Modern scientific discoveries in physics. The latest research and discoveries in physics. The radiation of black holes was seen on a model "deaf" hole
A very controversial year of 2016 has ended, and it's time to sum up its scientific results in the field of physics and chemistry. Several million articles in these fields of knowledge are published annually in peer-reviewed journals around the world. And only a few hundred of them turn out to be really outstanding works. Life's scientific editors have selected the 10 most interesting and important discoveries and events of the past year that everyone needs to know about.
1. New elements in the periodic table
The most pleasant event for Russian science lovers was nihonium, muscovy, tennessine and oganesson. Nuclear physicists from Dubna were involved in the discovery of the last three - Laboratory nuclear reactions JINR under the direction of Yuri Oganesyan. So far, very little is known about the elements, and their lifetime is measured in seconds or even milliseconds. In addition to Russian physicists, the Livermore National Laboratory (California) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee participated in the discovery. The priority in the discovery of nihonium was recognized by Japanese physicists from the RIKEN Institute. The official inclusion of the elements took place quite recently - on November 30, 2016.
2. Hawking solved the paradox of information loss in a black hole
June in the magazine Physical Reviewletters published by one of the most popular physicists of our time - Stephen Hawking. A scientist about finally solving the 40-year-old mystery of the information loss paradox in a black hole. Briefly, it can be described as follows: due to the fact that black holes evaporate (by emitting Hawking radiation), we cannot even theoretically track the fate of each individual particle that fell into it. This violates the fundamental principles of quantum physics. Hawking, along with co-authors, suggested that information about all particles is stored at the event horizon of a black hole, and even described in what form. The work of the theorist received the romantic name "soft hair near black holes".
3. The radiation of black holes was seen on a model "deaf" hole
In the same year, Hawking received another reason to celebrate: a lone experimenter from the Israeli Institute of Technology, Jeff Steinhauer discovered traces of the elusive Hawking radiation in an analog black hole. Problems with observing this radiation in ordinary black holes are associated with its low intensity and temperature. For a hole with the mass of the Sun, traces of Hawking radiation will be completely lost against the background of the cosmic microwave background that fills the Universe.
Steinhauer built a model of a black hole using the Bose condensate of cold atoms. It contained two regions, one of which moved at a low speed - symbolizing the fall of matter into a black hole - and the other at supersonic speed. The boundary between the regions played the role of the black hole's event horizon - no oscillations of atoms (phonons) could cross it in the direction from fast atoms to slow ones. It turned out that due to quantum fluctuations, oscillation waves were still born at the boundary, which propagated towards the subsonic condensate. These waves are a complete analogue of the radiation predicted by Hawking.
4. Hope and disappointment in elementary particle physics
2016 turned out to be a very successful year for the physicists of the Large Hadron Collider: scientists exceeded the plan for the number of proton-proton collisions and received a huge amount of data, which will take several more years to fully process. Theorists' greatest expectations were associated with the peak of two-photon decays outlined back in 2015 at 750 gigaelectronvolts. He was pointing to an unknown supermassive particle that no theory predicted. Theorists managed to prepare about 500 articles on new physics and new laws of our world. But in August, the experimenters said that there would be no discovery: the peak, which attracted the attention of several thousand physicists from around the world, turned out to be a simple statistical fluctuation.
By the way, this year experts from another experiment in the world announced the discovery of a new unusual particle. elementary particles- D0 Tevatron collaborations. Before the opening of the LHC, this accelerator was the largest in the world. Physicists have found in the archived data of proton-antiproton collisions that carries four different quantum flavors at once. This particle consists of four quarks - the smallest building blocks of matter. Unlike other discovered tetraquarks, it contained simultaneously "up", "down", "strange" and "charm" quarks. True, it was not possible to confirm the find at the LHC. A number of physicists spoke rather skeptically about this, pointing out that the Tevatron experts could take a random fluctuation for a particle.
5. Fundamental symmetry and antimatter
An important result for CERN was the first measurement of the optical spectrum of antihydrogen. For almost twenty years, physicists have been moving towards learning how to obtain antimatter in large quantities and work with her. The main difficulty here is that antimatter can annihilate very quickly upon contact with ordinary matter, so it is extremely important not only to create antiparticles, but also to learn how to store them.
