tagged as: astronomy, astrophysics, astrophysics journals, citations, female astronauts, harassment, Jocelyn Bell, Oxford University, programming skills, women in STEM

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The Sexism of Astrophysics and Why Its Women Have It Much Less Stellar - The Wire

Early this week, social networking sites were abuzz with politicians and celebrities from West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor congratulating a team of Indian astronomers and astrophysicists. Reason: They had discovered one of the largest known structures in the universe a supercluster of galaxies stretching across 600 million light years.

Perhaps never before had national pride been evoked in the recent past for such a landmark breakthrough. And thats encouraging for Somak Raychaudhury, director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, the institution which, along with the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research and two other universities, spearheaded the project. It builds confidence in Indians when global scientific journals and newspapers recognise our achievements. And it is likely to translate into more parents sending their kids to take up science education, says Raychaudhury.

The Oxford and Cambridge educated Raychaudhury, who has held prestigious positions at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics among many, made the journey back to India in 2012 to take over at the helm of the physics department of Kolkatas Presidency University (from where he had graduated). Beyond that role, Raychaudhury was keen that Indian science and scientists make it to the big league. He was concerned that India, which has a young population, was not tapping the next generation of scientists at its universities.

In India, internationally competitive research occurs almost exclusively in the research institutes, whereas universities are becoming training centres for students. This is not true elsewhere in the world; universities teach but also conduct leading research. It is important for our young people to witness and participate in world-class research from a young age, Raychaudhury told ET Magazine from IUCCA.

Indias Space Odyssey The discovery of Saraswati is significant for Raychaudhury, who joined IUCCA as director two years back. This is an example of an Indian team making use of a publicly available data archive from an international facility (Sloan Digital Sky Survey and other US observatories), making a discovery, following it up with data proposed for and obtained in open competition using other international observatories (like the Chandra and XMM-Newton x-ray observatories in space).

Among the major challenges in working in this field in India is the lack of large-scale experimental facilities for scientists. The largest Indian telescopes are very limited compared to those available worldwide, and we have to compete globally to use these facilities. IUCAA is part of major global research collaborations such as the IndIGO Consortium, Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Thirty Meter Telescope project.

Joydeep Bagchi, lead author of the Saraswati Supercluster paper and associate professor at IUCAA, feels that the project has demonstrated the expertise of Indian researchers, particularly those at IUCAA. India has already become a world leader in the field of radio astronomy with the successful operation of the 100% indigenous Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune, which is currently the worlds largest and most powerful radio telescope in meter wavelength range. Moreover, with the highly successful Mars Orbital Mission, Indian space scientists have demonstrated to the world that they can execute extremely complex and precise space missions at much lower costs than advanced nations.

For Shishir Sankhyayan, co-author in the research paper, the main challenge was analysis of the data and refining it. While India has cutting edge facilities in major research institutes, improvement in the environment research and facilities in some of the universities is still required. His plans include exploring the Saraswati Supercluster in details and searching for more superclusters, if they exist, in our universe.

No surprise that the scientific community in India is excited over the discovery. Patrick Das Gupta, professor, department of physics & astrophysics, University of Delhi, reckons that this is significant for testing the big bang model. This supercluster is being seen in a state as it was about 4 billion years ago, since light has a finite speed.

Jasjit Singh Bagla, professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, feels that the fact that the entire team is based in India makes this paper an important milestone in the countrys journey in astronomy. It demonstrates that we have the skills for an elaborate analysis required to establish the existence of the supercluster in a quantitative manner. India has a great, rich, and distinguished heritage in physics, astronomy and astrophysics.

The recent announcement of the discovery of the Saraswati Supercluster of galaxies continues this strong trend, says Australian-British astrophysicist Kevin A Pimbblet, who is currently based at the EA Milne Centre for Astrophysics in Hull, UK. The choice of an Indian name for the project Saraswati has been a hit. Several years ago, when we had identified this large serpentine structure of galaxies that we were sure was bigger than anything we had ever seen, we thought of it as a river of galaxies.

We also wanted to suggest an Indian name, Raychaudhury says. The metaphor is not new the Milky Way, after all, is often called a river of stars.

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Meet the Indian astrophysicists who discovered the Saraswati Supercluster - Economic Times

Artists concept of the Spitzer Space Telescope seen against the infrared sky. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC)

Management of NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope could be turned over to an academic institution or private operator in 2019 once the space agencys funding for the observatory runs out, a senior NASA manager said this week.

Launched in August 2003 on a planned five-year mission, the infrared observatory is getting farther from Earth as it circles the sun, complicating communications with the telescope. But the mission continues to make observations, yielding discoveries about worlds around other stars, faraway galaxies that populated the early universe, and planets and asteroids within our own solar system.

NASA last year agreed to continue funding the Spitzer mission through early 2019, keeping the observatory active through the commissioning of the James Webb Space Telescope, a $10 billion flagship project that will represent perhaps the biggest leap in space astronomy since the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990.

Spitzer, which covers much of the same infrared wavelengths as JWST, could identify targets for follow-up observations by Webb. Parallel imaging of the same targets by Spitzer and JWST could also aid in calibration of the new telescope.

While Spitzer operations will be more challenging as the telescope flies greater distances from Earth, the spacecraft and instruments could remain functional after NASAs mission-end date in 2019.

Operated by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory with engineering support from spacecraft-builder Lockheed Martin, Spitzer could be turned over to a private institution after NASAs support for the mission ends in 2019, according to Paul Hertz, director of the agencys astrophysics division.

We are certainly open to a partnership proposal from any U.S. institution that would like to operate Spitzer on non-NASA funding beyond the NASA-funded mission, and Ive heard there are people discussing this, Hertz said Wednesday in a meeting of NASAs Astrophysics Advisory Committee. I just want to make sure everyone knows that we would welcome such an inquiry, proposal, or discussion.

If an outside funding source is found and approved, Spitzer would be loaned to a private operator, but NASA would retain ownership and responsibility for liability, Hertz said.

The model closely follows the way NASA turned over control of the GALEX astronomy satellite in Earth orbit to Caltech, which used private funds to continue operating the mission once NASAs commitment ended. That agreement was the first of its type for a government-owned science probe.

We loan (it), and then they have to pay all the money it takes to operate it, and then at the end of the funded mission, we take it back and do safe disposal of the spacecraft, Hertz said.

A review of Spitzers scientific potential last year by a panel of independent researchers recommended NASA continue the mission into early 2019. But the reviewers concluded NASA should divert Spitzers funding to more worthwhile projects shortly after JWSTs launch.

Faced with a limited federal budget, NASA must balance the need to develop future, more capable missions with keeping older spacecraft operational. A similar senior review of NASAs operating astrophysics missions in 2014 recommended NASA end its support of Spitzer that year, but top NASA officials overruled the panel after Spitzer found ways to operate the mission for less money.

Theres certainly good science to be done (with Spitzer) that cant fit into our funding plan, Hertz said Wednesday.

