Ben Gilliland's blog

The hunt for the mirror galaxy

Sun, 08/05/2012 - 16:39 — Ben Gilliland

A little over a year ago, the largest and most complex experiment ever launched into space was installed on the International Space Station. Its mission: to seek out antimatter – the mirror image of the matter that makes up the universe as we know it.

Weighing in at seven tonnes, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) took 16 years and the efforts of 16 countries and some 600 physicists to build.

AMS-02 is the space equivalent of the massive particle detectors used by physicists at the Large Hadron Collider. But, instead of studying particles whooshed to colossal speeds by a man-made magnetic ring, AMS-02 looks for cosmic rays –particles accelerated by energetic events deep in the universe itself.

Curiosity won't kill this cat... but the landing might

Sun, 07/29/2012 - 16:25 — Ben Gilliland

They say that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the bottom – it is one life’s constants: fall a great distance at high speed and, unless you can slow down before you hit the ground, you will be at least partially disassembled into your component parts.

This is a fate that engineers and scientists at Nasa will be hoping to avoid when, in a week’s time, they attempt to land the largest and most complicated robotic rover yet built safely on the surface of Mars.

The Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is almost at the end of its eight month journey to the Red Planet and, at 6.31am (BST) on August 6th, it will begin its perilous decent to the Martian surface.

The science of zombies (well, sort of)

Sun, 07/22/2012 - 16:54 — Ben Gilliland

It’s a classic story. You get on the Tube and pick up a copy of Metro. As usual, you start reading from the back page – you love your sports! You notice the Tube is strangely quiet for half eight on a Monday morning... in fact, it’s eerily quiet. Oh well, at least you can digest your Metro in peace.

As you read, you become aware of a unpleasant odour – a cloying, sweet smell with undertones of rotten dog food.

You glance toward the source of the olfactory assault expecting to see that tramp with the drippy nose. Instead, your eyes are greeted by the vacant (yet lustful) stare of an unusually animated corpse.

You try to run, but the creature’s ludicrously slow, shuffling gait is too much to overcome and, before you know it, you have stumbled on a discarded eye ball.

Before you have the chance to question the presence of a loose eyeball on the Underground, the zombie is upon you. His rotten hands claw at your clothing, pulling you closer into his decomposing embrace.

Harnessing the true power of the atom

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:45 — Ben Gilliland

Above: The Sun (seen here in ultraviolet) is the ultimate nuclear fusion reactor, but can we harness this power on Earth?

Last week, we compared the human and environmental cost of nuclear power and fossil fuels and nuclear came out as the clear winner. But nuclear power’s current means of extracting the power of the atom – nuclear fission – is still far from perfect.

To truly harness the energy locked away within the atom we need to look to the Sun.

The Sun is essentially a massive nuclear furnace but, instead of tearing atoms apart – as nuclear fission reactors do – our local star uses its massive gravitational power and million-degree heat to fuse atoms together. Fusion reactions can unleash many times more energy than nuclear fission and, instead of a mess of radioactive particles, the only byproduct is a harmless helium atom. When it comes to liberating energy, nuclear fusion makes fission look down-right clumsy.

Putting nuclear power into perspective

Sun, 07/08/2012 - 17:57 — Ben Gilliland

Sixty years ago we were in love with nuclear power. The new atomic age promised super-fast aircraft, cars and even vacuum cleaners powered by reactors. Most of all, it heralded a new age of clean, cheap and inexhaustible energy.

But it’s fair to say that the love affair is well and truly over.

These days we see nuclear power plants as barely tamed demons, straining to unleash Armageddon and barely held in check by the feeble humans that operate them.

The earthquake that last year caused accidents at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station – and the recent revelation that human failure contributed to it – have only served to reinforce our mistrust of this most dangerous of creatures.

But is it fair?

Found: One particle, masquerading as god

Wed, 07/04/2012 - 08:54 — Ben Gilliland

So, after (literally) days of fevered speculation, CERN physicists have announced that they found something that seems to be the Higgs boson – the most famous thing that may, or may not have existed (thus bumping whether or not Justin Bieber has talent into the top spot – physicists don't anticipate that this will be found).

At the Large Hadron Collider, two experiments have been bent to task of locating the Higgs – CMS and ATLAS – and both have detected signals in their data that suggest the presence of a particle that weighs in at about 125-126 GeV – about 130 times heavier than a proton.

At CMS, the team have “attained a confidence level” just shy of the golden “five sigma” level of certainty – with one data set reaching five sigma (a one-in-3.5 million chance they are wrong) and the combined result hitting 4.9 sigma (a one-in-two million chance).