Antihydrogen is the simplest antiatom that physicists can produce. It consists of a positron (antielectron) and an antiproton - the electric charges of these particles are opposite to the charges of the electron and proton. The generally accepted physical theories have an important property: their laws are symmetrical with simultaneous mirror reflection, time reversal and change of particle charges (CPT invariance). The consequence of this property is an almost complete coincidence of the properties of matter and antimatter. However, some theories new physics"violate this property. The experiment on measuring the spectrum of antihydrogen made it possible to compare its characteristics with ordinary hydrogen with great accuracy. So far, at the level of accuracy in billionths, the spectra coincide.
6. The smallest transistor
Among the important results of this year, there are those that are practically applicable, even in the distant future. Physicists from the Berkeley National Laboratory have the smallest transistor in the world - the size of its gate is only one nanometer. Ordinary silicon transistors at such sizes are not able to work, quantum effects (tunneling) turn them into ordinary conductors that cannot overlap electricity. The key to defeating quantum effects turned out to be a component of automotive lubricants - molybdenum disulfide.
7. New state of matter - spin liquid
Another potentially applicable result is in 2016 of a new example of a quantum liquid, ruthenium chloride. This substance has unusual magnetic properties. Some atoms behave in crystals like small magnets, trying to line up in some sort of ordered structure. For example, to be completely co-directional. At temperatures near absolute zero almost all magnetic substances become ordered, except for one - spin liquids.
This unusual behavior has one useful property. Physicists have built a model of the behavior of spin liquids and found out that special states of "split" electrons can exist in them. In fact, the electron, of course, does not split - it still remains a single particle. Such states-quasiparticles can become the basis for quantum computers that are absolutely protected from external influences that destroy their quantum state.
8. Record density of information recording
Physicists from the University of Delft (Holland) reported this year on the creation of memory elements in which information is recorded in individual atoms. On a square centimeter of such an element, about 10 terabytes of information can be recorded. The only negative is the low speed of work. To rewrite information, manipulation of single atoms is used - to record a new bit, a special microscope lifts and one by one transfers the particle to a new place. So far, the memory size of the test sample is only one kilobyte, and a complete overwrite takes several minutes. But the technology has come close to the theoretical limit of the density of information recording.
9. Replenishment in the graphene family
Chemists at the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2016 created a new two-dimensional material that expands the number of fellow graphene. At that time, antimony, an element widely used in the semiconductor industry, formed the basis of a flat monatomic sheet. Unlike other two-dimensional materials, antimony graphene - antimonene - is extremely stable. It is even able to withstand immersion in water. Carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, boron, phosphorus, and antimony now have two-dimensional forms. Considering what unusual properties possesses graphene, it remains only to wait for more detailed studies of its counterparts.
10. Main scientific award of the year
Let's single out in the list the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics, which were awarded on December 10, 2016. The discoveries corresponding to them were made in the second half of the 20th century, but the award itself is an important annual event. scientific world. Chemistry Prize ( gold medal and 58 million rubles) were awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines". These are mechanisms invisible to the human eye and even to the most powerful optical microscope that can perform the simplest actions: rotate or move in the manner of a piston. Several billion such rotors are quite capable of making a glass bead rotate in water. In the future, such structures may well be used in molecular surgery. More about opening:
The British scientists David Thouless, Duncan Haldan and John Michael Kosterlitz received the "Physical" award for, as the Nobel Committee pointed out, "theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter." These transitions helped to explain observations that were very strange from the point of view of experimenters: for example, if you take a thin layer of matter and measure its electrical resistance in a magnetic field, it turns out that in response to a uniform change in the field, the conductivity changes stepwise. You can read about how this is related to bagels and muffins in ours.
Over the past 10 years, many amazing discoveries and achievements have taken place in the world of science. Surely many of you who read our site have heard of most of the items on today's list. However, their significance is so high that once again it would be a crime not to mention them at least briefly. They need to be remembered at least for the next decade, until new, even more amazing scientific achievements are made on the basis of these discoveries.
Stem cell reprogramming
Stem cells are amazing. They perform the same cellular functions as the rest of the cells in your body, but, unlike the latter, they have one amazing property - if necessary, they are able to change and acquire the function of absolutely any cells. This means that stem cells can be converted, for example, into erythrocytes (red blood cells) if your body lacks the latter. Or in white blood cells (leukocytes). Or muscle cells. Or neurons. Or ... in general, you get the idea - in almost all types of cells.
