Tag Archive for 'Magnesium'

Three-proton emission from aluminium-20. Image credit: Xiaodong Xu.

New Isotope of Aluminum Discovered: Aluminum-20

Jul 22, 2025 by News Staff

The previously unknown nucleus aluminum-20 has been observed for the first time by detecting its in-flight decays. Three-proton emission from aluminium-20....

The J1601+3102 radio jet. Image credit: LOFAR / DECaLS / DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys / LBNL / DOE / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / F. Sweijen, Durham University / M. Zamani, NSF NOIRLab.

Monster Two-Lobed Radio Jet Detected in Early Universe

Feb 6, 2025 by News Staff

The newly-discovered radio jet spans an astonishing 215,000 light-years, and is associated with J1601+3102, an extremely radio-loud quasar that existed...

A fragment of the Erg Chech 002 meteorite. Image credit: Steve Jurvetson / CC BY 2.0.

4.6-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Provides New Insights into Early Solar Nebula

Aug 29, 2023 by News Staff

Scientists have determined a precise lead isotopic age of the andesitic achondrite meteorite Erg Chech 002. Their result, combined with published aluminum-26-magnesium-26...

This artist’s impression shows a field of Population III stars as they would have appeared a mere 100 million years after the Big Bang. Image credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / Spaceengine.

Astronomers May Have Spotted Traces of Material from Explosion of First-Generation Star

Sep 28, 2022 by News Staff

The very first stars likely formed when the Universe was only 100 million years old. Known as Population III stars, these stellar objects were so massive...

An artist’s impression of an ultrahot Jupiter. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Detect Titanium Oxide and Several Metals in Atmosphere of WASP-189b

Jan 28, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The temperature of a planet’s atmosphere decreases with increasing altitude, unless a shortwave absorber that causes a temperature inversion exists....

Magnesium-18. Image credit: S.M. Wang / Fudan University & Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Michigan State University.

Physicists Create New Isotope of Magnesium

Dec 24, 2021 by News Staff

Magnesium-18 (18Mg) is the lightest isotope of magnesium, which is element 12 on the periodic table. Magnesium-18. Image credit: S.M. Wang / Fudan University...

Palmerini et al. analyzed the isotopic composition of heavy neutron capture elements measured in SiC stardust grains extracted from pristine meteorites, interpreting them as the outcome of s-process nucleosynthesis occurring in the AGB stages of stars with masses between two and three solar masses and solar metallicities. Image credit: Nan Liu / Andrew Davis / NASA.

Researchers Measure Isotopic Ratios in Presolar Stardust Grains

Oct 12, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has analyzed a diverse set of presolar grains with the goal of realizing their true stellar origins. Palmerini et al....

This image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the supernova remnant MSH 15-52. Image credit: NASA / SAO / NCSU / Borkowski et al.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Watches Fast Blast Wave from Exploded Star

Jun 25, 2021 by News Staff

A stellar structure known as the ‘Hand of God’ is a nebula of energy and particles blown by a pulsar left behind after a star exploded in our Milky...

The Giant Arc: the gray contours represent the Mg II absorbers, which indicate the distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters; the blue dots represent the background quasars; the Giant Arc is centered on this figure spanning -600 to +400 Mpc on the x-axis. Image credit: Lopez et al.

3.3-Billion-Light-Year-Long Arc of Galaxies Discovered

Jun 16, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers from the United States and the United Kingdom has made the discovery of a giant, almost symmetrical arc of galaxies...

Acromyrmex echinatior worker (left) aggressively interacts with Atta cephalotes soldier (right). Image credit: Li et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19566-3.

Leaf-Cutter Ants Have Biomineral Armor

Nov 26, 2020 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Smithsonian Institution has discovered a dense layer of biogenic high-magnesium...

The globular cluster RBC EXT8. Image credit: ESASky / CFHT.

Astronomers Find Extremely Metal-Deficient Globular Cluster in Andromeda Galaxy

Oct 16, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) on the Keck I telescope at W. M. Keck Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope...

The top of WASP-121b’s atmosphere is heated to a blazing 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STSci.

Astronomers Detect Vaporized Metals in Atmosphere of Hot Jupiter

Oct 9, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) spectrograph at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile have detected gaseous...