NASAs budget request for Spitzer operations in fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1, is for $11 million.

Spitzer was the last of four telescopes to launch in NASAs Great Observatories program, joining Hubble, the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

A Delta 2 rocket launched Spitzer from Cape Canaveral into an Earth-trailing orbit around the sun. The telescope circles the sun slightly slower than Earth, so Spitzer gets a little farther away each day. As of Saturday, the telescope was approximately 146 million miles (235 million kilometers) from Earth.

The range to Spitzer, and its closer proximity to the sun as viewed from Earth, makes communications with the observatory more difficult over time. Spitzer is also exposed to hotter temperatures as it gets farther from Earth because it must point its antenna at higher angles toward the sun to stay in contact with ground controllers.

One of Spitzers most recent accomplishments was its role in the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets around a star 40 light-years, or about 235 trillion miles (378 trillion kilometers) from Earth. The TRAPPIST-1 system, announced in February, holds the record for the most potentially habitable planets around a single star outside our solar system, scientists said.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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NASA might privatize one of its great observatories Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

Physicists are capitalizing on a direct connection between the largest cosmic structures and the smallest known objects to use the universe as a "cosmological collider" and investigate new physics. The cosmos' tiniest particles and the distribution of matter across the vast universe occupy opposite ends of the scale spectrum, but they're not unrelated.

In a new study, published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, astrophysicists argue the nature of the The researchers argue the cosmos is like one big particle accelerator. The study of the vast distribution of cosmic matter could offer new insights into the nature of quantum mechanical particles.

"Ongoing observations of cosmological microwave background and large scale structures have achieved impressive precision, from which valuable information about primordial density perturbations can be extracted," Yi Wang, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said in a news release.

The Standard Model of physics describes the behavior of all known particles, but researchers believe the large-scale structures of the universe could reveal modes of particle behavior beyond the Standard Model.

The three-dimensional map of galaxies throughout the cosmos and the leftover radiation from the Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are the largest structures in the universe that astrophysicists observe using telescopes. Subatomic elementary particles, on the other hand, are the smallest known objects in the universe that particle physicists study using particle colliders.

A team including Xingang Chen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Yi Wang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Zhong-Zhi Xianyu from the Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications at Harvard University has used these extremes of size to probe fundamental physics in an innovative way. They have shown how the properties of the elementary particles in the Standard Model of particle physics may be inferred by studying the largest cosmic structures. This connection is made through a process called cosmic inflation.

Cosmic inflation is the most widely accepted theoretical scenario to explain what preceded the Big Bang. This theory predicts that the size of the universe expanded at an extraordinary and accelerating rate in the first fleeting fraction of a second after the universe was created. It was a highly energetic event, during which all particles in the universe were created and interacted with each other. This is similar to the environment physicists try to create in ground-based colliders, with the exception that its energy can be 10 billion times larger than any colliders that humans can build.

Inflation was followed by the Big Bang, where the cosmos continued to expand for more than 13 billion years, but the expansion rate slowed down with time. Microscopic structures created in these energetic events got stretched across the universe, resulting in regions that were slightly denser or less dense than surrounding areas in the otherwise very homogeneous early universe. As the universe evolved, the denser regions attracted more and more matter due to gravity. Eventually, the initial microscopic structures seeded the large-scale structure of our universe, and determined the locations of galaxies throughout the cosmos.

In ground-based colliders, physicists and engineers build instruments to read the results of the colliding events. The question is then how we should read the results of the cosmological collider.

"Several years ago, Yi Wang and I, Nima Arkani-Hamed and Juan Maldacena from the Institute of Advanced Study, and several other groups, discovered that the results of this cosmological collider are encoded in the statistics of the initial microscopic structures. As time passes, they become imprinted in the statistics of the spatial distribution of the universe's contents, such as galaxies and the cosmic microwave background, that we observe today," said Xingang Chen. "By studying the properties of these statistics we can learn more about the properties of elementary particles."

As in ground-based colliders, before scientists explore new physics, it is crucial to understand the behavior of known fundamental particles in this cosmological collider, as described by the Standard Model of particle physics.

"The relative number of fundamental particles that have different masses what we call the mass spectrum in the Standard Model has a special pattern, which can be viewed as the fingerprint of the Standard Model," explained Zhong-Zhi Xiangyu. "However, this fingerprint changes as the environment changes, and would have looked very different at the time of inflation from how it looks now."

The team showed what the mass spectrum of the Standard Model would look like for different inflation models. They also showed how this mass spectrum is imprinted in the appearance of the large-scale structure of our universe. This study paves the way for the future discovery of new physics.

"The ongoing observations of the CMB and large-scale structure have achieved impressive precision from which valuable information about the initial microscopic structures can be extracted," said Yi Wang. "In this cosmological collider, any observational signal that deviates from that expected for particles in the Standard Model would then be a sign of new physics."

The current research is only a small step towards an exciting era when precision cosmology will show its full power.

"If we are lucky enough to observe these imprints, we would not only be able to study particle physics and fundamental principles in the early universe, but also better understand cosmic inflation itself. In this regard, there are still a whole universe of mysteries to be explored," said Xianyu.

This research is detailed in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters on June 29, 2017, and the preprint is available online.

The Daily Galaxy via and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and UPI

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The Cosmos is One Big Particle Accelerator --"Paves the Way For a ... - The Daily Galaxy (blog)

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry Neil deGrasse Tyson W.W. Norton, $18.95

If this were a book review for people in a hurry, Id suggest: Read this book (1) because its a conduit to the cosmos, (2) because youll become hungry for more, and (3) so that you can join the club!

If youre not in a hurry, stay tuned.

In Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson writes a vivid and virtuosic opening chapter, The Greatest Story Ever Told, that is a tour dhorizon (pun intended) of those events that unfolded following the origin of our universe.

Explaining Newton, gravitation, Einstein, general relativity, gravitational waves, nucleosynthesis, planetary science, galaxy formation, stellar evolution, cosmic microwave background, dark energy, dark matter, and many other matters in a slim volume, with easy-to-assimilate, seasoned, charming prose, is not a cakewalk. And Dr. Tyson gives you the whole enchilada, tortilla, petits fours, Linzer torte, and bagel. He persuades you to suspend your disbelief and wins you over as he eagerly inspires you to wish for more. He has heft and bandwidth.

Dr. Tysons description of the events following the Big Bang includes the story of the leftover light from a dazzling, sizzling early universe. And, he says, studying the patterns in the cosmic microwave background is like performing some sort of cosmic phrenology, as we analyze the skull bumps of the infant universe.

Hollywood science-fiction epics may portray galaxies and space as romantic and glamorous. Nobody doesnt like intergalactic space, Dr. Tyson seems to agree, but it can be hazardous to your health if you choose to go there. He points out that you would freeze to death, your blood cells would burst, and youd be shot full of very high-energy cosmic radiation nuclear particles of matter that traverse interstellar and intergalactic space after being ejected by distant exploding stars.