Despite the fact that stem cells have been known to the general public since 1981 (although they were discovered much earlier, at the beginning of the 20th century), until 2006, science had no idea that any cells of a living organism can be reprogrammed and transformed into stem cells. Moreover, the method of such transformation turned out to be relatively simple. The first person to explore this possibility was Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who turned skin cells into stem cells by adding four specific genes to them. Within two to three weeks, from the moment the skin cells turned into stem cells, they could be further transformed into any other type of cell in our body. For regenerative medicine, as you understand, this discovery is one of the most important in recent history, as this sphere now has a virtually limitless source of cells needed to heal the damage your body has sustained.
Largest black hole ever discovered
"blot" in the center - our solar system
In 2009, a group of astronomers decided to find out the mass of the black hole S5 0014+81, which had just been discovered at that time. Imagine their surprise when scientists learned that its mass is 10,000 times greater than the mass of the supermassive black hole located at the center of our planet. Milky Way, which actually made it the largest known on this moment black hole in the known universe.
This ultra-massive black hole has the mass of 40 billion suns (meaning if you take the mass of the Sun and multiply it by 40 billion, you get the mass of a black hole). No less interesting is the fact that this black hole, according to scientists, formed during the earliest period of the history of the universe - only 1.6 billion years after big bang. The discovery of this black hole contributed to the understanding that holes of this size and mass can increase these figures incredibly quickly.
Memory manipulation
It already sounds like a seed for some Nolan's Inception, but in 2014, scientists Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu manipulated the memory of a laboratory mouse, replacing negative memories with positive ones and vice versa. The researchers implanted special light-sensitive proteins into the mouse's brain and, as you might have guessed, simply shined a light into its eyes.
As a result of the experiment, positive memories were completely replaced by negative ones, which were firmly entrenched in her brain. This discovery opens the door to new types of treatment for those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or who cannot cope with the emotions of losing loved ones. In the near future, this discovery promises to lead to even more surprising results.
Computer chip that mimics how the human brain works
This was seen as something fantastic a few years ago, but in 2014, IBM introduced the world to a computer chip that works on the principle of the human brain. With 5.4 billion transistors and 10,000 times less power to operate than conventional computer chips, the SyNAPSE chip is able to simulate your brain's synapse. 256 synapses, to be exact. They can be programmed to perform any computational task, which can make them extremely useful when used in supercomputers and various types of distributed sensors.
Thanks to its unique architecture, the performance of the SyNAPSE chip is not limited to the performance that we are accustomed to assessing in conventional computers. It turns on only when it is needed, which allows you to significantly save on energy and maintain operating temperatures. This revolutionary technology could truly change the entire computer industry over time.
One step closer to robot domination
Also in 2014, 1,024 tiny "kilobots" robots were tasked to combine into a star shape. Without any further instructions, the robots independently and collectively set about the task. Slowly, uncertainly, colliding with each other several times, but they nevertheless completed the task assigned to them. If one of the robots got stuck or “lost”, not knowing how to become, the neighboring robots came to the rescue, which helped the “losers” to orient themselves.
What is the achievement? Everything is very simple. Now imagine that the same robots, only thousands of times smaller, are introduced into your circulatory system and, uniting, they go to fight some serious disease that has settled in your body. Larger robots, also united, are sent to some kind of search and rescue operation, and even larger ones are used to build fantastically fast new buildings. Here, of course, one can recall some scenario for a summer blockbuster, but why escalate?
Dark matter confirmation
According to scientists, this mysterious matter may contain answers to many as yet unexplained astronomical phenomena. Here's one of them as an example: let's say we have a galaxy with a mass of thousands of planets. If we compare the actual mass of these planets and the mass of the entire galaxy, the numbers don't add up. Why? Because the answer goes much deeper than simply calculating the mass of matter that we can see. There is also matter that we cannot see. It is just what is called "dark matter".
In 2009, several American laboratories announced the discovery dark matter using sensors immersed in an iron mine to a depth of about 1 kilometer. Scientists were able to determine the presence of two particles whose characteristics match the previously proposed description of dark matter. There are many rechecks to be done, but everything points to the fact that these particles are actually particles of dark matter. This may be one of the most amazing and significant discoveries in physics in the last century.
Is there life on Mars?
Maybe. In 2015, the NASA aerospace agency published photos of the Martian mountains with dark stripes at their foot (photo above). They come and go depending on the season. The fact is that these bands are irrefutable proof of the presence of liquid water on Mars. Scientists cannot say with absolute certainty whether the planet had such features in the past, but the presence of water on the planet now opens up many prospects.
