Astronomy and Physics News
Our colleague Prof. Nacir Tit has been awarded the Khalifa Award for Education in the field of Scientific Research for 2012-2013 (Sixth Cycle).
The annual Khalifa Award (KA) recognizes excellence in the field of education of indi- viduals, schools and institu- tions. “The award was created to enhance the quality of edu- cation and initiate a sense of positive competition between participants to provide the field of education with rich experi- ences, creative ideas and inno- vative educational projects,”
Amal Al Afifi, secretary-general of the award, said. The awards are given in 11 categories in-
cluding public education, higher education in the UAE and across the Arab World, special needs, creating knowledge networks, new media and education, educa- tion and sustainable environ- ment, education and commu- nity service, educational re- search, projects and innova- tive educational programs and educational writing for chil- dren, Amal added.
Congratulations to Prof. Nacir Tit for this magnificent award and achievement.
Prof. Nacir Tit (UAEU) wins the Khalifa Award for Scientific Research for 2012/2013
It is one of the cosmos' most mys- terious unsolved cases: dark mat- ter. It is supposedly what holds the universe together. We can't see it, but scientists are pretty sure it's out there. Led by a dogged, Nobel Prize-winning gumshoe who has spent 18 years on the case, scien- tists put a $2 billion detector aboard the International Space Station to try to track down the stuff. And after two years, the first evidence came in Wednesday:
tantalizing cosmic footprints that seem to have been left by dark
matter. But the evidence isn't enough to declare the case closed. The footprints could have come from another, more con- ventional suspect: a pulsar, or a rotating, radiation-emitting star.
The Sam Spade in the investiga- tion, physicist and Nobel laureate Sam Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he expects a more definitive answer in a matter of months. He confi- dently promised: "There is no question we're going to solve this problem." "It's a tantalizing hint,"
said California Institute of Tech- nology physicist Sean Carroll, who was not part of the team.
"It's a sign of something." But he can't quite say what that something is. It doesn't elimi- nate the other suspect, pulsars, he added. Read more…..
Scientists report hint of dark matter in first results from $2 billion cosmic ray detector
Department of Physics—United Arab Emirates University
April 06, 2013 Volume 3, Issue 14
Prof. Nacir Tit wins the Kha- lifa Award for Scientific Re- 1 Scientists report hint of dark matter in first results from .. 1 Are Our Textbooks Wrong?
Astronomers Clash Over Hub- 2 Don't call it vaporware: Scien- tists use cloud of atoms as .. 2 Gravity-Bending Find Leads to Kepler Meeting Einstein 2 Rocket powered by nuclear fusion could send humans to 3 New camera system creates high-resolution 3-D images 3 Graphene foams: Cozy and conductive scaffolds for neural
3
IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula
4 One grate idea leads to another 4 Inside this issue:
Weekly news from around the world compiled by Dr. Ilias Fernini
A technician examines the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.. The cosmic ray detector was mounted on the International Space Station, searched the universe and shall help to explain how everything came to be. CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research, released first results of the experiment Wednesday April 3, 2013. (AP Photo/NASA, Glenn Benson).
Prof. Nacir Tit is a faculty member at the Physics Department at the United Arab Emirates University. His research interests are in computational semiconductor physics.
Edwin Hubble’s contributions to astronomy earned him the honor of having his name bestowed upon arguably the most famous space telescope (the Hubble Space Tele- scope, HST). Contributions that are often attributed to him include the discovery of the extragalactic scale (there exist countless other galaxies beyond the Milky Way), the expand- ing Universe (the Hubble constant), and a galaxy classification system (the Hubble Tuning Fork). However, certain astronomers are questioning Hubble’s pre-eminence in those topics, and if all the credit is warrant- ed.
“[The above mentioned] discoveries … are well-known … and most astrono- mers would associate them solely with Edwin Hubble; yet this is a gross over- simplification. Astronomers and histori- ans are beginning to revise that standard story and bring a more nuanced version to the public’s attention,” said NASA scientist Michael J. Way, who just pub- lished a new study entitled “Dismantling Hubble’s Legacy?” Has history clouded our view of Hubble the man? Or are his contributions seminal to where we are today in astronomy? Read more…...
with its partner, a small "red dwarf" star. While the tiny white dwarf is physically smaller than the red dwarf, it is more massive.
"This white dwarf is about the size of Earth but has the mass of the sun," said Phil Muirhead of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, lead author of the find- ings to be published April 20 in the Astrophysical Journal. "It's so hefty that the red dwarf, though NASA's Kepler space telescope
has witnessed the effects of a dead star bending the light of its com- panion star. The findings are among the first detections of this phenomenon -- a result of Ein- stein's general theory of relativity - - in binary, or double, star systems.
The dead star, called a white dwarf, is the burnt-out core of what used to be a star like our sun.
It is locked in an orbiting dance
larger in physical size, is circling around the white dwarf."
Kepler's primary job is to scan stars in search of orbiting plan- ets. As the planets pass by, they block the starlight by miniscule amounts, which Kepler's sensi- tive detectors can see. Read more ………...
Are Our Textbooks Wrong? Astronomers Clash Over Hubble’s Legacy
Don't call it vaporware: Scientists use cloud of atoms as optical memory device (w/ video)
Talk about storing data in the cloud. Scientists at the Joint Quan- tum Institute (JQI) of the National Institute of Standards and Tech- nology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have taken this to a whole new level by demonstrating that they can store visual images within quite an ethereal memory device—a thin vapor of rubidium atoms. The effort may prove help- ful in creating memory for quan- tum computers. Their work builds on an approach developed at the Australian National University, where scientists showed that a
P a g e 2 A s t ro n o m y an d P h y s ics N ew s V o lu m e 3 , I s s u e 1 4
Illustration only.