I was not sure why I loved this book so much: because it was so well written, or because it reminded me of my passion for astrophysics. So I asked a very intelligent good friend a successful businessman and enthusiastic science aficionado for his laymans opinion. He wrote:

For the novice, this book serves as a fascinating and intensive introduction. It will also encourage him or her to read more on astrophysics . . . and marvel at the way in which Tyson organizes and presents his material. His chapter on Newtons and Einsteins theories of gravity, juxtaposed with the current concepts of the gravitational effects of dark matter and dark energy, is extraordinary.

I completely agree. Dr. Tyson has a wonderful way with words. So dark matter is our frenemy. We have no clue what it is. . . . But we desperately need it . . . to arrive at an accurate description of the universe.

You cant see it (hence dark), but you can infer the effects of dark matter on galaxies, making them appear unreasonably! as if they resembled a solid disc, like the wheel on your car that rotates on its axle. (In our solar system, however, planets revolve around the sun at different speeds that depend on their solar distances.) Thus, dark matter is an attractive force gluing a galaxys collection of stars together.

This is unlike dark energy, which is a repulsive force acting, so to speak, as if it were negative gravity and, as Dr. Tyson puts it, that it will ultimately win the tug of war, as it forces the cosmic expansion to accelerate exponentially into the future.

In other words, dark matter is attractive (some might say feminine) and dark energy is repulsive (some might say masculine), and together they invisibly make up about 95 percent of whats out there. Only some 5 percent of the universes total mass energy is visible to us. Was Buckminster Fuller prophetic when he said the greatest discovery of the 20th century was that the invisible is more important than the visible?

The matter we have come to love in the universe, Dr. Tyson says, is only a light frosting on the cosmic cake, modest buoys afloat in a vast cosmic ocean of something that looks like nothing.

The author mentions Einsteins problems with Hitler, who disparaged theoretical physics and general relativity as Jewish science and thus inferior to Aryan science because it was experimental. In fact, Hitler loathed Einstein so much that he wanted him assassinated, and organized a hundred authors to write a book against Einsteins ideas. Dr. Tyson paraphrases Einstein, who said about this book of negative propaganda that if he [Einstein] were wrong, then only one [author] would have been enough.

In discussing the universality of physical laws, the author humorously relates how he ordered a hot cocoa with whipped cream but was disappointed to see no trace of the topping. The waiter said it had sunk to the bottom, but Dr. Tyson pointed out that since whipped cream has a low density it should have been floating on the top, and that either they forgot to put it in or the laws of physics were different in this restaurant near Caltech. When the waiter reluctantly brought the (forgotten) dollop for the hot cocoa, it floated thus exemplifying that the laws of physics are universal. Of course, one example is not proof. (Lets hope the waiter got a good tip and became a physicist.)

Dr. Tysons book is justifiably at the top of the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. Hes an authoritative source of clear ideas about our universe and writes in stylistic, eloquent prose without mathematics. This in itself is quite an unusual feat considering the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing the natural sciences, as the Nobel-winning physicist Eugene Wigner said, describing an extraordinary phenomenon bordering on the mysterious. Just like the universe.

Dr. Tyson also has a special way with children. At a recent standing-room-only Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate on De-Extinction at the American Museum of Natural History, he came forward from the podium and sat down at the edge of the stage, long legs dangling down to audience level, to listen to an adorable 9-year-old who had a very intelligent question for him. She wore an extremely colorful and elegant combination of eye-catching attire. Neil lifted her gently onto the stage so the multitudes could see her beguiling individuality. The audience was thrilled.

So hes a really nice guy in addition to writing a really good book.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium and the host of the radio and TV show StarTalk. He lives in New York City and East Hampton.

Stephen Rosen, an astrophysicist who lives in East Hampton, will give a talk, Albert Einstein: Rock Star, at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Aug. 10 at 5:30 p.m.

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Physics in a Cup of Cocoa | The East Hampton Star - East Hampton Star

ByMegan Watzke

The worlds most indestructible species, the tardigrade, an eight-legged micro-animal, also known as the water bear, will survive until the Sun dies, according to a new Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Oxford University collaboration.

The worlds most indestructible species, the tardigrade, an eight-legged micro-animal, also known as the water bear, will survive until the Sun dies, according to a new Harvard-Smithsonian Center forAstrophysics and Oxford University collaboration.

The new study published in Scientific Reports, has shown that the tiny creatures will survive the risk of extinction from all astrophysical catastrophes, and be around for at least 10 billion yearsfar longer than the human race.

Although much attention has been given to the cataclysmic impact that an astrophysical event would have on human life, very little has been published around what it would take to kill the tardigrade, and wipe out life on this planet. The research implies that life on Earth in general, will extend as long as the Sun keeps shining. It also reveals that once life emerges, it is surprisingly resilient and difficult to destroy, opening the possibility of life on other planets.

Tardigrades are the toughest, most resilient form of life on earth, able to survive for up to 30 years without food or water, and endure temperature extremes of up to 150 degrees Celsius, the deep sea and even the frozen vacuum of space. The water-dwelling micro animal can live for up to 60 years, and grow to a maximum size of 0.5 mm, best seen under a microscope.

Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have found that these life forms will likely survive all astrophysical calamities, such as an asteroid, since they will never be strong enough to boil off the worlds oceans.

Three potential events were considered as part of the research, including; large asteroid impact, and exploding stars in the form of supernovas or gamma-ray bursts.

Asteroids: There are only a dozen known asteroids and dwarf planets with enough mass to boil the oceans, these include Vesta and Pluto, however none of these objects will intersect the Earths orbit and pose no threat to tardigrades.

Supernova:In order to boil the oceans an exploding star would need to be 0.14 light-years away. The closest star to the Sun is four light years away and the probability of a massive star exploding close enough to Earth to kill all forms of life on it, within the Suns lifetime, is negligible.

Gamma-Ray bursts:Gamma-ray bursts are brighter and rarer than supernovae. Much like supernovas, gamma-ray bursts are too far away from earth to be considered a viable threat. To be able to boil the worlds oceans the burst would need to be no more than 40 light-years away, and the likelihood of a burst occurring so close is again, minor.

Without our technology protecting us, humans are a very sensitive species. Subtle changes in our environment impact us dramatically. There are many more resilient species on earth. Life on this planet can continue long after humans are gone, says Rafael Alves Batista, co-author and post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Physics at Oxford University. Tardigrades are as close to indestructible as it gets on Earth, but it is possible that there are other resilient species examples elsewhere in the universe. In this context there is a real case for looking for life on Mars and in other areas of the solar system in general. If tardigrades are Earths most resilient species, who knows what else is out there.

David Sloan, co-author and post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Physics at Oxford University, said: To our surprise we found that although nearby supernovae or large asteroid impacts would be catastrophic for people, tardigrades could be unaffected. Therefore it seems that life, once it gets going, is hard to wipe out entirely. Huge numbers of species, or even entire genera may become extinct, but life as a whole will go on.