For example, the presence of water on the planet can be of great help when humanity finally puts together a manned mission to Mars (sometime after 2024, according to the most optimistic forecasts). Astronauts in this case will have to carry with them much less resources, since everything you need is already on the Martian surface.
reusable rockets
The private aerospace company SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, was able, after several attempts, to soft-land a spent rocket on a remotely controlled floating barge in the ocean.
Everything went so smoothly that now landing spent rockets for SpaceX is considered a routine task. It also saves the company billions of dollars in missile production because they can now be simply sorted, refilled, and reused (and more than once, in theory) instead of just sinking somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Thanks to these rockets, humanity has become several steps closer to manned flights to Mars.
Gravitational waves
Gravitational waves are ripples of space and time moving at the speed of light. They were predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, according to which mass is capable of bending space and time. Gravitational waves can be created by black holes, and they were detected in 2016 using the high-tech equipment of the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory, or simply LIGO, thus confirming Einstein's century-old theory.
This is indeed a very important discovery for astronomy, as it proves much of Einstein's general theory of relativity and allows instruments such as LIGO to detect and monitor events of vast cosmic scales in the future.
TRAPPIST system
TRAPPIST-1 is a star system located approximately 39 light years from our solar system. What makes her special? Not much, except for its star, which has 12 times less mass than our Sun, as well as at least 7 planets wrapping around it and located in the so-called Goldilocks zone, where life could potentially exist.
Around this discovery, as expected, there are now heated debates. It even goes so far as to say that the system may not be habitable at all and that its planets look more like unsightly vacant space rocks than our future interplanetary resorts. Nevertheless, the system deserves absolutely all the attention that is now riveted to it. Firstly, it is not so far from us - only some 39 light years from the solar system. On the scale of space - around the corner. Secondly, it has three Earth-like planets that are in the habitable zone and are perhaps the best targets for the search for extraterrestrial life today. Thirdly, on all seven planets there can be liquid water is the key to life. But the probability of its presence is highest precisely on the three planets that are closer to the star. Fourth, if there really is life there, then we can confirm this without even sending a space expedition there. Telescopes like JWST, which is set to launch next year, will help solve this problem.
As part of classical physics research is constantly being carried out to further refine and develop modern physical model peace. Physics - be it macrophysics, microscopic physics or physics at the intersection of sciences is constantly evolving, developing, supplemented by more and more new models, knowledge and discoveries.
Unfortunately it doesn't exist today. unified system or physical theory. All of them are true and confirmed subject to certain conditions. So, for example, classical mechanics can be considered correct only if we apply it to objects much larger than elementary particles and moving slower than the speed of light. It is worth changing these conditions and quantum mechanics, which is not applicable to ordinary conditions, comes into play.
The constant search for a model that unifies all the main branches of physics and brings together all theories is an unattainable dream of scientists. However, it is in our power to constantly refine the laws of nature, bring together disparate knowledge and combine them to create more and more detailed models of the behavior of the world around us.
In this section of our portal you can get acquainted with the latest research in the field of classical physics. Research based on the centuries-old knowledge of science may lead to an understanding of individual phenomena, and this, in turn, will allow them to be used for the benefit of mankind.
Presented by us latest discoveries and ideas span theoretical, experimental and applied physics. There are several main areas of classical physics:
- classical mechanics
- Thermodynamics
- Optics
- Electrodynamics
- Atomic physics
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Nuclear physics
- The quantum physics
- Physics of elementary particles
We will be glad if you present your ideas, discoveries and developments to the reader's judgment. Perhaps they will be of interest to specialists and the general reader. In addition, inventions and discoveries in the field of physics can be patented and become a source of income in the future.
In addition, we will try to acquaint you with discoveries in the border areas of physics, physics at the junction with other sciences, such as:
- Biophysics
- Geophysics
- Chemical physics
- Plasma physics
This list can expand as it enters the catalog of ideas and discoveries in different areas of physics. Come, read and you will always be aware of the most interesting, and perhaps fateful for mankind, discoveries.
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Gravitational waves from neutron star mergers
Collision of neutron stars. Illustration: NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet.
Completed accelerator tunnel. Photo: European XFEL / Heiner Muller-Elsner.
The compact neutrino detector wielded by physicist Björn Scholz resembles an ordinary bottle in shape and size. Photo: Juan Collar/uchicago.edu.
The planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system compared to the planets of the solar system. Illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
An image of Saturn's rings taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Photo: Space Science Institute/JPL-Caltech/NASA.
The most significant discovery of 2017 was the first ever registration of gravitational waves from the merger of two neutron stars. For the first time, astronomers have managed to simultaneously record the gamma-ray bursts that arose during the merger, and then find and explore the place where the cosmic catastrophe occurred - 100 million light-years from Earth.
Gravitational waves were detected on August 17 by the gravitational wave detectors LIGO (USA) and Virgo (France, Italy), and a couple of seconds later the Integral (ESA) and Fermi (NASA) space observatories recorded short gamma-ray bursts. Ground and space observatories joined in the search for the source of the signal, which then monitored the gradually fading remnant of the “explosion” for several tens of days. The work was also attended by Russian researchers from the IKI RAS, SAI MSU and FTI. A. F. Ioffe.
This discovery is related to several problems of astrophysics at once. First of all, to the question of the origin of powerful gamma-ray bursts, which emit more energy in a fraction of a second than the Sun in billions of years.
Astrophysicists have long assumed that the source of bursts could be the merger of two neutron stars, but now they have received experimental proof of the validity of the developed theory. As a result of the collision of stars, simultaneously with a gamma-ray burst, part of the stellar matter is ejected at high speed into the surrounding space. This phenomenon, discovered in 2013, is called the kilonova. Then the radioactive elements from the resulting cloud decay into stable ones, generating its radiation. Astronomers have detected a large number of heavy elements, such as gold and platinum, which allows us to consider stellar mergers as real galactic factories of heavy elements that were absent in the young Universe.
Quantum computer with 53 qubits
Quantum computers, with which great expectations are associated, have not yet been created, but in 2017 important steps were taken towards bringing this idea to life. Quantum computing devices work with qubits - objects that store the smallest element of information, analogous to a bit in a conventional computer. The number of qubits determines the capabilities of a quantum computer.
In November, the journal Nature published articles on the simulation of quantum systems using quantum computers of 51 and 53 qubits. Prior to this, such universal devices were limited to 20 qubits. An increase in the number of qubits by 2.5 times increased the capabilities of computers many times over. The 51-qubit quantum computer was created under the leadership of Mikhail Lukin, who works at the Russian Quantum Center and Harvard University. On July 28, such a device was presented at International Conference on quantum technologies in Moscow.
stable metallic hydrogen
In January, physicists at Harvard reported that they had obtained, for the first time in history, a small amount of stable metallic hydrogen. The sample had dimensions of 1.5 x 10 µm. Theoretically, the existence of metallic hydrogen at high pressures was predicted in 1935. In nature, such conditions are realized in the interiors of stars and giant planets. Since 1996, it has been obtained by shock compression several times, but hydrogen has existed in this state for a very short time.
To produce stable metallic hydrogen, the Harvard team used a facility where diamond anvils developed a pressure of 495 gigapascals, about five million times normal atmospheric pressure.
In addition to purely scientific value, this exotic material can also have practical applications - it has high-temperature superconductivity (in this case it came at -58 o C).
X-ray free electron laser started work
On September 1, the official opening ceremony of the world's largest European X-ray free electron laser XFEL (x-ray free electron laser) took place, in the creation of which Russia also took part. In fact, this installation is not a laser, that is, a source of optical radiation of a certain type. In her x-rays, similar in properties to a laser, creates a beam of electrons accelerated to speeds close to the speed of light. XFEL uses the world's largest superconducting linear accelerator, 1.7 km long, for this. Accelerated electrons fall into an undulator - a device that creates a periodically changing magnetic field in space. Moving in it along a zigzag path, electrons emit in the X-ray range. The new unique facility will generate ultrashort x-ray flashes at a record frequency of 27,000 times per second, and its peak brightness is expected to be a billion times higher than existing x-ray sources.
More than 60 research teams have already applied for experiments. With the help of record bright and very short X-ray pulses, researchers will be able to see not only the arrangement of atoms in molecules, but also the processes taking place there. This will allow reaching a new level in research in the fields of physics, chemistry, materials science, life sciences, and biomedicine. For example, when creating new drugs, specialists, knowing the exact arrangement of atoms in protein molecules, will be able to select substances that will block or, conversely, stimulate their work. Knowledge of the structure of crystals will allow the development of materials with desired properties.
