This Week In Science News

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Pulverized Planet Dust May Lie Around Double Stars

PASADENA, Calif. -- Tight double-star systems might not be the best places for life to spring up, according to a new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared observatory spotted a surprisingly large amount of dust around three mature, close-orbiting star pairs. Where did the dust come from? Astronomers say it might be the aftermath of tremendous planetary collisions.

"This is real-life science fiction," said Jeremy Drake of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass. "Our data tell us that planets in these systems might not be so lucky -- collisions could be common. It's theoretically possible that habitable planets could exist around these types of stars, so if there happened to be any life there, it could be doomed."

Drake is the principal investigator of the research, published in the Aug.19 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

NASA

 

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Rich Planetary System Discovered

Astronomers using ESO’s world-leading HARPS instrument have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets, orbiting the Sun-like star HD 10180. The researchers also have tantalizing evidence that two other planets may be present, one of which would have the lowest mass ever found. This would make the system similar to our solar system in terms of the number of planets (seven as compared to our solar system’s eight planets). Furthermore, the team also found evidence that the distances of the planets from their star follow a regular pattern, as also seen in our solar system.

LPI

 

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Artificial Light Suppresses Melatonin, Boosts Cancer

University of Haifa researchers found evidence that Light At Night (LAN) has harmful health effects. Bright city lights might boost your risks of cancer by suppressing melatonin production.

Futurepundit

 

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Study Shows Nano-Architectured Aluminum Has Steely Strength

A North Carolina State University researcher and colleagues have figured out a way to make an aluminum alloy, or a mixture of aluminum and other elements, just as strong as steel.

That’s important, says Dr. Yuntian Zhu, professor of materials science and the NC State researcher involved in the project, because the search for ever lighter – yet stronger – materials is crucial to devising everything from more fuel-efficient cars to safer airplanes.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, Zhu and his colleagues describe the new nanoscale architecture within aluminum alloys that have unprecedented strength but also reasonable plasticity to stretch and not break under stress. Perhaps even more importantly, the technique of creating these nanostructures can be used on many different types of metals.

North Carolina State University

 

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Counting Down to Commercial Space Launches

A small fleet of privately developed spacecraft will head into orbit in the next few years--assuming that current levels of public and private funding can be sustained. If it happens, this will mark a new chapter in space exploration and research, as NASA comes to rely more on private companies for the technology to put manned and unmanned vehicles in space.

Progress reports from several private space companies at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics's Space 2010 conference, in Anaheim, CA, reveal new details of spacecraft design as well as testing and flight schedules.

Technology Review

 

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Ocean conveyor-belt model stirred up

The accepted picture of how a massive oceanic conveyor belt of water turns has been complicated by findings published today in Nature Geoscience. The results could help to boost the precision of climate-change models.

Nature

 

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Cities Attract Hurricanes

WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, devastating New Orleans and other regions along the Mississippi River Delta. Hurricane forecasting has steadily progressed over the intervening years, which should help cities and states better prepare for devastating cyclones. Now researchers have added another piece to the forecasting puzzle by determining how the texture of landscapes can affect a storm’s motion.

New research shows that rough areas of land, including city buildings and naturally jagged land cover like trees and forests can actually attract passing hurricanes. The research found also that storms traveling over river deltas hold together longer than those over dry ground. As a result, the city of New Orleans might feel a greater impact of hurricanes coming off the Gulf of Mexico than existing computer models predict.


Inside Science

 

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Rich Planetary System Discovered

Astronomers using ESO’s world-leading HARPS instrument have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets, orbiting the Sun-like star HD 10180. The researchers also have tantalizing evidence that two other planets may be present, one of which would have the lowest mass ever found. This would make the system similar to our solar system in terms of the number of planets (seven as compared to our solar system’s eight planets). Furthermore, the team also found evidence that the distances of the planets from their star follow a regular pattern, as also seen in our solar system.

LPI

 

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Variations in fine-structure constant suggest laws of physics not the same everywhere

(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the most controversial questions in cosmology is why the fundamental constants of nature seem fine-tuned for life. One of these fundamental constants is the fine-structure constant, or alpha, which is the coupling constant for the electromagnetic force and equal to about 1/137.0359. If alpha were just 4% bigger or smaller than it is, stars wouldn't be able to make carbon and oxygen, which would have made it impossible for life as we know it to exist. Now, results from a new study show that alpha seems to have varied a tiny bit in different directions of the universe billions of years ago, being slightly smaller in the northern hemisphere and slightly larger in the southern hemisphere. One intriguing possible implication is that the fine-structure constant is continuously varying in space, and seems fine-tuned for life in our neighborhood of the universe.

Physorg

 

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Physics.org is looking for the best physics-centric sites on the web.

http://www.physics.org/featuredetail.asp?id=52

 

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CMS observes a potentially new and interesting effect

After almost six months of operation, experiments at the LHC are starting to see signs of potentially new and interesting effects. In results announced by the CMS collaboration today, correlations have been observed between particles produced in 7 TeV proton-proton collisions.

In some of the LHC’s proton-proton collisions, a hundred or more particles can be produced. The CMS collaboration has studied such collisions by measuring angular correlations between the particles as they fly away from the point of impact, and this has revealed that some of the particles are intimately linked in a way not seen before in proton collisions.

CERN