In highlighting the resilience of life in general, the research broadens the scope of life beyond Earth, within and outside of this solar system. Abraham Loeb, co-author and chair of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University, said: It is difficult to eliminate all forms of life from a habitable planet. Organisms with similar tolerances to radiation and temperature as tardigrades could survive long-term below the surface in these conditions. The subsurface oceans that are believed to exist on Europa and Enceladus, would have conditions similar to the deep oceans of Earth where tardigrades are found, volcanic vents providing heat in an environment devoid of light. The discovery of extremophiles in such locations would be a significant step forward in bracketing the range of conditions for life to exist on planets around other stars.

A paper detailing this work appeared on July 14, 2017 in Scientific Reports, an open, online journal from the publishers of Nature.

Tags: asteroids, astronomy, astrophysics, extinction, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

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Study determines microscopic water bears will be Earth's last survivors - Smithsonian Insider (blog)

Asperger's will not stop Sam Linley in his bid to become Stocktons youngest councillor.

The 20-year-old astrophysics student was diagnosed 10 years ago after tell-tale signs of the disability were spotted by his primary school teacher.

But now Sam is looking to fight the conditions stereotypes and represent his home town as the Conservative candidate in Thursdays Billingham North by-election.

Its something that youre born with. You cant change it. I have it for life, said Sam.

Sometimes social interaction is a problem. But I think I have come on a long way.

I have come from a shy kid to being able to just go up to a door not knowing whos behind it and strike up a conversation.

Sam, who aced his GCSE maths with an A* aged just 14 before going on to study at the University of York, said his disability will provide a new perspective to the council.

We need a broad church on the council. We need people from all parts of society.

When debates come up on provisions for disabled people its good to have people who know about them first hand rather than people who dont really understand the issues.

And in the traditional Labour stronghold of Billingham, he thinks hes got a good chance of winning with a back to basics campaign.

The keen violin player said: Originally when I came into it, I was thinking theres no chance.

If you had told me that we would be in with a serious chance I would have laughed. I would have laughed in your face.

But the response I am getting on the doorstep is positive. Im getting my name out there. People know who I am.

Sam said he wants to be a friendly face focused on hot-topics such as litter and dog fouling.

He also wants a fairer deal for Billingham: I have lived in Billingham all my life. Its a lovely place to live.

Its given me a lot over the 20 years I have lived here and I want to give back to it.

I am just fighting for more money for Billingham. A lot of residents see Stockton getting money but Billingham just left the scraps.

Labours Paul Weston is looking to defend the Billingham North seat following the resignation of Stephen Parry in June.

Independent Jennifer Apedaile, Mark Burdon of the North East Party, and David Minchella of the Liberal Democrats will also contest the seat.

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Meet the 20-year-old astrophysics student with Asperger's hoping to be a Tory councillor - Gazette Live

Tyson is in Australia to promote his new book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Photograph: Desiree Navarro/WireImage

Albert Einstein has been called many things: a genius, a pioneer, a Nobel prize winner. Neil deGrasse Tyson just calls him a badass.

I think it fits, right? Its not a stretch, he tells Guardian Australia before his appearance in Melbourne on Saturday night. The dudes a badass.

This description of the father of modern physics is one of many notable turns of phrase in Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, the latest book from the astrophysicist and host of the StarTalk podcast. He is currently touring Australia with Think Inc to promote the book and talk about the science of the universe, with shows in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney.

The book has had an extraordinary global reception, placing in the top five of the New York Times bestseller list for 10 weeks. Its success reflects a broader appetite around the world for science told with passion and conviction, outside of high school textbooks.

Tyson stresses, though, that if youre not in a hurry you really shouldnt buy it.

If youve found time to read other books on astrophysics, youre not in a hurry, he says. Put this book down and read the other stuff. Im very serious about this: dont buy the book if youre not in a hurry.

The book is not quite astrophysics for dummies; while it is simplified, it is not simple. It is more a collection of the best and most thrilling moments; astrophysics greatest hits.

Its astrophysics handpicked for the most mind-blowing things that exist in the universe, Tyson says.

It is also the first time Tyson has recorded an audiobook; those in a hurry, after all, dont always have time to sit down and read. One particular benefit of this, he says, is to make the book available for those stuck in traffic in Los Angeles and also for those stuck in traffic in Australia, a situation he nevertheless finds highly improbable.

Why there is traffic in Australia, I have no idea, he says. Hardly anybody lives here. I dont know what the hells wrong, yall got to figure that one out.

Within a 30km radius of where I live are more people than the country of Australia. And you guys have traffic. Maybe its just an inescapable law of the universe.

Tysons mission as a science educator is not without obstacles. In Australia and around the world, the denial of scientific truth is very real, sometimes at the very highest levels of government. But how do you fight and challenge these kind of ideas? Tyson has a different view to some: the focus shouldnt be on the politicians, he says, but on the people themselves.

I dont concern myself much with politicians, he says. In an elected democracy, they represent an electorate. So if an electorate votes for somebody who denies what science is and how it works, then the issue is not with the politician but with the electorate.

Im an educator and I feel a certain duty to educate the public so that, when they vote, their vote can be as informed as it possibly can, with whatever political leanings they might have. Thats what makes the richness of a diverse political system.

While the descriptions of black holes and anti-matter Tyson sets out in his book can sometimes sound like science fiction, he stresses that many of the ideas in the genre reflect the science of the real world.

I dont turn to sci-fi in the way most people do, he says. Most people do it to escape. For me, just [by] doing my job Im escaping. The universe itself is a form of escapism.

Warped space, black holes, wormholes: all of this comes from us.

The near future of astrophysics promises to be particularly exciting: like science, it is driven by data, and for astrophysics that often involves space missions to gather information from the distant cosmos.

Tyson says that the understanding of dark matter may be one of the key developments over the next 10 years. And there is, of course, the possibility of finding life on another planet.

Could the world handle that?

If you had some philosophy that precluded life from existing elsewhere and then we find it, youre probably not going to say, OK, were wrong, everything we taught is wrong, everything we preach is wrong, lets close up shop, Tyson says.

What is more likely is that it will simply be absorbed into our understanding of the universe.

He recalls the aphorism that every great truth passes through three phases: First, they say its not true. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say theyve known it all along.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: A Cosmic Perspective is on in Perth on 22 July, Brisbane on 23 July and Sydney on 29 July

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Neil deGrasse Tyson: fighting science denial starts with people, not ... - The Guardian

Physics seeks to explain and explore the mysteries of the universe. Jacqueline Williams, recent graduate and this years Lieutenant Governors Gold Medal and Governor Generals Silver Medallion recipient, embraced the many facets of the discipline by exploring physics itself throughout her jam-packed undergraduate career.

From her first year of university, Williams has tried everything from chemical physics to biophysics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.

