Heavens

WASHINGTON—A team of American and Israeli researchers has unearthed what could be the largest and oldest wine cellar in the Near East.

NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Burst Mission detected the burst almost simultaneously with the GBM and quickly relayed its position to ground-based observatories.

Telescopes operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as part of the Rapid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) Project quickly turned to the spot. They detected an optical flash that peaked at magnitude 7 on the astronomical brightness scale, easily visible through binoculars. It is the second-brightest flash ever seen from a gamma-ray burst.

In our universe there are particle accelerators 40 million times more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Scientists don't know what these cosmic accelerators are or where they are located, but new results being reported from "IceCube," the neutrino observatory buried at the South Pole, may show the way. These new results should also erase any doubts as to IceCube's ability to deliver on its promise.

Gamma-ray bursts are violent bursts of gamma radiation associated with exploding massive stars. For the first time ever, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have observed an unusually powerful gamma-ray burst in the relatively nearby universe – a monster gamma-ray burst. The results are published in the scientific journal, Science.

When astronomers observe gamma-ray bursts, they never see the original star itself. It is far too dim to be seen from their distance in the universe. But when the star dies, they can see the exploding star as a supernova.

This news release is available in German.

(Edmonton) Scientists using a particle detector made of ice at the South Pole have found the first indication of high-energy neutrinos that originate outside of the solar system.

For the first time, a team of astronomers from around the world, including experts from the University of Leicester, have used data from satellites and observatories to explain the brightest Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) ever recorded.

Neutrinos can zip right through your body, the walls of your house, entire planets, even emerging from near the surface of fascinating and frightening black holes.

And now, an international scientific collaboration that includes researchers from the University of Delaware has taken an 'astronomical' step forward in unmasking the origins of some of these high-energy particles, the so-called "messengers of the universe."

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Nov. 21, 2013—Intelligent telescopes designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory got a front row seat recently for an unusual birth.

"Los Alamos' RAPTOR telescopes in New Mexico and Hawaii received a very bright cosmic birth announcement for a black hole on April 27," said astrophysicist Tom Vestrand, lead author of a paper appearing today in the journal Science that highlights the unusual event.

This news release is available in German.

A wide variety of particles perpetually pound onto the Earth's atmosphere. Most of these particles, like protons, electrons or helium nuclei have a certain mass and carry an electrical charge. When they collide with other particles or are deflected by the cosmic magnetic fields, the sun or the Earth, they alter their path and energy.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured visible and infrared imagery of slow-moving Tropical Storm Helen as it was spreading its western clouds over parts of southeastern India on November 21.

Melissa was centered near 40.0 north latitude and 34.8 west longitude, about 440 miles/710 kilometers west-northwest of the Azores. Melissa was moving to the east-northeast at a speedy 32 mph/52 kph and had a minimum central pressure near 984 millibars. The center of Melissa will pass north of the western Azores today, Nov. 21.

The National Hurricane Center expects Melissa to become post-tropical later today. Gradual weakening is forecast during the next two days.

Astronomers using the combined power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a far-flung trio of primitive galaxies nestled inside an enormous blob of primordial gas nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth.

Researchers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have developed a bio-based solar cell. They embedded the two proteins photosystem 1 and 2, which in plants are responsible of photosynthesis, into complex molecules developed in-house, thus creating an efficient electron current. Headed by Prof Dr Wolfgang Schuhmann from the Department of Analytical Chemistry and Center for Electrochemical Sciences (CES) and Prof Dr Matthias Rögner from the Department of Plant Biochemistry, the team has published a report in the journal "Angewandte Chemie".

Researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have developed a faster 3D printing process and are now using it to model and fabricate heterogeneous objects, which comprise multiple materials.