Heavens

URBANA, Ill. - Getting out in nature, even for just a 20-minute walk, can go a long way toward restoring your attention. But does it have the same effect when you make it a family activity?

Family studies researchers at the University of Illinois have looked at the benefits of spending time in nature as a family, and theorize that families who regularly get outside together tend to function better.

An international team of astronomers have found that there are far more planets of the hot Jupiter type than expected in a cluster of stars called Messier 67. This surprising result was obtained using a number of telescopes and instruments, among them the HARPS spectrograph at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The denser environment in a cluster will cause more frequent interactions between planets and nearby stars, which may explain the excess of hot Jupiters.

No one has yet observed the first stars that formed in the Milky Way. In all likelihood, they will never be directly observed, because the first stars are massive, ending their lives only a few millions years after their birth.

But, astronomers can study those oldest stars by examining the elements these stars produce through nuclear fusion and the supernova explosions that mark the spectacular ends of their short lives.

A simulation of the powerful jets generated by supermassive black holes at the centers of the largest galaxies explains why some burst forth as bright beacons visible across the universe, while others fall apart and never pierce the halo of the galaxy.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found a way to give photons, or light packets, their marching orders.

The researchers have capitalized on the largesse of an energy state in an optical field to make photons in their lasing system travel in a consistent mode, either clockwise or counterclockwise.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) detected a clear signal from oxygen in a galaxy located 13.1 billion light-years away from us. This is the most distant oxygen ever detected. Oxygen in this galaxy seems to be ionized by a number of young giant stars, and this detection is a key step to understand the enigmatic "cosmic reionization" in the early history of the Universe. These observations have opened a new window to probe the early Universe with ALMA.

An international team of researchers has detected gas containing oxygen in a galaxy 13.1 billion light years from Earth, providing a glimpse into what the universe was like in ancient times, reports a new study published in this week's Science.

The supermassive black holes found at the centre of every galaxy, including our own Milky Way, may, on average, be smaller than we thought, according to work led by University of Southampton astronomer Dr Francesco Shankar.

If he and his colleagues are right, then the gravitational waves produced when they merge will be harder to detect than previously assumed. The international team of scientists published their results in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

On Dec. 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC, scientists observed gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of spacetime -- for the second time.

The gravitational waves were detected by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Every year, more than 23,000 youth leave foster care after turning 18 and begin adulthood. Unlike their peers who can depend on family who serve as support systems, those coming out of foster care have to be more self-sufficient and often face elevated risks of homelessness and poverty. Clark Peters, assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri, says youth in foster care need not only financial education but guidance as they grow their experience obtaining and managing money to successfully navigate the path to adulthood.

Astronomers from Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and ESO have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA to observe one of the most distant galaxies known. SXDF-NB1006-2 lies at a redshift of 7.2, meaning that we see it only 700 million years after the Big Bang.

On December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC, scientists observed gravitational waves--ripples in the fabric of spacetime--for the second time.

The gravitational waves were detected by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.

On December 26, 2015, at 03:38:53 UTC, scientists observed gravitational waves--ripples in the fabric of spacetime--for the second time.

Both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors--located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington--detected the gravitational wave event, named GW151226. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and the Virgo Collaboration used data from the twin LIGO detectors to make the discovery, which is accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The homologous temperature of a crystalline material is defined as the ratio between temperature and the melting (solidus) temperature (Tm) in Kelvin. Because Tm of a crystalline material is controlled by the bonding force between atoms, T/Tm has been widely used to compare the creep strength of crystalline materials. As the most abundant mineral in the upper mantle, olivine is the solid solution of forsterite (Mg2SiO4) and fayalite (Fe2SiO4).

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Exeter are one step closer to developing a new generation of low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells. The structure is one of the world's first examples of a tri-layer metasurface absorber using a carbon interlayer.

The system, developed by Chenglong Wang a PhD student in Professor Martin Cryan's research group, uses amorphous carbon as an inter-layer between thin gold films with the upper film patterned with a 2D periodic array using focused ion beam etching.