I really didnt know that there were so many different areas of physics, says Williams. I think a lot of my peers went into physics knowing what areas of physics they were interested in. For me, I wanted to explore what was there and see what I ended up learning. Its been a lot of fun."

Though the new alumna graduated in June with a BSc(Hon) in astrophysics, she says her days of exploring physics are nowhere near over.

The questions that physicists explore are really interesting. Even for non-scientists, there just seems to be this growing, fundamental curiosity about a lot of areas of physics, especially astrophysics and cosmology," she says. "I still dont even know what area is really best for me because Ive done so much exploring and theres so much left to look into.

Taking a chance leads to new personal passion

Williams' astrophysics degree took a somewhat unusual turn right from the beginning. In her first year, she took a required computer science course for multidisciplinary studies that focused on the Python programming language.

I was terrified going into it because I didnt know anything about coding. I hadnt done any coding at all before I got into first year, so I didnt know if I was going to be able to do it, she says.

She found herself catching on quickly, and enjoying the course. When the opportunity to do summer research involving programming came up, Williams jumped at the chance. Even though I knew nothing about web-based coding languages at all I thought Id try it out.

She started working with senior instructor Jason Donev from the Department of Physics and Astronomy for the next two summers, doing data visualization work for energyeducation.ca, teaching herself HTML and Javascript along the way.

The site, Williams says, is a resource for university students and the public to learn about energy issues. She explains, Its kind of like Wikipedia, but the information has all been checked by UCalgary. It has replaced textbooks for some courses, both at this university and several other institutions.

A rounded education from the massive to the microscopic

With an added passion in hand, Williams continued to take every research opportunity she could. The opportunity to continue doing coding work, she says, was an added appeal to her astrophysics research with professor Denis Leahy, which had her making a modelling program for supernova remnant evolution.

Dr. Leahy had already written a Mathcad program that put together several equations in the literature describing how supernova remnants evolve over time, she explains. I took the work hed already done and put it in a more user-friendly Python program where users can put in parameters about the supernova remnant and see how its evolving over time and, for example, what its radius might be or at what velocity its expanding at a certain given point in time.

That work, for which Williams had received an Undergraduate Student Research Award from NSERC, was published in The Astronomical Journal in May 2017, with Williams listed as the second author.

Testing her skills out yet again, Williams decided to try her hand at biophysics for her honours thesis in her last year. Her supervisor for the project was Pina Colarusso, director at the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases'Live Cell Imaging (LCI) Resource Laboratory.

This work saw her focus shift from studying massive supernovas to helping develop super-resolution microscopy techniques to study Weibel-Palade bodies, the storage granules of the endothelial cells that form the inner lining of the blood vessels and heart.

'It was totally different from anything Id done before'

I liked the idea of doing something that had a bit more lab work, she says. A lot of what I had been doing was coding, so it was more theoretical. Being able to do work at the lab was a great opportunity because it was totally different from anything Id done before.

Surprisingly, the work Williams had done in her astrophysics coursework tied in quite well to the microscopy research at the LCI. Microscopy has a lot of image processing involved. Astrophysics also has a lot of image processing and image analysis. Youre using similar sorts of software. My focus was on implementing the technique and exploring how it could be used to get greater detail in these images than what was previously possible with optical light microscopy.

However, she says, It was a little bit further outside my comfort zone. I thought it was really good to push myself, try doing something different, and see if that was something I would enjoy even more.

Although Williams was deeply immersed in her research, she found time to try something completely different altogether. I sang in the choir here, which you can actually take as a course! I had a lot of fun doing that the choir here sings everything from Beethoven to Adele. Its members are all sorts of people from different faculties. I had a couple other friends in there too, says Williams, who also plays violin. It can be kind of hard to fit in your hobbies during your degree but I like to do it for a break.

'Great community' and research opportunities helped open doors

While her undergraduate studies have been diverse and very busy, Williams graduated earning two of Canadas top academic honours.

She credits her supportive professors, a great community of fellow students, and her family with helping her along the way. The born-and-raised Calgarian says she felt lucky to have such a great university to attend in her hometown.

I never really felt the need to leave and go somewhere else because the programs here are already so good. I was very lucky to get all the research opportunities from the first year onward. I definitely got a lot of encouragement, and when youre working closer with a supervisor or professor you feel like youve got support going through the program, and helps you feel like youre more involved with the department. It was great to get those opportunities.

After taking some well-earned time, Williams plans to fine-tune her academic and career goals.

I want to get a bit of perspective. Its a bit of an open book right now, this upcoming year and after that. But Im excited to see what I end up doing.

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Class of 2017: Honours physics grad explores world's mysteries from the microscopic to the massive - UCalgary News

July 19, 2017 The cosmos can be considered as a collider for human to access the results of particle physics experiments at ultimate high energies. Credit: Department of Physics, HKUST

Our observable universe is the largest object that physicists study: It spans a diameter of almost 100 billion light years. The density correlations in our universe, for example, correlations between numbers of galaxies at different parts of the universe, indicate that our vast universe has originated from a stage of cosmic inflation.

On the other hand, elementary particles are the smallest object that physicists study. A particle physics Standard Model (SM) was established 50 years ago, describing all known particles and their interactions.

Are density distributions of the vast universe and the nature of smallest particles related? In a recent research, scientists from HKUST and Harvard University revealed the connection between those two aspects, and argued that our universe could be used as a particle physics "collider" to study the high energy particle physics. Their findings mark the first step of cosmological collider phenomenology and pave the way for future discovery of new physics unknown yet to mankind.

The research was published in the journal Physical Review Letters on June 29, 2017 and the preprint is available online.

"Ongoing observations of cosmological microwave background and large scale structures have achieved impressive precision, from which valuable information about primordial density perturbations can be extracted, " said Yi Wang, a co-author of the paper and an assistant professor at HKUST's department of physics. "A careful study of this SM background would be the prerequisite for using the cosmological collider to explore any new physics, and any observational signal that deviates from this background would then be a sign of physics beyond the SM."

The team carried out a two-step task to work out the background of the SM model. The first step was to work out the SM spectrum during inflation, which turned out to be dramatically different from that obtained from the particle physics calculation in flat space. The second one was to figure out how the SM fields entered the cosmological density correlation functions.

"Just like the line pattern of the light you see when observing a mercury lamp through a spectrometer, the mass distribution of the fundamental particles in SM also presents a special pattern, or a 'mass spectrum', which can be viewed as the fingerprint of SM," explained Zhong-Zhi Xianyu, a co-author and physicist at Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications in Harvard University, "However, this fingerprint is subject to change if we change the ambient conditions. Just like the light spectrum changes when applying strong magnetic field to the lamp, the spectrum of the SM particles turns out to be very different at the time of inflation from it is now due to the inflationary background." The team carefully examined all effects from inflation and showed how the mass spectrum of SM would look like for different inflation models.