Registration of neutrinos by elastic rebound
In September 2017, a large international team of physicists, including those from Russia, announced the discovery of elastic coherent scattering of neutrinos on matter nuclei. This phenomenon was predicted in 1974 by MIT theorist Daniel Friedman. The neutrino is an elusive particle, and to capture it, researchers are building huge facilities containing tens of thousands of tons of water. Friedman found that due to the wave properties of the neutrino will interact in a coordinated manner with all the protons and neutrons of the nucleus, which will significantly increase the number of interactions under consideration - neutrino bounces from the nucleus. Over 461 days, the researchers observed 134 such events.
This discovery will not force textbooks to be rewritten. Its significance lies in the creation by experimenters of a small detector, in which there are only 14.6 kg of cesium iodide crystals. Small portable neutrino detectors will find a variety of applications, such as monitoring nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, they cannot replace giant detectors in all experiments, since a detector based on coherent scattering cannot distinguish between neutrino types.
Time Crystal - two options
In March, two teams of researchers from the United States reported the discovery of a new state of matter, called the time crystal - the temporal crystal (see "Science and Life" No. 6, 2017,). it new idea in physics, widely discussed in last years. Such crystals are ever-moving structures of particles, themselves repeating in time. One group used a chain of ytterbium atoms, in which, under the action of lasers, the projection of the magnetic moment of the system oscillated. Another considered a crystal containing about a million random defects, each with its own magnetic moment. When such a crystal was subjected to pulses of microwave radiation to flip the spins, physicists recorded the response of the system at a frequency that was only a fraction of the frequency of the exciting radiation. The works caused a discussion: can such systems be considered temporal crystals. After all, theoretically, systems should fluctuate without external influence. But in any case, such temporal crystals will find application as super-precise sensors, for example, for measuring the slightest changes in temperature and magnetic fields.
Earth-like exoplanets
In recent years, astronomers have discovered many exoplanets - planets orbiting other stars. However, finds of Earth-like planets in the zone where liquid water can exist, and hence life (the habitable zone), are not so frequent. In February, NASA astronomers announced the discovery of seven exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 red dwarf system (three planets were found back in 2016), of which five are close in size to Earth, and two are slightly smaller than Earth, but larger than Mars. This is more than any other system. At least three planets, and possibly all, are in the habitable zone.
TRAPPIST-1 is an ultracold dwarf star with a temperature of about 2500 K, with a mass of only 8% of the mass of the Sun (that is, slightly larger than the planet Jupiter), located about 40 light years from Earth. The planets are very close to the star, and the orbit of the farthest of them is much smaller than the orbit of Mercury. In August, astronomers using space Hubble telescope, reported the first hints of water content in the TRAPPIST-1 system, which makes it possible for life to exist there.
In April, astronomers reported the discovery of a rocky planet 1.4 times the size of more earth in the habitable zone of another red dwarf - LHS 1140. It receives half as much light as the Earth. The authors of the discovery consider it a good candidate for the search for extraterrestrial life.
In December, American astronomers announced the discovery of an eighth planet in the Kepler-90 star system, located about 2,500 light-years from Earth. This system, in terms of the number of planets, is closest to solar system. True, the found planet is located too close to the star, and the temperature on its surface is more than 400 ° C. Interestingly, the planet was found when processing data from the Kepler telescope using a neural network.
Completion of the Cassini mission
On September 15, the 13-year mission of the Cassini space probe ended with a fall to the surface of Saturn. Launched in 1997, it has been exploring the seventh planet since 2004, transmitting a huge amount of data and unique photographs to Earth. The last stage of his life - the "Big Finale" began on April 26, 2017. Cassini made 22 flybys between the planet and the inner ring. Such deep "dives" gave a lot of new information, in particular about electrical and chemical bond ionosphere of Saturn with rings.
Based on data from the probe in 2017, astronomers concluded that Saturn's rings are much younger than the planet, which is about 4.5 billion years old. The age of the rings was estimated at 100 million years, so they are contemporaries of dinosaurs.
The researchers decided to “drop” the probe onto the planet so that it would not accidentally bring terrestrial bacteria to Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus, where there may be local microorganisms.
Quark fusion
In November, an article appeared in the journal Nature in which two physicists from the United States and Israel theoretically suggested the possibility of a reaction at the quark level, similar to thermonuclear, but with a much greater release of energy. As you know, in a thermonuclear reaction, light elements merge with the release of energy. A similar reaction can also occur during the collision of elementary particles, which, according to modern ideas, are made up of quarks. In this case, the quarks of the colliding particles will interact and regroup. As a result, a new particle with a different binding energy of quarks will appear and energy will be released.
