news 2014

Researchers from UCL, University of Southampton and Cambridge University together with ESA and NASA have uncovered the origin of a colourful display in the night sky called 'theta aurora', explaining for the first time how auroras at high-latitudes form. Auroras are the most visible manifestation of the sun's effect on Earth, but many aspects of these spectacular displays are still poorly understood.

Predictions of Greenland ice loss and its impact on rising sea levels may have been greatly underestimated, according to scientists at the University of Leeds. The finding follows a new study, which is published today , in which the future distribution of lakes that form on the ice sheet surface from melted snow and ice – called supraglacial lakes – have been simulated for the first time.

For the first time researchers have measured large distances in the Universe using data, rather than calculations related to general relativity. A research team from Imperial College London and the University of Barcelona has used data from astronomical surveys to measure a standard distance that is central to our understanding of the expansion of the universe.

The world was enraptured last month as the Rosetta mission's Philae lander made its historic landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. QMUL's Professor Iwan Williams had more reason than most to be interested, as he was one of a team of investigators working the CONSERT instrument that is part of the mission.

New research by a team of European physicists could explain why the universe did not collapse immediately after the Big Bang. Studies of the Higgs particle - discovered at CERN in 2012 and responsible for giving mass to all particles - have suggested that the production of Higgs particles during the accelerating expansion of the very early universe (inflation) should have led to instability and collapse.

A Lancaster University scientist has helped discover the oldest water yet found on Earth, important for understanding life on Earth and Mars. The record-breaking discovery, made under the Timmins mine in Ontario, was featured in the journal. Dr Greg Holland, of Lancaster Environment Centre, along with scientists from Manchester University and two Canadian universities have found pockets of water that have been isolated from the outside world for more than 1.5 billion years.

But weather forecasting on the Red Planet is likely to be even trickier than on Earth Mars has the same three-part pattern of atmospheric conditions as Earth, finds a new study by researchers at UCL and McGill University. This includes weather, which changes day-to-day due to constant fluctuations in the atmosphere; climate, which varies over decades and a third regime called macroweather, which describes the relatively stable regime between weather and climate.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue. Stripping galaxies of interstellar gas could shut down star formation, researchers say Scientists have observed in precise detail the stripping of gas from a distant galaxy as they seek to understand what shuts down star formation in galaxy clusters.

Astrophysicists have developed a new way to use gravitational waves to measure the expansion rate of the universe. In a paper published in the journal Physical Review X, the international research team outline how they have developed highly advanced computer simulations to use special types of neutron stars to learn more about the fabric of the Universe.

Two new studies have been used to make the most detailed weather map for a planet outside the solar system, where typical daytime highs reach 1500 degrees Celsius and winds exceed the speed of sound. The atmosphere of such a bizarre world provides a unique laboratory with which to acquire a better understanding of planet formation and planetary physics Nikku Madhusudhan A team of scientists, including astronomers from the University of Cambridge, have made the most detailed map ever of the temperature of an exoplanet's atmosphere, and traced the amount of water it contains.

09 Oct 2014 An international team of astronomers has been able to see into the heart of an exploding star, by combining data from telescopes that are hundreds or even thousands of kilometres apart. Highly-detailed images produced using radio telescopes from across Europe and America have pinpointed the locations where a stellar explosion (called a nova), emitted gamma rays (extremely high energy radiation).

This is a very hopeful sign that we can find and analyse more cloudless, smaller, planets in the future Nikku Madhusudhan Astronomers have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapour on a gaseous planet outside our solar system. The planet, known as HAT-P-11b, is about the size of Neptune, making it the smallest-ever planet for which water vapour has been detected.

15 Sep 2014 A tiny fragment of Martian meteorite 1.3 billion years old is helping to make the case for the possibility of life on Mars, say scientists. The finding of a 'cell-like' structure, which investigators now know once held water, came about as a result of collaboration between scientists in the UK and Greece.

A new study has found that fresh water from melting glaciers has caused the sea-level around the coast of Antarctica to rise by 2cm more than the global average of 6cm, since 1992. A research team, which included the University of Liverpool, detected the rapid rise in sea-level by studying satellite scans of a region that spans more than a million square kilometres.

22 Aug 2014 New research by a team of UK and European-based astronomers is helping to solve the mystery of what caused a spectacular supernova in a galaxy 11 million light years away, seen earlier this year. The supernova, a giant explosion of a star and the closest one to the Earth in decades, was discovered earlier this year by chance at the University of London Observatory.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue. Research into 13th Century bishop's theories about rainbows makes Nature Physics An interdisciplinary study of how a medieval bishop's theories inspired modern thinking about colour conception and the rainbow has been published in the prestigious journal, Nature Physics.

The discovery of water vapour in the atmospheres of three exoplanets includes the most precise measurement of any chemical in a planet outside the solar system, and has major implications for planet formation and the search for water on Earth-like habitable exoplanets in future.

Press release issued: 8 July 2014 Scientists from NASA's InSight mission to Mars have been checking out the lowest vibration sites across the UK in order to find somewhere quiet enough to calibrate the seismometer that will be travelling to the Red Planet in 2016. Recent tests undertaken in the Ultra-Low Noise Lab at the University of Bristol's Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information (NSQI) have shown it to be the quietest location in the UK in the critical seismic frequency range that scientists expect to encounter on Mars.

26 Jun 2014 Astronomers have discovered three closely orbiting supermassive black holes in a galaxy more than 4 billion light years away. Most galaxies have just one black hole, usually with a mass of between 1 million and 10 billion times that of the Sun, at their centre. The discovery of a trio of black holes – the tightest trio ever found – suggests that such closely packed supermassive black holes are far more common than previously thought.

The discovery of three closely orbiting supermassive black holes in a galaxy more than four billion light years away could help astronomers in the search for gravitational waves: the 'ripples in spacetime' predicted by Einstein. An international team, including Oxford University scientists, led by Dr Roger Deane from the University of Cape Town, examined six systems thought to contain two supermassive black holes.