Category Archives: Astronomy and space
Rover’s first sample of Martian soil comes up wet
Contributed by Kat Kerlin The Mars Rover Curiosity is all grown up and eating solids. The first solid sample ingested and analyzed by the rover revealed a high percentage of water in the soil. Water molecules bound to fine-grained soil …
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Engineering professor’s ‘messaging code’ helps NASA communicate with IRIS spacecraft
One of NASA’s recent missions, the IRIS Solar Observatory, has been communicating its results via a 7/8 Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) code developed by Shu Lin, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The Interface Region …
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Taking the temperature of the universe — from the South Pole
Astronomers are getting a better grasp on the structure of the universe, the nature of neutrinos and possibly a way to see gravity waves from the Big Bang, thanks to observations from the South Pole Telescope and the Herschel Space …
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Planck’s new map brings universe into focus
The Planck space mission has today released the most accurate and detailed map ever made of the oldest light in the universe. The universe according to Planck is expanding a bit more slowly than thought, and at 13.8 billion is …
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Curious about the Higgs boson, dark energy, black holes? Hear from the experts
If this week’s news about the Higgs boson got your interest, don’t miss a day of public lectures set for Saturday, April 6. Four leading physicists — Nobel prizewinner Frank Wilczek (MIT), Maxwell Chertok (UC Davis), Michael S. Turner (University …
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Star-forming galaxies appeared a billion years after Big Bang
A team of astronomers including Prof. Chris Fassnacht of the UC Davis physics department has discovered that distant, dusty galaxies were popping out stars far faster and earlier than previously thought — just a billion years after the Big Bang. …
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Six elected as Fellows of the American Physical Society
Congratulations to six faculty members from the Department of Physics have been elected as Fellows of the American Physical Society. They are: Professor Nemanja Kaloper: For numerous and imaginative contributions to theoretical cosmology, particularly for his pioneering work in the …
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Puzzling galaxy cluster not so puzzling after all, maybe
Astronomers have been taking another look at a merging galaxy cluster that threw up some surprising results earlier this year, and they think that it’s behavior is not so strange, after all. Many astronomers have been taking a close look …
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The natural beauty of Mars
The Mars Curiosity rover took this photo of Mt. Sharp, Mars on Aug. 27. It’s the cover art for the journal Astrobiology, with a note by UC Davis geologist Dawn Sumner, who is working with the Curiosity science team. You …
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Large Synoptic Survey Telescope passes another milestone
The National Science Foundation announced today that it will advance the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope or LSST to the design stage. According to a NSF news release, “This action permits the NSF Director to include funds for LSST construction in …
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