The researchers indicated two possible reactions. In the first of them, when two charmed quarks merge, an energy of 12 MeV will be released. When two down quarks merge, 138 MeV should be released, which is almost eight times more than in a separate fusion of deuterium and tritium in a thermonuclear reaction (18 MeV). The practical application of these assumptions has not yet been considered due to the smallness of the life of quarks.
Excitons managed to condense
In December, a team of physicists from the US, UK and the Netherlands announced the discovery new form matter, which they called excitonium. The exciton quasiparticle, a special excited state of a crystal that can be represented as a combination of an electron and a hole, similar to a hydrogen atom, was predicted in 1931 by the Soviet physicist Yakov Ilyich Frenkel.
An exciton belongs to bosons, particles with integer spin, and at a sufficiently low temperature, a system of bosons goes into a special state called a condensate, in which all particles are in the same quantum state and behave like one big quantum wave. Due to this, the Bose liquid becomes superfluid or superconducting. The researchers managed to detect the Bose condensate of excitons in 1T-TiSe 2 crystals.
The discovery is important for the further development of quantum mechanics, and in practice, superconductivity and superfluidity of excitonium may find application.
MOSCOW, February 8 - RIA Novosti. More than 70% of Russians are not able to name a single scientific achievement of the country over the past decades - these are the results of a sociological study by VTsIOM carried out on the Day Russian science. At the same time, at least ten discoveries of our scientists in recent years have left a noticeable mark on world science.
Gravitational waves
In August 2017, the LIGO detector detected gravitational waves caused by the collision of two neutron stars in the galaxy NGC 4993 in the constellation Hydra. The most precise device felt the perturbation of space-time, although its source was 130 million light-years from Earth. Science magazine called it the top discovery of the year.
The physicists of Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences made a considerable contribution to it. The Russians joined the search for gravitational waves on the LIGO detector in 1993 thanks to Vladimir Braginsky, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (passed away in March 2016).
LIGO first recorded gravitational waves (from the collision of two black holes) in September 2015.
Lake Vostok in Antarctica
The Russians own the last major geographical discovery on the planet - Lake Vostok in Antarctica. A giant reservoir is located under a four-kilometer thickness of ice in the very center of the Sixth Continent. Theoretically, it was predicted back in the 1950s by oceanologist Nikolai Zubov and geophysicist Andrei Kapitsa.
It took almost three decades to drill the glacier. Members of the AARI Russian Antarctic Expedition reached the relict lake on February 5, 2012.
Lake Vostok has been isolated from the outside world for at least 14 million years. Scientists are interested in whether any living organisms have survived there. If there is life in the reservoir, then its study will serve as the most important source of information about the past of the Earth and will help the search for organisms in space.
Space project "Radioastron"
In July 2011, the Spektr-R radio telescope was launched into orbit. Together with ground-based radio telescopes, it forms a kind of ear that can hear the pulse of the Universe in the radio range. This successful Russian project called "Radioastron" is unique. It is based on the principle of ultra-long baseline radio interferometry, developed by Academician Nikolai Kardashev, director of the Astrospace Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute.
"Radioastron" studies supermassive black holes and, in particular, ejections of matter (jets) from them. Using the world's largest (recorded in the Guinness Book of Records) radio telescope, scientists hope to see the shadow of a black hole, which is presumably at the center of the Milky Way.
Experiments with graphene
In 2010, natives of Russia Andrey Geim and Konstantin Novoselov became laureates Nobel Prize in physics for the study of graphene. Both graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, worked at the Institute of Physics solid body RAS in Chernogolovka, and in the 1990s they left to continue research abroad. In 2004, they proposed a now classic way to obtain two-dimensional graphene by simply peeling it off a piece of graphite with tape. Currently, Nobel laureates work at the University of Manchester in the UK.
Graphene is a layer of carbon one atom thick. They saw the future of terahertz electronics in it, but then they discovered a number of flaws that have not yet been overcome. For example, graphene is very difficult to turn into a semiconductor, and besides, it is very fragile.
