New Ability to Tie Water Provides Insight into Elementary Particle Physics [Nature]

In my Nature article Physicists twist water into knots, Dustin Kleckner and William Irvine, physicists at University of Chicago, Illinois, break new ground by capturing the twisting and knotting of a vortex in water. They do so, in part, through the use of a three-dimensional printer and laser-scanned air bubbles injected into the fluid. Better … Continue reading New Ability to Tie Water Provides Insight into Elementary Particle Physics [Nature]

Watching a Star’s Last Days [Nature]

A major focus of astronomy is supernova activity, and yet we have a limited understanding of what happens before the explosion. Recent research, which is covered in my Nature article Astronomers catch rare glimpse of a star’s final moments, captured the months leading up to a supernova. The data provides important insight into those final … Continue reading Watching a Star’s Last Days [Nature]

Donated Spy Satellite to Help NASA Find Exoplanets [Nature]

Although NASA is used to making the most of limited resources, it isn’t used to making the most of spy satellites. That’s about to change, as the National Reconnaissance Office donated two spy satellites to NASA, which will modify their spy technology to aid in the hunt for exoplanets. In my latest Nature article, Fresh … Continue reading Donated Spy Satellite to Help NASA Find Exoplanets [Nature]

(SCOOP) M Dwarfs Particularly Promising for Life-hosting Planets [Nature]

A pair of just-released statistical studies of the universe suggest numerous habitable planets exist in our Galaxy, with one study suggesting a life-friendly planet within 20 light years of our Solar System. From my Nature article, Small stars host droves of life-friendly worlds, that broke news of this latter study, which used data from NASA’s … Continue reading (SCOOP) M Dwarfs Particularly Promising for Life-hosting Planets [Nature]

(SCOOP) Long-studied Star Now Considered Almost as Old as Universe [Nature]

For more than a century, the star HD 140283 has been studied, but only now has its age been estimated: within hundreds of millions of years of the age of the Universe. Delivering a scoop, my Nature article, Nearby star is almost as old as the Universe, details this important new conclusion: The team then … Continue reading (SCOOP) Long-studied Star Now Considered Almost as Old as Universe [Nature]

Recently Launched Observatory Identifies Two Unknown and Important Black Holes [Nature]

NASA’s NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Array) X-ray observatory was launched in June and already is providing important findings. My article in Nature, NuSTAR spies black holes in galactic web, details the finding of two possible intermediate-mass black holes in the nearby galaxy IC 342: The image below shows the galaxy IC 342, with the two black … Continue reading Recently Launched Observatory Identifies Two Unknown and Important Black Holes [Nature]