Images of Galactic nebulae and a supernova remnant that were obtained via the Hubble Space Telescope, which is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble. The honor was bestowed upon E. Hubble given his seminal contributions to astronomy (image credit: spikedrocker/deviantart).
Gravity-Bending Find Leads to Kepler Meeting Einstein
rubidium vapor could be manipu- lated in interesting ways using magnetic fields and lasers. The vapor is contained in a small tube and magnetized, and a laser pulse made up of multiple light frequen- cies is fired through the tube. The energy level of each rubidium atom changes depending on which frequency strikes it, and these changes within the vapor become a sort of fingerprint of the pulse's characteristics. Read more …..
Rocket powered by nuclear fusion could send humans to Mars
Graphene foams: Cozy and conductive scaffolds for neural stem cells
Human travel to Mars has long been the unachievable dangling carrot for space programs. Now, astronauts could be a step closer to our nearest planetary neighbor through a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion, the same energy that powers the sun and stars.
University of Washington re- searchers and scientists at a Red- mond-based space-propulsion company are building components of a fusion-powered rocket aimed to clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks. "Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore
much beyond Earth," said lead researcher John Slough, a UW research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to mak- ing interplanetary travel common- place." . The project is funded through NASA's Innovative Ad- vanced Concepts Program. Last month at a symposium, Slough and his team from MSNW, of which he is president, presented their mission analysis for a trip to Mars, along with detailed comput- er modeling and initial experi-
mental results. Theirs was one of a handful of projects awarded a second round of funding last fall after already receiving phase-one money in a field of 15 projects chosen from more than 700 pro- posals. Read more…….
based physicists has recently tack- led these limitations and reported their findings in the Optical Socie- ty's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express. The research team, led by Gerald Buller, a pro- fessor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, describes a ToF imaging system that can gath- er high-resolution, 3-D infor- mation about objects that are typically very difficult to image, from up to a kilometer away.
Read more …..
A standard camera takes flat, 2-D pictures. To get 3-D information, such as the distance to a far-away object, scientists can bounce a laser beam off the object and measure how long it takes the light to travel back to a detector. The technique, called time-of-flight (ToF), is already used in machine vision, navigation systems for autonomous vehicles, and other applications, but many current ToF systems have a relatively short range and struggle to image objects that do not reflect laser light well. A team of Scotland-
Their open paper, published yes- terday in Nature's Scientific Re- ports, suggests new approaches for neural tissue engineering, and possibly for interfacing with neural prosthetics. It has been previously reported that graphene sheets support growth and differentiation of human neural stem cells (NSCs) in a similar fashion to other com- mon substrates like glass or poly- Graphene foams have been
around now for a couple years.
Their widespread application in everything from electronics and energy storage to substitutes for helium in balloons is still greatly anticipated. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Suzhou, and Beijing, have now shown that graphene foams can also be used to craft conductive scaffolds for neural stem cells.
mer PDMS. Chinese researchers have done pioneering work in synthesizing graphene foams to exacting standards of purity and uniformity. When coat- ed with laminin or other matrix pro- teins, these foams could potentially serve not only as compatible neural housing but also as a means to con- trol the tenants electrically. Read more….
P a g e 3 A s t ro n o m y an d P h y s ics N ew s V o lu m e 3 , I s s u e 1 4
This shows 3-D images of a mannequin (top) and person (bottom) from 325 meters away. The left-hand panels show close-up photos of the targets taken with a standard camera. In the center are 3-D images of these targets taken by the scan- ner from 325 meters away. On the right is a color-coded map showing the number of photons that bounce off the targets and return to the detector, with black indicat- ing a low number of photons. Notice that human skin does not show up well using the scanner: the mannequin's face includes depth information, but the person's face does not. Credit: Optics Express.
A concept image of a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. In this image, the crew would be in the forward-most chamber. Solar panels on the sides would collect energy to initiate the process that creates fusion.
Credit: University of Washington, MSNW.
New camera system creates high-resolution 3-D images from up to
a kilometer away
College of Science - United Arab Emirates University POB 17551
Al-Ain
United Arab Emirates
http://fos.uaeu.ac.ae/department/physics
rant’s request.
The eatery, The Pass and Provi- sions, turned to a Rice faculty member last year for a design that would fit its aesthetic. Five stu- dents who cheekily called them- selves “Fork Yeah” took up the challenge as part of the freshman engineering course taught by Ann Saterbak, a professor in the prac- tice of bioengineering education.
Read more….
Diners at a downtown Houston restaurant will soon have to pause and think about a process they all too often take for granted when they wash their hands.
Instead of a common wall-mounted dispenser spitting out runny glop, a device built around a real kitchen grater will serve up flakes from a high-quality bar of soap. Patrons will find they have to scrub, scrub, scrub to lather up and get clean.
That’s by design. They’ll be doing the bidding of a group of Rice Uni- versity freshman engineering stu- dents who are creating a set of unique soap graters for the women’s and men’s restrooms at the restau-
One “grate” idea leads to another
Phone: 00-971-3-7136336 E-mail: [email protected]
Physics Department
IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Scott Rosen
Freshman engineering students at Rice University created a unique kitchen-themed soap dispenser in a project sponsored by a Houston restaurant. The dispenser provides flakes of high-quality soap to patrons who literally grate the soap as if it were cheese. Image: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University
Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the above im- aged molecular cloud complex is a reflection nebula cataloged as IC 4592.
Reflection nebulas are actually made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the light of energetic nearby stars. In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion Scorpius. A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars on the upper right of the image center.
