Ultra-Fast Air And Space Travel Just Got Closer With a Hypersonic Detonation Test

A never-ending detonation could be the key to hypersonic flight and space planes that can seamlessly fly from Earth into orbit. And now, researchers have recreated the explosive phenomenon in the lab that could make it possible.

Detonations are a particularly powerful kind of explosion that move outward faster than the speed of sound. Now, a team from the University of Central Florida has created an experimental setup that lets them sustain a detonation in a fixed position for several seconds, which the researchers say is a major step toward future hypersonic propulsion systems.

Article
@EverythingScience

Mysterious Wobbles in Saturn's Rings Reveal Clues About Its 'Fuzzy' Interior

What's in a gas giant?

No, really. The interiors of Jupiter and Saturn are actually quite difficult to probe. But Saturn's uniquely glorious and extensive ring system is proving to be an excellent tool for figuring out the densities deep below its thick cloud layers, right down to the core.

That core, according to a new analysis of 'wobbles' in Saturn's innermost main ring, likely isn't a dense ball of nickel and iron, as currently thought, but a "fuzzy" region of mostly hydrogen and helium, with a gradual mixing of heavier elements, extending to 60 percent of the planet's radius and containing around 17 Earth masses of ice and rock...

Article
@EverythingScience

Is It Possible to Get Too Much Sleep? Here's What Scientists Think

Sleep has a major impact on our health and wellbeing. Busy lifestyles often make it difficult to sleep as much as we would like to. Not sleeping enough affects our mood, ability to focus, and risk of many medical conditions.

We are often encouraged to sleep more, but can sleeping too much also be unhealthy?

Article
@EverythingScience

All humans but one

After the most famous voyage of modern times, it was time to go home. After proving that humanity has the ability to go beyond the confines of planet Earth, the first humans to walk on another world -- Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin -- flew the ascent stage of their Lunar Module back to meet Michael Collins in the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module.

Pictured here on 1969 July 21 and recently digitally restored, the ascending spaceship was captured by Collins making its approach, with the Moon below, and Earth far in the distance.

It is said of this iconic image that every person but one was in front of the camera.

Photo
@EverythingScience

Take a Tour of The Tiny, Wonderful World of Microfluidics

When you think of micro- or nanotechnology, you likely think of small electronics like your phone, a tiny robot or a microchip.

But COVID-19 tests – which have proven to be central to controlling the pandemic – are also a form of miniaturized technology. Many COVID-19 tests can give results within hours without the need to send a sample to a lab, and most of these tests use an approach called microfluidics.

Everything from pregnancy tests to glucose strips to inkjet printers to genetic tests rely on microfluidics. This technology, unbeknownst to many people, is everywhere and critical to many of the things that make the modern world go round.

Article
@EverythingScience

A Common Earth Molecule Is Detected For The First Time in an Exoplanet's Atmosphere

The molecule hydroxyl (HO) is common on Earth, but astronomers have not yet determined how abundant it is on other worlds. For the first time, astronomers have conclusively detected it in the atmosphere of an ultra-hot Jupiter, WASP-33b.

WASP-33b is a strange exoplanet. 400 light-years away from us, the planet is known as an ultra-hot Jupiter: it's a gas giant that orbits its host star closer than Mercury does to our own Sun.

Article
@EverythingScience

Neuroscientists Have Followed a Thought as It Moves Through The Human Brain

A study using epilepsy patients undergoing surgery has given neuroscientists an opportunity to track in unprecedented detail the movement of a thought through the human brain, all the way from inspiration to response.

Article
@EverythingScience

More Accurate Clocks Unleash More Disorder in The Universe, Physicists Say

What's the price of an accurate clock? Entropy, a new study has revealed.

Entropy – or disorder – is created every time a clock ticks. Now scientists working with a tiny clock have proven a simple relationship: The more accurate a clock runs, the more entropy it generates.

Article
@EverythingScience

A Spacecraft Captured a Massive Eruption on The Sun's Surface For The First Time

The Sun is constantly bubbling and bursting. If eruptions on its surface are big enough, they can send billions of tons of plasma and electrically charged particles hurtling toward Earth.

