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Category: space

Methane’s Elaborate Phases and Where to Find Them

A systematic exploration of the phase diagram of methane resolves inconsistencies of earlier studies, with potential ramifications for our understanding of planetary interiors.

As a gas, methane is very simple. But as a liquid and as a solid, it is perplexingly complex. Ambiguity has long plagued our observations and measurements of its structure at different pressure–temperature combinations. Yet, understanding methane’s phase diagram is vital for predicting its behavior deep within our and other planets. In a tour de force contribution Mengnan Wang at the University of Edinburgh in the UK and her colleagues have now charted the turbulent seas of the methane phase diagram [1]. By comprehensively mapping its phases and melting curve, they have resolved the legion of discrepancies of earlier studies.

Methane—one of the simplest of all molecules—is sometimes the subject of flatulence jokes (of which it is odorlessly innocent) but is also a powerful driver of climate change on Earth (of which it is very guilty [2]). The extraction of gaseous methane from Earth drives multibillion-dollar industries, which use the molecule both as a fuel and as a source of hydrogen. Out in the Solar System, methane in planetary atmospheres absorbs red light, which makes Uranus and Neptune shine blue, while icy methane damaged by radiation paints dwarf planets red.

First carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars discovered in Milky Way’s companion

Using the Baryons Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) spectrograph, astronomers have discovered five new carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This is the first time such stars have been identified in this galaxy. The discovery was reported in a paper published January 15 on the arXiv pre-print server.

Metal-poor stars are rare objects, as only a few thousand stars with iron abundances [Fe/H] below-2.0 have been discovered to date. Expanding the still-short list of metal-poor stars is of high importance for astronomers, as such objects have the potential to improve our knowledge of the chemical evolution of the universe.

Observations show that a significant fraction of these stars exhibit a large overabundance of carbon; therefore, they are known as carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars.

Helical liquid crystals can flip light’s chirality under ultralow electric fields

The direction in which the electromagnetic field of circularly polarized light rotates can be easily reversed by applying a voltage, RIKEN researchers have demonstrated. This could enable a new generation of optical devices based on circularly polarized light. The work is published in two papers in the journal Advanced Materials.

Polarized sunglasses produce light that is polarized along a single direction. But some special devices can generate light with a polarization that rotates as the light propagates. Such circularly polarized light is useful for many applications, including spectroscopy, satellite communications, stereoscopy and microscopy.

For some applications, it would be useful to switch between clockwise and anticlockwise circularly polarized light. However, this handedness is locked into the molecular structure. Known as the material’s chirality, it is used to produce the circularly polarized light. And reversing that requires a lot of energy.

Astronomers Discover Strange “Inside-Out” Planetary System That Defies Cosmic Rules

A newly studied planetary system appears to break the expected order of worlds, revealing an unusual arrangement that current theories struggle to explain. “Many Vile Earthlings Munch Jam Sandwiches Under Newspapers” and “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos” may sound like nonsense, but

US firm flies hypersonic system that captures images through plasma layer

Varda Space Industries has launched its sixth reentry capsule aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-16 mission.

The capsule launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, at 4:02 am PT (11:02 am UTC). It carried a US government-funded hypersonic technology experiment within its interior.

The payload was designed to test a hypersonic navigation system capable of accurately identifying spacecraft position, even when communications are blocked by intense plasma sheaths during hypersonic flight.

Cosmic collision of galaxies mapped by Maunakea telescope

An astronomer at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo is using data from the Canada–France–Hawaiʻi Telescope (CFHT) on Maunakea to help reconstruct a slow-motion cosmic collision, one that has been unfolding for hundreds of millions of years. A new study from principal investigator R. Pierre Martin, a professor of astronomy at UH Hilo, and international researchers such as Ph.D. student Camille Poitras and colleagues at Université Laval in Québec, Canada, simulates the past, present, and future of two spiral galaxies, NGC 2207 and IC 2163.

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