An Austrian research team has developed an entirely new way of capturing images based on a flat, flexible, transparent, and potentially disposable polymer sheet. Resembling a flexible plastic film, the imager uses fluorescent particles to capture incoming light and channel a portion of it to an array of sensors around the edge of the sheet. […]
New optical technology has allowed an international team of astronomers to obtain images of the exoplanet known as Beta Pictoris b in the Beta Pictoris system, some 63 million light years away. The discovery, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, is a result of an international collaboration involving the University of Arizona (UA), Steward Observatory, the […]
The use of atomic spin to create nanoscale magnetic storage devices – a research field known as spintronics – is a hot topic in physics and computing, but until now no one had actually seen this quantum mechanical property of electrons in action. That has now changed thanks to the work of physicists at Ohio […]
A team of astronomers using the Keck and Gemini North telescopes in Hawaii have managed to image three planets in orbit around the star HR 8799 (located about 130 light-years from Earth and just visible to the naked eye in the constellation of Pegasus). To capture the image (above right), astronomer Christian Marois and his […]
For the first time, astronomers have been able to detect and monitor the reflected visible light that is scattered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Employing techniques similar to how sunglasses filter away reflected sunlight to reduce glare, a team of scientists led by Professor Svetlana Berdyugina of ETH Zurich’s Institute of Astronomy were able […]
NASA researchers have customized a space telescope with special masks and mirrors which they believe could allow it to take photographs of planets orbiting other stars (exoplanets). Although the apparatus has only been demonstrated in the laboratory, the successful test marks a dramatic step forward for missions like the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder, designed to […]
Researchers from Rice University have created a digital camera that uses a single-pixel sensor and hundreds-of-thousands of tiny mirrors to capture mega-pixel images. Don’t expect single-pixel digital cameras in the stores anytime soon though, as the technology will most likely be used in devices for imaging wavelengths outside the visible spectrum, where the cost of […]
Astronomers could soon be using a gigantic space-parasol to block out starlight that interferes with the view of planets in other solar systems. The daisy-shaped space shield could be used in conjunction with an orbiting telescope to get clear images of the more than 175 planets that have been discovered orbiting other stars, say the […]
The first overview analysis of a year’s worth of high-resolution infrared data gathered by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft is opening Mars to a new kind of detailed geological analysis and revealing a dynamic planet that has experienced dramatic environmental change. The report by THEMIS’s science team will appear […]