"Through inflation, the spectrum of elementary particles is encoded in the statistics of the distribution of the contents of the universe, such as the galaxies and cosmic microwave background, that we observe today", explains Xingang Chen, a co-author and scientist in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "This is the connection between the smallest and largest."

Many problems along this direction remain to be explored. "In our minimal setup, the Standard Model particles interact with the inflaton (the driving force of inflation) rather weakly. But if some new particles can mediate stronger interactions between these two sectors, we would expect to observe a stronger signal of new physics," said Wang. "The cosmological collider is an ideal arena for new physics beyond SM."

Explore further: Gravity may have saved the universe after the Big Bang, say researchers

More information: Xingang Chen et al, Standard Model Background of the Cosmological Collider, Physical Review Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.261302 , On Arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.06597

Journal reference: Physical Review Letters

Provided by: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

(Phys.org) New research by a team of European physicists could explain why the universe did not collapse immediately after the Big Bang.

In the first moments after the Big Bang, the universe expanded many billions of times faster than today. Such rapid expansion is likely due to a primordial force field acting with a new particle, the inflaton. From the latest ...

There are many theoretical models to explain such aspects of high energy physics as dark matter, theory of inflation, bariosynthesis, the Higgs mechanism, etc. The discovery of universal expansion is accelerating, precise ...

(Phys.org)A quartet of researchers has boldly proposed the addition of six new particles to the standard model to explain five enduring problems. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Guillermo ...

Cosmologists trying to understand how to unite the two pillars of modern science quantum physics and gravity have found a new way to make robust predictions about the effect of quantum fluctuations on primordial density ...

(Phys.org)One of the unanswered questions in particle physics is the hierarchy problem, which has implications for understanding why some of the fundamental forces are so much stronger than others. The strengths of the ...

An international team of researchers has found a way to determine whether a crystal is a topological insulatorand to predict crystal structures and chemical compositions in which new ones can arise. The results, published ...

Technology developed by a team of University of Utah electrical and computer engineers could make the holographic chess game R2-D2 and Chewbacca played in "Star Wars" a reality.

Researchers have performed the first ever quantum-mechanical simulation of the benchmark ultracold chemical reaction between potassium-rubidium (KRb) and a potassium atom, opening the door to new controlled chemistry experiments ...

Brown University researchers have developed a new method of manipulating the polarization of light at terahertz frequencies.

If Plastic Man, Elastigirl or Mr. Fantastic ever encounter Magneto, they'd better hope the iconic X-Men figure hasn't read the latest research from Christian Binek.

With help from robotic fish, researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering are demonstrating how information theory can offer insight into the cause-and-effect relationships between predator and prey ...

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Scientists reveal new connections between small particles and the ... - Phys.Org

American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson went on Celebrity Family Feud and won $25,000 with his family, and it comes as no surprise as they all clearly share the genius gene. The episode isnt set to air until next week, but it was so predictable that ABC already released the clip of their win. Want to learn more about the man behind Netflixs The Inexplicable Universe and Cosmos? Then check out our Neil deGrasse Tyson wiki!

Neil deGrasse Tysons age is 58, and he was born and raised in New York City. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and went to earn his BA in Physics at Harvard, and then his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia. Now, he is an author and science communicator dealing with topics like star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our Milky Way.

When he was nine years old, Tyson began to develop an interest in astronomy after a trip to the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Little did he know that he would someday become its director. In 1994, hejoined the planetarium as a staff scientist. His research involved issues relating to galactic structure and evolution. In 1995, he became the acting director, and one year later secured the position as director. For the next 10 years, he wrote monthly essays for Natural History magazine, and in 2000, he wrote an autobiography. Neil deGrasse Tysons books include Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour, StarTalk: The Book, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, Just Visiting this Planet, and more. He produced 13 research publications, and has made numerous major media appearances. Neil deGrasse Tysons net worth is an estimated $2.0 million.

Neil deGrasse Tysons wife is Alice Young, whom he wed in 1988. They live in Lower Manhattan with their two children. The couple met while Tyson was in a physics class at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a former IT Manager with Bloomberg Financial Markets. Alice and Neil deGrasse Tysons kids are Miranda, and Travis. Miranda was named after the smallest of Uranus five major moons.

Known for his achievements as a scientist, Neil deGrasse Tysons quotes have become widely known among academics and fans of all things space and exploration. Here are some of his most famous quotes.

Check out the video below to watch Neil deGrasse Tysons family answer some fun questions on Celebrity Family Feud!

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Wiki: Family, Career, Quotes, & Facts about the Astrophysicist - Earn The Necklace

A team of astronomers has found one of the largest superstructures in the universe about four billion light-years from Earth.

According to UPI, the enormous galaxy cluster called Saraswati measures over 600 million light-years across and has a mass of about 20 million billion suns.

The research was conducted by a team of astronomers from Inter University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA), and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), both in Pune, India, along with two other Indian universities.

We were very surprised to spot this giant wall-like supercluster of galaxies, visible in a large spectroscopic survey of distant galaxies, known as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, study authors Joydeep Bagchi from IUCAA and Shishir Sankhyayan from IISER said in a statement. This supercluster is clearly embedded in a large network of cosmic filaments traced by clusters and large voids.

The vast collection of galaxies is located in the direction of the constellation Pisces. Astronomers estimate that the supercluster formed when the universe was about ten billion years old.

The age and size of Sarawati suggest that forces beyond the gravitational effects of visible matter were at play when the superstructure formed. The influence of dark energy could explain how the cluster formed and held together.

Our work will help to shed light on the perplexing question; how such extreme large scale, prominent matter-density enhancements had formed billions of years in the past when the mysterious Dark Energy had just started to dominate structure formation, Bagchi and Sankhyayan said.

The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Kathy Fey is a freelance writer with a creative writing degree from Mount Holyoke College. She is an active blogger and erstwhile facilitator of science and engineering programs for children.

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Astronomers identify 'Saraswati' galactic supercluster - The Space Reporter

We already know tardigrades those tiny eight-legged water creatures are as tough as they are ugly. They can survive for 30 years in a freezer and live in space and other extreme temperatures. But a new study paints things in bleaker terms: these creatures will outlive all of us. They will be around for 10 billion years. They will survive until the Sun dies.

For the study, published in Scientific Reports, astrophysicists at Oxford and Harvard University calculated the probability of objects in space colliding into the Earth, boiling the oceans dry, and killing everything.

The key finding, write the scientists, is that no space phenomena are strong enough to dry up the oceans completely, and so the tardigrades can make do with whats left. There are a few known asteroids that could end everything, but none of these are expected to hit Earth. A supernova could get the job done, but its probably not going to explode near us. Its also unlikely that gamma ray bursts which are even stronger than supernovas are going to wipe us all out.

Therein lies the irony: humans are delicate creatures and climate change has a high risk of taking us out or at least making our lives nearly unbearable but tardigrades will only go down when the Sun does, too.