A new kind of Homo
In 2010, a sensation spread around the world - it was discovered the new kind ancient people who lived simultaneously with sapiens and Neanderthals. Relatives were dubbed Denisovans by the name of the cave in Altai, where their remains were found. The place of the Denisovans on the human family tree was established after deciphering the DNA isolated from the tooth of an adult and the little finger of a little girl, who died 30-50 thousand years ago (it is unfortunately impossible to say more precisely).
Ancient people chose Denisova Cave 300 thousand years ago. Scientists from the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating there for decades, and only progress in the methods of molecular biology has finally made it possible to reveal the secret of the Denisovans.
Archaeologists want to restore the appearance of the Denisovan manDirector of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, this year's state prize winner Academician Anatoly Derevyanko hopes that during excavations in the Denisova Cave in Altai, scientists will be able to find a skull or fragments of an extinct human species - the Denisovan man - and restore its appearance.Superheavy atoms
In the 1960s, Russian physicists predicted an "island of stability" - a special physical state within which superheavy atoms should exist. In 2006, experimenters from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna discovered the 114th element, later called flerovium, on this "island" using a cyclotron. Then, one after another, the 115th, 117th and 118th elements were discovered - respectively, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson (in honor of the discoverer Academician Yuri Oganesyan). So replenished the periodic table.
Poincare conjecture
In 2002-2003, the Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman solved one of the millennium problems - he proved the Poincaré conjecture formulated a hundred years ago. He published the solution in a series of articles on arxiv.org. It took his colleagues several years to verify the proof and accept the discovery. Perelman was nominated for the Fields Prize, the Clay Mathematical Institute gave him a million dollars, but the mathematician refused all awards and money. He also ignored the offer to participate in the elections for the title of academician.
Grigory Perelman was born in St. Petersburg, graduated from Physics and Mathematics School No. 239 and the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of Leningrad University, worked in the St. Petersburg branch of the Mathematical Institute. V. A. Steklova. He does not communicate with the press, does not conduct public activities. It is not even known in which country he now lives and whether he is engaged in mathematics.
Last year, Forbes magazine included Grigory Perelman among the people of the century.
laser on heterostructures
In the late 1960s, physicist Zhores Alferov designed the world's first semiconductor laser based on heterostructures he had grown. At that time, scientists were actively looking for a way to improve the traditional elements of radio circuits, and this was possible thanks to the invention of fundamentally new materials that had to be grown layer by layer, atom by atom, and from different compounds. Despite the laboriousness of the procedures, it was possible to grow such crystals. It turned out that they can radiate like lasers and thus transmit data. This made it possible to create computers, compact discs, fiber optic communications, and new space communications systems.
In 2000, academician Zhores Alferov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
High temperature superconductors
In the 1950s, theoretical physicist Vitaly Ginzburg, together with Lev Landau, took up the theory of superconductivity and proved the existence of a special class of materials - type II superconductors. The physicist Alexei Abrikosov discovered them experimentally. In 2003, Ginzburg and Abrikosov received the Nobel Prize for this discovery.
In the 1960s, Vitaly Ginzburg took up the theoretical substantiation of high-temperature superconductivity and wrote a book about it together with David Kirzhnits. At that time, few people believed in the existence of materials that would conduct electric current without resistance at a temperature slightly above absolute zero. And in 1987, compounds were discovered that turned into superconductors at 77.4 Kelvin (minus 195.75 degrees Celsius, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen).
The search for high-temperature superconductors was continued by physicists Mikhail Eremets and Alexander Drozdov, who are now working in Germany. In 2015, they discovered that hydrogen sulfide gas can become a superconductor, and at a record high temperature for this phenomenon - minus 70 degrees. Nature magazine named Mikhail Yeremets the Scientist of the Year.
The last mammoths on earth
In 1989, Sergei Vartanyan, a young employee of the Leningrad state university, who studied the ancient geography of the Arctic, came to Wrangel Island, lost in the Arctic Ocean. He collected the bones of mammoths, lying there in abundance, and using radiocarbon analysis determined that they were only a few thousand years old. As subsequently established, woolly mammoths became extinct 3730 years ago. Island mammoths were slightly smaller than their mainland relatives, growing up to 2.5 meters at the withers, so they are also called dwarf ones. An article by Vartanyan and his colleagues about the latest mammoths on Earth was published in Nature in 1993, and the whole world learned about their discovery.
The mammoth genome from Wrangel Island was deciphered in 2015. Now Sergey Vartanyan with Russian and foreign colleagues continue to analyze it in order to find out all the features of the life of pygmy mammoths and unravel the mystery of their disappearance.
