Cosmology

If dark matter comes in both matter and antimatter varieties, it might accumulate inside dense stars to create black holes
 

It was a big week for physics in the movies, with the premiere of Interstellar, and the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything. That translates into lots of pixels commenting on the science behind the films.

Theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed will present a free live Webcast on the latest insights into the nature of spacetime from the quantum world
 

On November 12th 2014 the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission will eject the small robotic lander Philae on a trajectory that should take it down to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (or 67P/C-P for short).

The Rosetta spacecraft has unexpectedly detected hydrogen sulphide and ammonia coming from Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Lee Billings reports     

 

The cause of the deadly crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo on Friday remains unknown, but the commercial spaceplane's feathered reentry system looks to have been involved.

The new detector passes tests involving a helicopter, balloon and lasers

For the first time, spacecraft will get an up-close look at comets, asteroids and dwarf planets from the distant Kuiper belt. These probes should reveal how the solar system came to be

Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween festivities. Here’s a few other related links: The ghostly glow of St. Elmo’s fire: it works the same way that a neon light glows.  The Levitating Halloween Pumpkin with a superconductor inside.  Bonus: More Conceptual Physics Halloween Costumes.This year, go out as The Holographic Principle!

I met Stephen Hawking in the summer of 1990, when I spent five days in northern Sweden at a conference attended by 30 or so leading cosmologists.

Do not try this at home. A Russian Proton-M launch goes wrong – and it can happen to anyone (wait for the shock wave). A rocket is a controlled bomb.

A radical theory proposes that interactions among classical worlds can explain some quantum phenomena