Lifeboat Foundation

There’s a limit to how large planets can be, and it’s only about double the radius of Jupiter. At least, so far.

Quantum mechanics deals with the behavior of the Universe at the super-small scale: atoms and subatomic particles that operate in ways that classical physics can’t explain.

In order to explore this tension between the quantum and the classical, scientists are constantly attempting to get larger and larger objects to behave in a quantum-like way.

Back in 2021, a team succeeded with a tiny glass nanosphere that was 100 nanometers in diameter – about a thousand times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.

Scientists at Osaka University were part of a particle accelerator experiment that produced an exotic and highly unstable particle, and determined its mass. This could contribute to a better understanding of the inner workings of ultra-dense neutron stars.

The Standard Model of particle physics explains that most particles are made of combinations of just six types of basic entities called quarks. However, there are still many unsolved mysteries, one of which is Λ(1405), an exotic but fleeting Lambda resonance. It was previously believed to be a specific combination of three quarks – up, down, and strange – and gaining insight into its composition could assist in uncovering information about the extremely dense matter in neutron stars.

Now, investigators from Osaka University were part of a team that succeeded in synthesizing Λ(1405) for the first time by combining a K^– meson and a proton and determining its complex mass (mass and width). The K^– meson is a negatively charged particle containing a strange quark and an up antiquark.

That’s aurorae.

Jupiter is well known for its spectacular aurorae, thanks in no small part to the Juno orbiter and recent images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Like Earth, these dazzling displays result from charged solar particles interacting with Jupiter’s magnetic field and atmosphere. Over the years, astronomers have also detected faint aurorae in the atmospheres of Jupiter’s largest moons (the “Galilean Moons”). These are also the result of interaction, in this case, between Jupiter’s magnetic field and particles emanating from the moons’ atmospheres.

Detecting these faint aurorae has always been a challenge because sunlight reflected from the moons’ surfaces completely washes out their light signatures. In a series of recent papers, a team led by the University of Boston and Caltech (with support from NASA) observed the Galilean Moons as they passed into Jupiter’s shadow. These observations revealed that Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto all experience oxygen-aurorae in their atmospheres. Moreover, these aurorae are deep red and almost 15 times brighter than the familiar green patterns we see on Earth.

Continue reading “Jupiter’s Radiation Creates a Spectacle 15 Times Brighter Than the Northern Lights” »

Welcome to The Interchange ! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. — Mary Ann

Storied venture firms Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) invested more in fintech than any other category in 2022, according to research from CB Insights. I’m not going to lie — upon learning this, my fintech-loving ears perked up.

Sequoia apparently was fairly active overall last year despite the global downturn, with over 100 investments. And fintech represented nearly a quarter of the firm’s deals.

Electronic devices generate heat, and that heat must be dissipated. If it isn’t, the high temperatures can compromise device function, or even damage the devices and their surroundings.

Now, a team from UIUC and UC Berkeley have published a paper in Nature Electronics detailing a new cooling method that offers a host of benefits, not the least of which is space efficiency that offers a substantial increase over conventional approaches in devices’ power per unit volume.

Tarek Gebrael, the lead author and a PhD student in mechanical engineering, explains that the existing solutions suffer from three shortcomings. “First, they can be expensive and difficult to scale up,” he says. Heat spreaders made of diamond, for example, are sometimes used at the chip level, but they aren’t cheap.

Changesite-(Y), named for the mythological Chinese goddess of the moon, Chang’e, is a phosphate mineral and columnar crystal. It was found in lunar basalt particles being examined in laboratories in China.

The discovery was made by researchers at the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology who found a single crystal of Changesite-(Y) using X-ray diffraction while studying particles collected on the moon.

The discovery means China is the third country to discover a new lunar mineral, following the United States and former Soviet Union.

Astronomers have discovered a “forbidden” planet that appears to be far larger than should be possible given its circumstances. A team of researchers investigated a candidate exoplanet called TOI 5205b, first identified by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and not only confirmed that the planet was there but also discovered that it has some baffling characteristics.

The exoplanet orbits a type of star called an M dwarf or red dwarf. These are the most common type of stars in our galaxy and are small and cool, typically being around half as hot as our sun.

While it’s common to find exoplanets orbiting red dwarfs, it’s rare to find gas giants orbiting them. And in the case of the recent discovery, the gas giant exoplanet was found orbiting a low-mass M dwarf, which is unheard of. The planet is very large in comparison to its star and blocks out around 7% of the star’s light when passing in front of it.

A newly discovered “forbidden planet” orbiting a tiny star challenges theories of gas giant formation.