This artist’s impression was generated using an image of Betelgeuse from 2019 taken with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO / NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Betelgeuse’s Mysterious Dimming Likely Caused by Huge Outburst

Aug 13, 2020 by News Staff

The red supergiant Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and appears even more luminous because it is so close to Earth, only 650 light-years...

Enamel is made up of tightly bunched, oblong crystals that are about 1,000 times smaller in width than a human hair. Image credit: Karen DeRocher, Northwestern University.

Researchers Capture Human Dental Enamel in Unprecedented Detail

Jul 6, 2020 by News Staff

A research team led by Northwestern University scientists has uncovered the structural makeup of human dental enamel at unprecedented atomic resolution,...

This illustration shows a gas giant exoplanet orbiting its parent star. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / L. Calcada.

Study Finds No Clear Correlation between Compositions of Giant Exoplanets and Their Host Stars

Dec 4, 2019 by News Staff

There isn’t a strong correlation between gas giant and host star compositions when it comes to elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, according to...

This artist’s rendering shows a white dwarf star with two planets. Image credit: Mark Garlick.

Rocky Exoplanets Often Have Earth- and Mars-Like Internal Properties

Oct 18, 2019 by News Staff

White dwarfs are dense, burned-out remnants of normal stars. Due to their strong gravitational pull, surface atmospheres of these ancient objects should...

Lithology of sulfate enrichments in Gale Crater, Mars: (a) magnesium sulfate-enriched lithology within multiple parallel horizons (red arrows) on a large block of bedrock; (b) calcium sulfate enrichments as erosion-resistant horizons (red arrows) in mudstone; (c) multiple horizons (red arrows) where euhedral white crystals and heterogeneous calcium sulfate and magnesium sulfate enrichments were observed; (d) exposed blocks at Old Soaker with desiccation cracks; circles represent the locations of Curiosity’s ChemCam targets with calcium sulfate enrichments (red) and without (blue); (e, f) close-up images of a mudstone and a sandstone enriched in calcium sulfate; (g) close-up image of bedrock with white euhedral crystals along with empty casts/moulds. Image credit: Rapin et al, doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0458-8.

Salt-Rich Deposits Point to Ancient Briny Ponds in Mars’ Gale Crater

Oct 8, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently discovered rocks enriched in mineral salts within the 3.7-billion-year-old Gale Crater on Mars. According to a new paper...

This artist’s illustration shows WASP-121b, an alien world that is losing magnesium and iron gas from its atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Olmsted, STScI.

Metal-Rich Gas Seen Streaming from Hot Jupiter WASP-121b

Aug 1, 2019 by News Staff

WASP-121b is about two times bigger than Jupiter and 1.2 times more massive. Discovered in 2016, the planet is located 881 light-years away in the constellation...

Single magnetic atoms are deposited on a surface of magnesium oxide; they are imaged by the magnetic tip of a scanning tunneling microscope which allows researchers to perform an MRI scan of the atom’s magnetic field. Image credit: Willke et al.

Physicists Use MRI to Scan Individual Atoms

Jul 3, 2019 by News Staff

A team of experimental physicists from the Institute for Basic Science, the Ewha Womans University and the IBM Almaden Research Center has performed the...

Astronomers have monitored the Eta Carinae binary system for more than two decades. It has been prone to violent outbursts, including an episode in the 1840s during which ejected material formed the bipolar bubbles seen here. Now, using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument to probe the nebula in ultraviolet light, they have uncovered the glow of magnesium embedded in warm gas (shown in blue) in places they had not seen it before. The luminous magnesium resides in the space between the dusty bipolar bubbles and the outer shock-heated nitrogen-rich filaments (shown in red). The streaks visible in the blue region outside the lower-left lobe are a striking feature of the image. These streaks are created when the star’s light rays poke through the dust clumps scattered along the bubble’s surface. Wherever the ultraviolet light strikes the dense dust, it leaves a long, thin shadow that extends beyond the lobe into the surrounding gas. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / N. Smith, University of Arizona / J. Morse, BoldlyGo Institute.

Hubble Captures Eta Carinae in Ultraviolet Light

Jul 2, 2019 by News Staff

Eta Carinae is a binary stellar system approximately 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina. Also known as HD 93308 and Hen 3-481, the system...