A BRIGHT METEOR OVER GREENLAND: Today, some media outlets are reporting a meteor strike on July 25th near the USA's Thule Air Base in Greenland. Why hasn't the US Air Force said anything about it? Probably because the impactor was a fairly routine space rock--not a nuclear missile. "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait lays out the facts in this excellent article.
QUANTUM 'SUPER ATOMS' IN EARTH ORBIT: There's a new form of matter in Earth orbit. On July 27th, NASA announced that researchers have created Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs) onboard the International Space Station. These "super atoms" don't behave like particles of normal matter. They're more like matter waves, obeying the strange laws of quantum mechanics. Unlike other objects from the Quantum Realm, however, BECs are large enough to see with the unaided eye:
How weird are BECs? Consider the following: If you create two BECs and put them together, they don't mix like an ordinary gas. Instead, they can "interfere" like waves: thin, parallel layers of matter are separated by thin layers of empty space. An atom in one BEC can add itself to an atom in another BEC and produce – no atom at all.
First predicted by Indian physicist Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein in the 1920s, BECs are hard to study on Earth because the pull of gravity rips them apart in a fraction of a second. In the microgravity environment of the space station, however, BECs can hold their form for 5 to 10 seconds.
Researchers have been making BECs inside the space station's Cold Atom Lab, an atomic refrigerator that can cool rubidium vapors down to one ten-millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Each BEC is assembled from a few million rubidium atoms.
Bose-Einstein condensates are quantum creatures big enough to see--and therein lies their promise. Many cutting-edge technologies such as smaller, faster computer chips, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and quantum computers lie in the twilight zone between the quantum world and the macroscopic world. Scientists hope that studying BECs will advance those technologies and create others.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
FLY ME TO THE MOONSTONE: Are you looking for a far-out gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a moonstone from the edge of space. On Jan 27th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew this moonstone wrapped in a hand-crafted sterling silver Celtic love knot 35.1 km (115,158 feet) above Earth's surface:
You can have it for $179.95. The students are selling these pendants to support their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the item in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space. All sales support the Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray ballooning program and hands-on STEM research.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Lunar Eclipse Photo Gallery