Physics | Science News for Students

Physics

a LEGO model of the Kibble balance

Starting in May 2019, the kilogram will be defined by measurements from a device called the Kibble balance. This is a LEGO model of that device, at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.

NIST

Physics
 
Nov 15, 2018
Scientists vote to fix the world’s weight-loss problem
a photo of the skeleton of Sue, a T. rex skeleton at Chicago's Field Museum, against a white background

T. rex didn’t have the ability to clamp its jaws to crush bones, like some mammals do today. Instead, it used its powerful bite and strong teeth to pulverize the bones of its prey.

Connie Ma/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Fossils
 
Nov 12, 2018
T. rex pulverized bones with an incredible amount of force
a satellite image of Hurricane Michael on October 9, 2018

Michael, shown here hours before it made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, gathered strength from unusually warm Gulf of Mexico waters.

NASA

Weather & Climate
 
Oct 12, 2018
Hurricane Michael slams into Florida, then speeds north
Donna Strickland surrounded by equipment in a laser lab

Donna Strickland, seen here, is one of three scientists to win this year’s Nobel Prize in physics. Strickland also is only the third woman in history to win this physics award.

Peter Lee/Waterloo Region Record

Physics
 
Oct 2, 2018
Dazzling laser advances bring physicists a Nobel Prize
spaghetti machine

Researchers used a custom spaghetti-snapping machine (above) to discover the best way to break dry spaghetti in half.

RONALD HEISSER AND VISHAL PATIL

Physics
 
Sep 28, 2018
The perfect spaghetti snap starts with a twist
Atacama telescope array

With these telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, astronomers discovered the most distant galaxy that seems to be filled with dark matter.

C. Malin/ESO

Astronomy
 
Sep 21, 2018
Distant galaxy seems filled with dark matter
an artist's rendition of a rainy stormy sky, with two signs on a signpost in the foreground, one is a triangle with an exlamation mark in the middle, the other is a storm cloud with raindrops falling from it

Residents of Hawaii have survived several major deluges this year. And scientists say a warming climate may make such record-breakers ever more common.

trendobjects/iStockphoto; adapted by L. Steenblik Hwang

Weather & Climate
 
Sep 7, 2018
Hawaii’s record 2018 rains may foretell wetter times ahead
an illustration of a high-energy neutrino shooting out of a blazar

Scientists traced a high-energy neutrino back to its birthplace: a blazar. That galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole that fuels powerful jets of particles.

Science Communication Lab/DESY

Astronomy
 
Aug 8, 2018
Scientists traced an incoming neutrino back to its galactic birthplace
a spider in a tiptoe stance getting ready to take flight

Before ballooning into the breeze, spiders stand on their tiptoes (as here) and let out silk threads. New research suggests electric fields might help spiders decide when to fly.

MICHAEL HUTCHINSON

Animals
 
Jul 30, 2018
Electric currents in the air may cue ‘ballooning’ spiders on when to take off
an image of Mars' souther polar ice sheets from orbit

There may be a 20-kilometer-wide lake hidden under Mars’ southern polar ice sheets. Those ice sheet are shown here in images from a camera on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Mars Orbiter Camera data/NASA

Planets
 
Jul 26, 2018
Mars appears to have a lake of liquid water