Physics Department News
Published in the journal Nature, a team including Warwick astronomer Peter Wheatley has discovered a giant comet-like tail of hydogren gas evaporating from a Neptune-sized exoplanet. The gas is thought to be boiled off by X-rays from the parent star and then swept away by radiation pressure. The tail was revealed in Hubble Space Telescope observations in which 56% of the star is covered by the tail in ultraviolet light. The planet is losing its atmosphere at a rate of 1000 metric tonnes per second, having narrowly escaped total evaporation by the intense X-ray irradiation it suffered when its parent star was young and active. Read the , the full journal article in , or the preprint from .
Professor Valery Nakariakov has been awarded the 2015 Payne-Gaposchkin medal and prize by the Institute of Physics for his leadership and major contribution to the discovery of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) activity of the solar corona. His research has led to transformative changes in our understanding of the solar atmosphere, and to the creation and successful implementation of a new branch of solar physics - MHD coronal seismology.
This award is named after Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin who was the first person to show that the Sun is mainly composed of hydrogen, contradicting accepted wisdom at the time. It is made biennially by the IOP for distinguished research in plasma, solar or space physics.
Fresh evidence for how water reached earth found in asteroid debris
Water delivery via asteroids or comets is likely taking place in many other planetary systems, just as it happened on Earth, new research by the Warwick Astronomy & Astrophysics group strongly suggests.
Published by the Royal Astronomical Society and led by the 91影视破解版, the research finds evidence for numerous planetary bodies, including asteroids and comets, containing large amounts of water.
The research findings add further support to the possibility water can be delivered to Earth-like planets via such bodies to create a suitable environment for the formation of life.
Jack has developed a wireless device that detects and uses detailed 3D movements in your fingertips to interact with a computer. It has huge potential in the multi-billion pound gaming industry and other niche markets such as remotely operated machinery.
It works by combining information from cameras and wireless sensors, and in the future this technology could even replace traditional computer keyboards and mice to enable people to create and manipulate digital information with their hands in a free and natural way. It could also enable people to perform new tasks that would previously have been too complex or intricate, such as sorting and processing large and disparate data.
Its accuracy and affordability make it stand out from other consumer technologies on the market, and it could be a key enabler in bringing augmented and virtual reality technologies into the mainstream. The device is currently in prototyping and is expected to reach the market in the next few years.
You can see a video of his work here -