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These animals will live on Earth until the Sun dies - The Verge

Space

Jul.14.2017 / 2:24 PM ET

Scientists have discovered the smallest star known to science; in fact, it is so tiny that it barely qualifies as a star. Called EBLM J055557Ab, it is only slightly larger than Saturn. The star is part of a binary system, orbiting a much bigger star approximately 600 light-years from Earth.

"Our discovery reveals how small stars can be," astronomer Alexander Boetticher from the University of Cambridge said in a press release. "Had this star formed with only a slightly lower mass, the fusion reaction of hydrogen in its core could not be sustained, and the star would instead have transformed into a brown dwarf."

The issues that make this star a bit of a "borderline" case are the same that cause brown dwarves to be called "failed stars." EBLM J055557Ab is just massive enough to enable hydrogen fusion to occur in its core, forming helium, as the researcher describes in their study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. However, it remains very faint and difficult to see; it is approximately 2,000 to 3,000 times fainter than our Sun.

This, along with its proximity to parent star EBLM J055557A, made finding the tiny star a real challenge. Initially, EBLM J055557Ab was suspected of being an exoplanet as it orbited in front of its parent star. Only closer examination of the measurements revealed its true nature.

Dim, smaller stars like this one are prime candidates for hosting worlds that could support life because they provide the milder environments in which liquid water on planetary surfaces is more likely to survive. However, these minuscule stars are mysterious to us, not just because we rarely spot them. Hopefully, scientists will have more clues for finding them moving forward, having learned from this first discovery.

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This article was originally published on Futurism.

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This is the Tiniest Star Scientists Have Ever Seen - NBCNews.com

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How often do people ask you religious questions?

I get these kinds of questions all the time. Some are antagonistic. But most people are genuinely curious.

I have my own personal rule, which is I never, ever tell people what to believe. And I never, ever tell people they're wrong. I share with them what I know and how I know it. If someone says, "Well, I think the Earth is a lot younger," I say, "OK, fair enough. But give me the chance to explain why I think the universe is 13.8 billion years old."

There's a century of very difficult work that went into giving that answer and I think that how we got there is far more interesting than the actual number itself. I love the chance to explain that process.

What do you say when someone wants to know how science dovetails with their faith?

These kinds of questions are a lot harder than those coming from people whose faith conflicts with science. Of course I have my own personal beliefs. But when I'm in front of the public I'm not Paul Sutter the human being with complex beliefs. I'm Paul Sutter the astrophysicist. So I'm only going to share what I know from science.

If someone says, "Help me understand the nature of divinity or this section from the Bible," I honestly can't help them. They might want to talk to a theologian or a philosopher. I'm in the astronomy department.

But when you tell people you can't help them with their faith questions because you're a scientist, aren't you sending a message that there's an incompatibility between faith and science?

I personally believe that there is only a conflict between science and religion if you want there to be one. People ask if scientists are religious. I tell them that I personally know many scientists who are atheists, and many scientists who are very devout Catholics, and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and they all seem to sleep at night and they all are able to get work done and they all are able to pray, if they're the praying kind. And we all get along.

I bet you often get asked about your own religious beliefs or perhaps lack of beliefs.

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Faith and the cosmos: An astrophysicist fields the big questions ... - Salt Lake Tribune

The concept of a habitable zone is based on planets being in orbits where liquid water could exist, said Manasvi Lingam, a Harvard researcher with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This is only one factor, however, in determining whether a planet is hospitable for life.

The TRAPPIST-1 star, a red dwarf, is much fainter and less massive than the Sun. It is rapidly spinning and generates energetic flares of ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Two separate teams of scientists from theHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have identified major challenges for the development of life in TRAPPIST-1. The TRAPPIST-1 system, depicted here in an artists conception, contains seven roughly Earth-sized planets orbiting a red dwarf, which is a faint, low-mass star. This star spins rapidly and generates energetic flares of ultraviolet radiation and a strong wind of particles. The research teams say the behavior of this red dwarf makes it much less likely than generally thought that the three planets orbiting well within the habitable zone could support life. (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt)

The first team, a pair of CfA theorists, considered many factors that could affect conditions on the surfaces of planets orbiting red dwarfs. For the TRAPPIST-1 system they looked at how temperature could have an impact on ecology and evolution, plus whether ultraviolet radiation from the central star might erode atmospheres around the seven planets surrounding it. These planets are all much closer to the star than the Earth is to the Sun, and three of them are located well within the habitable zone.

Lingam and his co-author, Harvard professor Avi Loeb, found that planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system would be barraged by UV radiation with an intensity far greater than experienced by Earth.

Because of the onslaught by the stars radiation, our results suggest the atmosphere on planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system would largely be destroyed, said Loeb. This would hurt the chances of life forming or persisting.

Lingam and Loeb estimate that the chance of complex life existing on any of the three TRAPPIST-1 planets in the habitable zone is less than 1% of that for life existing on Earth.

In a separate study, another research team from the CfA and the University of Massachusetts in Lowell found that the star in TRAPPIST-1 poses another threat to life on planets surrounding it. Like the Sun, the red dwarf in TRAPPIST-1 is sending a stream of particles outwards into space. However, the pressure applied by the wind from TRAPPIST-1s star on its planets is 1,000 to 100,000 times greater than what the solar wind exerts on the Earth.

The authors argue that the stars magnetic field will connect to the magnetic fields of any planets in orbit around it, allowing particles from the stars wind to directly flow onto the planets atmosphere. If this flow of particles is strong enough, it could strip the planets atmosphere and perhaps evaporate it entirely.

The Earths magnetic field acts like a shield against the potentially damaging effects of the solar wind, said Cecilia Garraffo of the CfA, who led the new study. If Earth were much closer to the Sun and subjected to the onslaught of particles like the TRAPPIST-1 star delivers, our planetary shield would fail pretty quickly.

While these two studies suggest that the likelihood of life may be lower than previously thought, it does not mean the TRAPPIST-1 system or others with red dwarf stars are devoid of life.

Were definitely not saying people should give up searching for life around red dwarf stars, said Garraffos co-author Jeremy Drake, also from CfA. But our work and the work of our colleagues shows we should also target as many stars as possible that are more like the Sun.

The Daily Glaxy via Harvard-Smithonian CfA https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2017-20

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Odds of Complex Life On TRAPPIST-1 Planets in Habitable Zone--"It ... - The Daily Galaxy (blog)

Jo Dunkley, a professor of physics and astrophysical sciences at Princeton, asks big questions about the universe and the fundamental laws that describe nature. Dunkley joined thefaculty in 2016, deepening research collaborations she already had developed with Princeton colleagues. Dunkley also is a mentor to women in science.Dunkley, who as of this spring has two young children,said she feels it is part of her job to "figure out how to have a family life, be a mother, and be a professor."

Photo by Richard W. Soden

Astrophysics inspires Princeton professor Jo Dunkley to ask questions about the universe and the fundamental laws that describe nature.

