Science thread [merged]

[dwaino]

Only everything to do with the current model.

[Smokey]

Confirm this and so many of the other pieces fall into place

Such as?

Why Richmond can't win a premiership.

[Diocletian]

Confirm this and so many of the other pieces fall into place

Such as?

dwaino's theory that Edwards is better than Cotchin.

[Diocletian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AplG6KnOr2Q#t=91

[dwaino]

That is awesome

[one-eyed]

One of the largest and most detailed images of the Andromeda galaxy ever created has been released by a team of researchers led by University of Washington professor Julianne Dalcanton.

The enormity of space is near-impossible to comprehend. This image, despite showing only a small portion of a single galaxy, shows more than 100 million stars - and there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the known universe.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-21/hubble-high-resolution-view-of-the-andromeda-galaxy/6027732

[dwaino]

Thanks Cyclops, another great link  will need to share this one around. I try to explain to friends how big Andromeda would be in our sky if we could see it and I think this will be a better guide.

[mightytiges]

Only everything to do with the current model.

Latest data on the Higgs has been released:

But the essence is that up to now "no significant deviations from the SM [Standard Model] predictions were found".

Finding no significant deviations sets the bar high for Run 2. We will have to be smarter as the LHC data pour in and push us beyond the amount of information available from Run 1. Both theorists and experimentalists will continue working together to find a small wrinkle in the so far smooth Higgs boson picture. That small wrinkle that may point the way out of the SM oasis, across the desert, and into BSM [Beyond Standard Model] physics. It's probably not a matter of "if" but a matter of "when", and therefore a matter of endurance and perseverance. Fifty years have passed since the seminal papers on the SM Higgs boson and today, and perhaps another 50 years may be needed to find what Nature has in stock beyond the Standard Model.

http://cylindricalonion.web.cern.ch/blog/201501/how-massive

[mightytiges]

The first ever photograph of light as a particle and a wave

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
 Public Release: 2-Mar-2015


IMAGE: Energy-space photography of light confined on a nanowire, simultaneously shows both spatial interference and energy quantization.


Read more at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/epfd-tfe030115.php

[dwaino]

Cheers for the reminder. I gave this a quick scan on IFLS today when on lunch then got side tracked by a "looks white and gold to me" discussion about Mars actually appearing blue/grey under its paper thin red iron oxide surface 

[mightytiges]

The Hubble telescope, now approaching it’s 25th birthday, has given astronomers an unusual four-dimensional view of an ancient dying star.

The supernova was, by chance, directly behind a dense cluster of huge galaxies designated MACS J1149+2223.

The cluster is more than 5 billion light years away. But the combined gravitational influence of these galaxies has had an influence on the even older light of a supernova behind them.

This light is being buckled, warped and focused as it passes through an intergalactic gravitational maze.

Such a sight has been expected. It has even been named: An “Einstein Cross”.

It’s a four-cornered arrangement of views of a single event.

Astronomers anticipate an unusual side effect: As a result of the twists and turns of space-time, we may eventually get to watch a re-run of the star’s death.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/technology/science/hubble-finds-a-four-cornered-view-of-an-ancient-dying-star/story-fnjwlbue-1227250574860

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Mars once had a sea larger than the Arctic ocean.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/astronomy/mars-once-had-a-sea-larger-than-the-arctic-ocean-20150305-13wqrj.html

[🏅Dooks]

There you go. Confirmation another planet had water (and most likely life). That's 2 out of 8 in the solar system.

Imagine what's going on in the billions and billions of other star systems!

[dwaino]

Water is really common, just it usually only exists in the frozen form. But judging by the mass extinction events on earth alone through history it proves one thing, that life is robust and stubborn. Even on earth we're finding life adapting to arsenic. Once it gets a foothold it will find some way to persist and sheer weight of numbers would suggest it is quite common.

[mightytiges]

And that's how it was for the next ten nights. A flare, spurting out from Mars - bright
green, drawing a green mist behind it - a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight. Ogilvy,
the astronomer, assured me we were in no danger. He was convinced there could be no
living thing on that remote, forbidding planet.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said.
"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but still they come!

 

[Diocletian]

No! You're one of them- a devil!