news 2020

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft has unveiled its first images, including what appear to be ubiquitous miniature solar flares. The 'campfire' flares may solve a longstanding mystery about our star: why its outer atmosphere is hotter than its surface. The mini flares could also help scientists understand the dynamics of larger flares that can affect electronics and communications networks on Earth.

An international team including scientists from Cardiff University have provided a new estimate of the age of the universe, placing it at roughly 13.77 billion years old. This new measurement, made using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in South America, adds a new twist to an ongoing debate over the exact age of the universe.

Scientists working at the LIGO facility in the United States, including a team from the University of Birmingham, have demonstrated how the ultra-fine tuning of the instruments enable it to push the boundaries of fundamental laws of physics. The US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory detects gravitational waves produced by catastrophic events in the universe, such as mergers of neutron stars and black holes.

A research team led by Cardiff University scientists say they are closer to understanding how a supermassive black hole (SMBH) is born thanks to a new technique that has enabled them to zoom in on one of these enigmatic cosmic objects in unprecedented detail. Scientists are unsure as to whether SMBHs were formed in the extreme conditions shortly after the big bang, in a process dubbed a 'direct collapse', or were grown much later from 'seed' black holes resulting from the death of massive stars.

Antibodies derived from llamas have been shown to neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus in lab tests, UK researchers announced today. The team involves researchers from Oxford University, the Rosalind Franklin Institute, Diamond Light Source and Public Health England. They hope the antibodies - known as nanobodies due to their small size - could eventually be developed as a treatment for patients with severe COVID-19.

Research explains how a unicellular marine organism generates light as a response to mechanical stimulation, lighting up breaking waves at night. Our findings show how elegant decision-making can be on a single-cell level Maziyar Jalaal Every few years, a bloom of microscopic organisms called dinoflagellates transforms the coasts around the world by endowing breaking waves with an eerie blue glow.

Tiny diamond crystals could be used as an incredibly sensitive and small gravitational detector capable of measuring gravitational waves, suggests new UCL-led research. Predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity, gravitational waves are ripples in space-time generated by certain movements of massive objects.

New research has shown that microbubbles, which can be used to deliver drugs to remote parts of the body, can be manipulated by sound waves. Drugs can sometimes be difficult to deliver to specific areas of the body. One way to reach these areas is via microbubbles, which are the subject of intense research for this purpose.

An unusual gravitational wave signal is casting new light on the 'mass gap' between neutron stars and black holes. When the most massive stars die, they collapse under their own gravity and leave behind black holes. When stars that are a bit less massive than this die, they explode in a supernova and leave behind dense, dead remnants of stars called neutron stars.

A Cardiff University student has found himself at the centre of a major breakthrough discovery that could potentially help to solve a decades-old mystery. Charlie Hoy, currently in the third year of his PhD and a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration, has played a leading role in deciphering new data observed from the violent collision of two objects roughly 800 million light-years away from Earth.

Our researchers have helped to find a way of measuring neutron lifetime from space for the first time. The discovery could teach us more about the early universe as knowing the lifetime of neutrons is key to understanding the formation of elements after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Scientists used data from NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft.

Gravitational-wave researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed a new model that promises to yield fresh insights into the structure and composition of neutron stars. The model shows that vibrations, or oscillations, inside the stars can be directly measured from the gravitational-wave signal alone.

The development of quantum technologies promises to have a profound impact across science, engineering and society. Quantum computers at scale will be able to solve problems intractable on even the most powerful current supercomputers, with many revolutionary applications, for example, in the design of new drugs and materials.

Researchers pinpoint the origin of defects that sap the performance of next-generation solar technology. We now know what to target to bring up the performances of perovskites. Samuel Stranks A multi-institutional collaboration, co-led by scientists at the University of Cambridge and Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), has identified the source of efficiency-limiting defects in potential materials for next-generation solar cells and LEDs.

New data throws more support behind the theory that neutrinos are the reason the universe is dominated by matter. The current laws of physics do not explain why matter persists over antimatter - why the universe is made of 'stuff'. Scientists believe equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created at the beginning of the universe, but this would mean they should have wiped each other out, annihilating the universe as it began.

One of the great scientific puzzles of our time is why we live in a universe full of matter rather than antimatter. Wherever we look, we observe that matter dominates over antimatter, yet we believe that matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts soon after the Big Bang. To reconcile these two facts there must be some difference in the way matter and antimatter behave.

A supernova at least twice as bright and energetic, and likely much more massive than any yet recorded has been identified by an international team of astronomers, led by the University of Birmingham. The team, which included experts from Harvard , Northwestern University and Ohio University , believe the supernova, dubbed SN2016aps, could be an example of an extremely rare 'pulsational pair-instability' supernova, possibly formed from two massive stars that merged before the explosion.

Liquid metals and alloys have exceptional properties that make them suitable for electrical energy storage and generation applications. Low-melting point gallium-based liquid metals are used as heat exchange fluids for cooling integrated electronics and in the manufacture of flexible and reconfigurable electronic devices and soft robotics.

The exciting new method Europe and Africa. Archaeological pottery has been used to date archaeological sites for more than a century, and from the Roman period onwards can offer quite precise dating. But further back in time, for example at the prehistoric sites of the earliest Neolithic farmers, accurate dating becomes more difficult because the kinds of pottery are often less distinctive and there are no coins or historical records to give context.

The conductivity of living organs, such as the heart, could be imaged non-invasively using quantum technology developed by UCL researchers, which has the potential to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a heart condition that causes an irregular and abnormally fast heart rate, potentially leading to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications.