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Despite science’s best efforts to classify the vast menagerie of subatomic particles discovered over the past few decades, some exotic varieties defy explanation. Now, nuclear physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have found evidence of two unexpected structures that could help better sort the zoo of exotic particles.
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Standing on the sandy, windswept shores of Provincetown, Massachusetts, people may find themselves squinting at the horizon, waiting for a whale to make its grand entrance with a spectacular breach.
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In the coming years, increasingly larger and more powerful quantum systems are expected to tackle problems that are difficult or impossible to solve using conventional computers. However, the more powerful quantum simulations become, the more difficult it is to independently verify their results. Where classical simulation is still feasible, results can be cross-checked directly; beyond that regime, other methods are needed.
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Niobium-94, an isotope of niobium with 41 protons and 53 neutrons, is a critical crossroads in the complex nuclear processes that forge heavy elements under the intense pressures and temperatures of dying stars. In an article published in Physical Review Letters, the n_TOF Collaboration reports the first-ever measurement of the probability of niobium-94 taking one of the paths at this crossroads—that is, undergoing neutron capture.
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Astronomers have detected an enormous cloud of gas tens of millions of degrees hot surrounding one of the most extreme structures known in the early universe. The study offers one of the clearest views yet of a galaxy cluster in the making. Using more than 600,000 seconds of observations with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the team found diffuse, extended X-ray emission around a quasar embedded in a dense concentration of galaxies more than 11 billion light-years away. The paper describing the results was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on July 24.
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China has successfully recaptured the first stage of a rocket on land for the first time, state media reported Wednesday, as the country seeks to advance its space program.
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Researchers at the University of Oldenburg’s Institute of Physics are working on techniques for precision control of electric fields of light, which allow the dynamics of individual electrons to be manipulated in experiments. Now a team from the Attosecond Microscopy research group, led by Dr. Jan Vogelsang, has taken a decisive step toward this goal.
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To commercialize quantum computing, manufacturers need high-quality superconducting materials for microchips, but they also require a reliable, sustainable nanofabrication process. Tantalum is a corrosion-resistant metal that meets the first criterion but not the second. That’s because it has to be deposited on a substrate at temperatures that typically exceed 400°C (752°F)—too hot for many semiconductor foundries’ current tools.
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NASA has released a report recommending an initial health standard for the Martian dust that astronauts could inhale during future missions. Although sending people to Mars is still years away, NASA needs to establish safety limits now. Spacecraft, spacesuits and crew habitats take years to design and test, and engineers need a measurable target for developing air filters, airlocks and suit-cleaning systems that will keep astronauts safe.
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Astronomers have uncovered a previously underexplored population of faint, rapidly fading remnant radio galaxies, offering new insights into what happens after supermassive black holes stop powering their enormous radio jets.
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Between Aug. 11–12, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured a series of images of a new crater on the moon. The crater formed Aug. 5, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the surface following its Jan. 2025 launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost 1 mission.
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Deimos, the smaller and outermost of Mars’ two moons, is roughly oval in shape and has a deep depression at its south pole. Unlike its heavily scarred sister moon, Phobos, Deimos is covered by a loose layer of dust and rubble—a so-called regolith layer—which gives it a smoother, dustier appearance. Although numerous space probes have provided increasingly detailed images of its surface over the past decades, the origins of the debris layer and the depression at the south pole remain unclear.
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Quantum communication promises many advantages over today’s standard technologies, including absolutely secure transmission of large amounts of data. However, it requires single photons—and generating them is very difficult. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST) have developed a new method that overcomes the problems of previous approaches.
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Many materials, both living and engineered, are powered from within. Scientists have thoroughly investigated how such ‘active’ materials operate, but so far, mostly in circumstances where the curvature of the environment does not play a role. In research published in Physical Review Letters this week, a team of physicists proposes a framework to describe how active materials operate in the presence of curvature. The framework explains striking biological observations and may lead to geometry as a design parameter for new materials.
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Karen Solomon, a co-founder of law enforcement mental health organization Blue H.E.L.P., is wanted for questioning in the death of a 30-year Worcester PD officer
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