News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Astronomers across Africa and Europe have reacted with delight to news that Africa’s first millimetre-range radio telescope is to be built. The Africa Millimetre Telescope will fill a gap in the coverage of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global network of telescopes that can receive and analyse radio waves of around 1 millimetre in … Read more
These are boom times for astronomers hunting black holes. The biggest ones—supermassive black holes that can weigh billions of suns—have been found at the centers of most every galaxy, and we have even managed to image one. Meanwhile, researchers now routinely detect gravitational waves rippling through the universe from smaller merging black holes. Closer to … Read more
Josie Ford Va va vacuum Like many people who have difficulty distinguishing science fact from fiction, Feedback is anticipating with trepidation the rise of the sentient machines. We see the story recently reported by the BBC, “Robot vacuum cleaner escapes from Cambridge Travelodge”, as a kind of low-budget prequel. “The automated cleaner failed to stop … Read more
Astronomers have found lots of exoplanets but not much evidence of exomoons, and a new model might explain why Space 1 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins An artist’s impression of an exoplanet Shutterstock / Artsiom P Rocky planets much bigger than Earth might not be able to form large moons like our own, which is … Read more
In 1974 Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes are not black but slowly emit thermal radiation. Hawking’s prediction shook physics to its core because it implied that black holes cannot last forever and that they instead, over eons, evaporate into nothingness—except, however, for one small problem: there is simply no way to see such faint … Read more
In 1974 Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes are not black but slowly emit thermal radiation. Hawking’s prediction shook physics to its core because it implied that black holes cannot last forever and that they instead, over eons, evaporate into nothingness—except, however, for one small problem: there is simply no way to see such faint … Read more
Chinese scientists have built an “artificial moon” research facility that will enable them to simulate low-gravity environments using magnetism. The facility, slated for official launch this year, will use powerful magnetic fields inside a 2-foot-diameter (60 centimeters) vacuum chamber to make gravity “disappear.” The scientists were inspired by an earlier experiment that used magnets to … Read more
Matter and antimatter behave the same way under the influence of gravity, a new study found, leaving scientists no wiser as to what makes the two different. Antimatter is the puzzling stuff created during the Big Bang together with normal matter. It is virtually normal matter’s mirror — exactly the same, only with the opposite … Read more
Those two orbs we see in the sky during the day and night have even more of an influence on the animals and plants on Earth than you might think. The gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon really does appear to affect flora and fauna activity, although the exact mechanisms by which this happens … Read more
A long-awaited, 16-year study of an orbiting pair of spinning neutron stars has yielded the most wide-ranging tests yet of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. Unsurprisingly, the general theory of relativity, as it’s called, passed all the tests—a sign of its soundness, but also a null result that leaves physicists looking for clues to develop … Read more