Scientists have found traces of carbon in volcanic glass collected from the Apollo missions to the Moon. The finding may not only explain the driving force behind ancient “fire fountain” eruptions on the Moon but also suggest that some volatile elements on the Moon and Earth have a common origin.
Scientists have detected for the first time gamma rays emanating from a dwarf galaxy. Such a detection may be the signal of dark matter particles annihilating, a long-sought prediction of many dark matter theories. (Updated from March 2015)
In early August, NASA held the second in a series of landing site workshops for the 2020 mission to Mars. Three Brown geoscientists — Jack Mustard, recent Ph.D. recipient Tim Goudge, and graduate student Kevin Cannon — attended, advocating for sites they think are best suited to the mission’s scientific objectives. Their sites came out of the workshop ranked high on NASA’s list.
Using advanced computers and a computational technique to simulate physical processes at the atomic level, researchers at Brown University have predicted that a material made from hafnium, nitrogen, and carbon would have the highest known melting point, about two-thirds the temperature at the surface of the sun.
Brendan Hassett will become the next director of Brown University’s Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM), one of eight institutes for mathematics across the country funded by the National Science Foundation. Hassett, formerly of Rice University, will begin serving as director in July 2016.
Exploring the New World was a task of centuries. The photos of Pluto that arrived Wednesday, July 15, 2015, from the New Horizons spacecraft meant that space probes had visited all the planets of our Solar System. It took about 50 years. “Imagine what the next 50 years have in store,” writes planetary scientist Jim Head.
At the nanoscale, familiar materials often take on unexpected properties. Researchers from Brown and NC State have shown that zinc oxide nanowires are highly anelastic, meaning they return to shape slowly after being bent, rather than snapping right back. Anelastic materials are good at dissipating of kinetic energy. This new finding suggest nanowires could be useful in absorbing shocks and vibrations.
Brown University chemists working with scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used ultrafast X-ray pulses to image the stages of a key chemical reaction as it happens.
Planetary scientists know that volcanoes have crackled on the surface of Venus for much of the planet's history. Now, using data from the Venus Express spacecraft, an international team of researchers has found new evidence that some of those Venusian volcanoes may still be active today.
A human can make intuitive choices about what actions to take in order to achieve a goal. Robots have a far more difficult time choosing from of a universe of possible actions. Researchers at Brown University are developing an algorithm that can learn that skill from a video game environment.