"I love that we can answer big questions about something so vast as the whole universe and actually use our scientific tools to answer them," she said.

A professor of physics and astrophysical sciences, Dunkley has always been fond of mathematics. She was first drawn to physics when she was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England. Although she conducted some astrophysics research her final year, she came out of her university experience thinking that she did not want to be a scientist. She considered working for a nongovernmental organization or the civil service.

"I had a thought that being a scientist meant sitting on your own in a room, doing something that might not be so fascinating," she said. "I got that wrong."

A year away from science made her realize how much she missed it. Not only did she want to use math again, she had gained a newfound appreciation for research as a means to serve the community. She decided to return to research and earned her doctorate in physics from the University of Oxford in 2005.

"What we're trying to do is to find these deep answers to questions we've been asking for millennia," she said. "It's no good finding these things out unless we can explain to everyone else what it is we've learned. I see it as enriching people's lives to know more about the world we live in."

Dunkley joined Princeton's faculty in fall 2016, after serving on the faculty at Oxford. Before coming to Princeton, she already had collaborated with Princeton researchers on multiple projects. From 2006 to 2008, she worked with professors David Spergel and Lyman Page while a postdoctoral fellow on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, a NASA mission to make cosmology measurements and study the properties of the universe.

Spergel, the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation and professor of astrophysical sciences, first encountered Dunkley when she was a promising graduate student at Oxford. He recruited her to Princeton, and was pleased to see her grow from a postdoctoral fellow to play a major leadership role in the WMAP project.

"At that stage, she was very quickly given significant responsibilities in the analysis and interpretation of the data, and made major contributions to the analysis that led to the development of what we now think of as the standard model of cosmology," Spergel said.

Soon after, Dunkley was asked to be part of the analysis team for the Planck satellite at the European Space Agency. "It was really a tribute to both Jo's scientific talents and ability to work in a big complex team that she was able to make contributions to both the leading NASA mission and then the leading European Space Agency mission," Spergel said.

At Princeton, Dunkley realized that she loved to work as part of a team, performing theoretical and data analysis work connected to experiments, and collaborating with people possessing a huge range of skills.

"As scientists, we can't just work by ourselves," she said.

On campus, Dunkley works on the theoretical interpretation of new observations, primarily using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope situated at 16,000 feet above sea level in a desert mountain range in Chile. Using sophisticated computer programs, Dunkley's group develops theories to describe the universe or particular properties of the universe.

"We have these telescopes that scan the sky, and we turn the data into maps of the sky and extract statistics about them that we can then compare to our theories," she explained.

The process of comparing the theories to what we really see has a lot of steps to it, she noted, from filtering for the correct signal to thinking of ways to tackle statistical data analysis problems. To match the theoretical model of the universe with experimental data, Dunkley must search through billions of models until she finds one that best fits the data by fine-tuning variables like how old the universe is, how much it weighs and how fast it is growing.

Dunkley looks as far back almost to when the universe was born and studies light that has been traveling since the beginning of time. This light is called the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), a signal that was produced soon after the Big Bang that has been traveling to us since the universe was just a few hundred thousand years old.

"As we look out into space, we look back in time," she said.

As space expands, the wavelength of light also grows on its journey to us, she explained. By measuring this effect, scientists can see the universe evolving and changing.

"We get to pull out all sorts of information like what the universe is made of, and we see the beginnings of all the things that we now find around us in space that are more familiar, like stars and galaxies. We're seeing their birth, or their initial formation, right at this earliest time," Dunkley said.

Another area Dunkley investigates is dark matter, an invisible substance that clumps together due to gravity and does not emit light. Although there is at least five times more of this dark matter than normal matter, dark matter still remains one of the big mysteries in cosmology research, Dunkley said.

A technique to analyze dark matter is called gravitational lensing, a phenomena of light bending around a mass when shone from behind.

"We're now starting to reveal where the dark matter is by using these backlights," Dunkley said.

Although exactly what makes up dark matter is not yet known, most researchers think it includes some type of particle that has not yet been discovered. Whatever dark matter is, it has definitely influenced what the universe looks like today, she said.

"If you took it away, we would have ended up with a universe that looks quite different from the one we've got," she said. "There is probably dark matter going through us all the time. It's here," she said.

Dunkley is also interested in neutrinos, which are small, invisible particles. She would like to find out how much of dark matter is made of these neutrinos.

The mass of neutrinos has not yet been measured, but by looking at how distant light bends around dark matter, it will be possible to figure out their mass, and what fraction of this invisible dark matter is made up of these particles, Dunkley said. Answering these questions is part of a 10-year goal in a new project called the Simons Observatory, supported by the Simons Foundation, for which Dunkley is leading the science committee.

The new Simons Observatory telescopes will be located near the existing Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile. "It's beautiful. It's desert-like and it feels a bit like you're on Mars or something. It just doesn't look like anything else," Dunkley said. The telescopes will be used to look at the Cosmic Microwave Background in order to understand how the universe began, what it is made of and how it has evolved.

Dunkley is one of two tenured female professors in the Department of Physics, along with Suzanne Staggs, the Henry DeWolf Smyth Professor of Physics, who leads the Atacama Cosmology Telescope project.

"It is sometimes disheartening that there are so few of us [women] in this field, but I have always felt very positively supported in all the places I've worked," Dunkley said. Although most of her mentors and advisers throughout her career have been men, they were very encouraging, she said.

Nevertheless, Dunkley insists that more female role models are needed. "I think we're missing out on this huge number of great women who could be doing great physics who are just being lost out of the system," she said. "I think they are being put off quite early and are not continuing with science, and physics in particular. I think a lot of that is cultural, but I think that's something we can change."

One way to increase visibility is through the media, she said. "If someone invites you to go on TV or radio to talk about your work even for two minutes, you should do it. You get out there, you talk about your work, and you let people see you're real and that you're a real scientist."

Dunkley is writing an astronomy and cosmology book for the general public called "Our Universe," due out early next year. She hopes that young women will get excited about physics and space, and will be inspired.

"Jo is a real leader as a scientist," Spergel said. "She already mentors a number of outstanding young women, and I think she will play a big role in increasing the number of women in science," he said.

This past semester, Dunkley taught "General Physics II," a course geared toward engineering students. "It's fun for me to be teaching a big class of students who want to learn physics, but it's not the only thing they're doing and it's certainly not their only interest," she said.

In addition to her research and teaching responsibilities, Dunkley has two young children. "I feel like it's part of my job, to figure out how to have a family life, be a mother, and be a professor," she said.

"She's a fabulous scientist and a wonderful person, and were very lucky to have her at Princeton," said Page, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Physics. "Its not common when you have regardless of male or female an absolutely top-flight scientist who's also just so fun to work with. [She] adds a spark, a positivity to the department, and to our group here."

Excerpt from:

Understanding the universe: Astrophysicist Dunkley shines through her research - Princeton University