Measuring the structure of a giant solar flare

The sun’s corona, its hot outermost layer, has a temperature of over a million degrees Kelvin, and produces a wind of charged particles, about one-millionth of the moon’s mass is ejected each year. Transient events have been known to cause large eruptions of high-energy charged particles into space, some of which bombard the Earth, producing auroral glows and occasionally veven disrupting…

At least 2 super-Earths orbit this red dwarf star

Astronomers from the University of Göttingen in Germany have discovered two, and possibly three, super-Earth exoplanets orbiting the nearby red dwarf star Gliese-887. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/exoplanets-super-earths-gliese-887-red-dwarf-star…

Study reveals biggest Yellowstone supervolcano eruption

The new study also suggests that the supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park was much more explosive in its early history and could be slowing down. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/yellowstone-supervolcano-biggest-eruption-slowing…

Finite-temperature violation of the anomalous transverse Wiedemann-Franz law

According to the Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law, the electrical conductivity of a metal is linked to its thermal counterpart, provided that the heat carried by the phonons is negligible and the electrons do not suffer inelastic scattering. In a type II Weyl semimetal also known as a fourth fermion, the thermal dependence of the ratio between electrical and thermal conductivity highlights deviations…

Meet Regulus, the Lion’s Heart

The bright star Regulus is very prominent in the evening sky in May. It looks like a single point of light, but is really 4 stars. It’s the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion. Source: https://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/best-regulus-the-heart-of-the-lion…

Quantum Computing Milestone: Researchers Compute With ‘Hot’ Silicon Qubits

“Two research groups say they’ve independently built quantum devices that can operate at temperatures above 1 Kelvin — 15 times hotter than rival technologies can withstand,” reports IEEE Spectrum. (In an article shared by Slashdot reader Wave723.) “The ability to work at higher temperatures is key to scaling up to the many qubits thought to be required for future commercial-grade quantum…

New clues in the search for the universe’s oldest galaxies

An astronomer reports on a very old galaxy cluster – labeled XLSSC 122 – whose light has taken 10.4 billion years to travel across the universe to us. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/new-clues-search-oldest-galaxies-in-the-universe…

Phonon hydrodynamics and ultrahigh-room temperature thermal conductivity in thin graphite

Different forms of carbon or allotropes including graphene and diamond are among the best conductors of heat. In a recent report on Science, Yo Machida and a research team in the department of Physics and the Laboratory of Physics and Materials in Tokyo and France monitored the evolution of thermal conductivity in thin graphite. The property evolved as a function of…

Elnath is close to the galactic anticenter

Elnath, the 2nd-brightest star in Taurus, is the closest bright star to the galactic anticenter – the point in space directly opposite of our Milky Way’s center. Source: https://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/elnath-taurus-the-bulls-second-brightest-star…

Dynamic pattern of skyrmions observed

Cu2OSeO3 is a material with unusual magnetic properties. Magnetic spin vortices known as skyrmions are formed within a certain temperature range when in the presence of a small external magnetic field. Currently, moderately low temperatures of around 60 Kelvin (-213 degrees Celsius) are required to stabilise their phase, but it appears possible to shift this temperature range to room temperature. The…