January 2023

Stability in Asymmetry By breaking the symmetry of their environment, scientists demonstrate a new technique for extending the length of time qubits can retain information. What happened Scientists have shown that by changing the surrounding crystal’s structure to be less symmetric, they may prolong the lifetime of a molecular qubit. The qubit is protected from

To search for alien life, astronomers will search for clues in the atmospheres of distant planets – and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just proved it’s possible to do so. The ingredients necessary for life are spread throughout the universe. While Earth is the only known place with life in the universe, detecting life beyond

We’re one step closer to a future of near-limitless clean energy. Physicists in Germany just found a way to minimize a major heat-loss problem plaguing a promising kind of nuclear fusion reactor called a “stellarator.” The future of clean energy: Nuclear fusion occurs when the nuclei of two atoms merge into one. This releases an

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first batch of coloured scientific photos, which NASA has made public. Incredible photos collected by the much awaited James Webb Space Telescope have been made public by NASA (JWST). The galaxy group “Stephan’s Quintet” is displayed above as NASA has posted the first coloured photographs

The last screams of light emitted by a dying star have been preserved in a series of eerily beautiful images, slowly echoing across the cosmos. The Hubble Space Telescope has captured in spectacular detail the flash of light that followed a massive star going supernova in 2016, as the glow spread outward over a period

The James Webb Space Telescope, not even finished with its first full year of observations, has delivered some real stunners. But amid the breathtaking images and unprecedented findings, there was a puzzling claim: that the telescope had detected galaxies in the incredibly young universe. Those galaxies were so massive and appeared so early that they,

The shape of heavy nuclei changes as the energy level varies. The universe is governed by four fundamental forces that dictate the interactions between particles and shape the world we know. These forces include the electromagnetic force, gravity, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force. These fundamental forces act on everything from the tiniest atoms

One of the weirder aspects of quantum mechanics could be explained by an equally weird idea – that causation can run backwards in time as well as forwards. What Einstein called “spooky” action at a distance could theoretically be evidence of retrocausality, which is the particle equivalent of you getting a stomach ache today thanks

The black hole is over 1 billion light-years away. A team of astronomers has found a unique black hole that is shooting a fiery jet at another galaxy with the aid of citizen scientists. The black hole is housed in the RAD12 galaxy, which is around a billion light-years from Earth. The research was recently

We only get to see roughly 0.5% of the earth from where we live on the surface. One of the greatest mysteries of our planet is the solid iron core, which is located deep below the crust, heated rock mantle, and liquified outer core. According to a new study, the iron ball that makes up

A new kind of black hole analog could tell us a thing or two about an elusive radiation theoretically emitted by the real thing. Using a chain of atoms in single-file to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, a team of physicists has observed the equivalent of what we call Hawking radiation –

JWST’s unparalleled ability to peer into the shrouded hearts of distant clouds has revealed the elements of biochemistry in the coldest and darkest place we’ve seen them yet. In a molecular cloud called Chamaeleon I, located over 500 light-years from Earth, data from the telescope has revealed the presence of frozen carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,

If you check in regularly to ScienceAlert, you’ll be familiar with quite a few stunning space images, but a newly published picture has to be one of the best yet: 2 years in the making, 10 terabytes worth of data, 21,400 individual exposures combined, and a final image showing a huge 3.32 billion celestial objects.

‘Spin’ is a fundamental quality of fundamental particles like the electron, invoking images of a tiny sphere revolving rapidly on its axis like a planet in a shrunken solar system. Only it isn’t. It can’t. For one thing, electrons aren’t spheres of matter but points described by the mathematics of probability. But California Institute of

The most comprehensive plans need a sprinkle of luck, even in space. In October 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) watched as Chariklo, a tiny ringed asteroid, eclipsed a star. This event, called an occultation, marked a first for Webb. At the month’s end, Webb turned toward Chariklo again and notched another

The count of confirmed exoplanets just ticked past the 5,000 mark, representing a 30-year journey of discovery led by NASA space telescopes. Not so long ago, we lived in a universe with only a small number of known planets, all of them orbiting our Sun. But a new raft of discoveries marks a scientific high

UC Santa Cruz astronomer Garth Illingworth, former Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, has had a hell of a career. He’s dedicated decades to the pursuit of finding and understanding the most distant galaxies, and was a leader on the team that built the Hubble Space Telescope. And before the Hubble was even

A new ultra-low-power method of communication at first glance seems to violate the laws of physics. It is possible to wirelessly transmit information simply by opening and closing a switch that connects a resistor to an antenna. No need to send power to the antenna. Our system, combined with techniques for harvesting energy from the