To observe and study those kinds of explosions – called coronal mass ejections – NASA and the European Space Agency launched the Solar Orbiter probe in February 2020.

The probe made a close approach to our star this year, on February 10, when it flew within 48 million miles (77 million kilometers) of the Sun – half the distance between the Sun and Earth. As it careened past the Sun, back to cooler zones of space, the orbiter caught video footage of two CMEs.

Article
@EverythingScience

In Major Find, Scientists Catch Nerve Cells Send Information in The 'Wrong' Direction

The point at which our nerve cells meet to share information was thought to be a one-way street, with electrochemical signals strictly flowing from one neuron's sending axons to the next neuron's receiving dendrites.

Now, for the first time, researchers have shown that information can also flow in the opposite direction at the neuron intersection we call a synapse...

Article
@EverythingScience

What if The Heart of The Milky Way Isn't Actually a Black Hole Like We Thought?

We sort-of take it for granted that there's a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, but we can't really go there and check. What if something else is actually lurking in this messy, dusty region?

We partially infer the presence and properties of a supermassive hole called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) from the gravitational effect it has on other objects, like the extreme orbits of objects like stars around that galactic center… but what if we're wrong?

Article
@EverythingScience

See Those Colorful Balls? Yeah, They're All Actually Beige

These levitating spheres may appear red, purple or green at first glance, but in actuality, all 12 orbs are the same bland shade of beige. 

But why do we perceive the spheres as anything but their true color? 

Article
@EverythingScience

The First Clinical Trial For Cannabis as a Migraine Treatment Is Underway

Cannabis has been used to relieve headaches for thousands of years, and yet rigorous clinical trials on this ancient remedy for head pain have only just begun.

The first double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study is now investigating whether cannabis products, like THC and CBD, can actually treat acute migraines in a safe and effective way...

Article
@EverythingScience

Hatching planets

A Hubble Space Telescope view of a small portion of the Orion Nebula reveals five young stars. Four of the stars are surrounded by gas and dust trapped as the stars formed, but were left in orbit about the star. These are possibly protoplanetary disks, or 'proplyds', that might evolve on to agglomerate planets.

Photo (ESA/NASA)
@EverythingScience

@AXMPaperSpaceScaleModels

Alfonso X Moreno is a self-taught designer of space-related paper models and owner of AXM Paper Space Scale Models. He designs accurate scale replicas of real rockets and spacecrafts made out of paper, covering the Space Shuttle era and current rockets from around the world.

Join the AXM Paper Models channel and chat to stay updated or visit the website to browse through all the models you can download and create yourself!

@EverythingScience

The Jellyfish and Mars

Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught in this alluring scene. It floats below and left of center, a bright arcing ridge of emission with dangling tentacles. In fact, the cosmic jellyfish is part of bubble-shaped supernova remnant IC 443, the expanding debris cloud from a massive star that exploded. Light from that explosion first reached planet Earth over 30,000 years ago.

Like its cousin in astrophysical waters the Crab Nebula supernova remnant, the Jellyfish Nebula is known to harbor a neutron star, the remnant of the collapsed stellar core. This telescopic snapshot also captures Mars. Now wandering through early evening skies, the Red Planet also shines with a yellowish glow on the right hand side of the field of view.

The Jellyfish Nebula is about 5,000 light-years away, while Mars is currently almost 18 light-minutes from Earth.

Photo (Jason Guenzel)
@EverythingScience

We've Tracked 5 Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts to The Arms of Distant Spiral Galaxies

The mystery of fast radio bursts (FRBs) continues to fascinate astronomers. No one is quite sure what's behind these super-short, super-intense radio wave pulses from deep space, but now astronomers have tracked down five FRBs to their home galaxies.

It's the Hubble Space Telescope that has come up with the goods again. The ultraviolet and infrared cameras on the telescope were used to see where on a star map these five bursts emerged from, which gives us a better understanding of how they might have come into being in the first place...

Article
@EverythingScience