From Astronomy, March 31, 2020: Astronomers have discovered 139 new minor planets orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune by searching through data from the Dark Energy Survey, which is led by Fermilab. The new method for spotting small worlds is expected to reveal many thousands of distant objects in coming years — meaning these first hundred or so are likely just the tip of the iceberg.
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From Physics Today, April 1, 2020: Fermilab scientist Vladimir Shiltsev provides a rundown of the advances that the particle accelerator community has made in increasing beam energy, power, luminosity and brilliance and summarizes the breakthroughs and discoveries that lie ahead for the field of beam physics.
From WDRB, March 29, 2020: A study published earlier this month by astronomers at the University of Pennsylvania distinguished more than 100 new planets in our solar system, but estimates show there could be as many as 70,000. These trans-Neptunian objects were found in the data gathered by the Dark Energy Survey, led by Fermilab.
From Five Books, March 30, 2020: Fermilab scientist Dan Hooper gives his recommendations for books on the Big Bang and talks about whether our entire understanding of the universe is about to be turned upside down.
In 2010, the Large Hadron Collider research program jumped into full swing as scientists started collecting physics data from particle collisions in the LHC for the first time. How has this gigantic, global scientific effort affected the world? Symmetry pulled together a few numbers to find out.
From EarthSky, March 29, 2020: Astronomers analyzed data from the Dark Energy Survey, led by Fermilab, to find over 100 new little worlds in the cold outer reaches of our solar system. These trans-Neptunian objects orbit in the cold outer reaches of our solar system, out beyond Neptune, taking hundreds of years to orbit the sun once.
Missing March Madness? Let Fermilab fill a small part of the void created in these times of social distancing and shelter-in-place. Participate in Fermilab’s sendup of the NCAA tournament: March Magnets. Learn about eight different types of magnets used in particle physics, each with an example from a project or experiment in which Fermilab is a player. Then head over to the Fermilab Twitter feed on March 30 to participate in our March Magnets playoffs.
From Physics World, March 24, 2020: Scientists using the first year of data from the Dark Energy Survey, which is led by Fermilab, establish that there is a correlation between the positions of gravitational lenses — deduced from the stretching of distant galaxies — and gamma-ray photons. A data comparison from gravitational lensing and gamma-ray observations reveals that regions of the sky with greater concentrations of matter emit more gamma rays.
Only 1% of the mass of the proton comes from the Higgs field. ALICE scientists examine a process that could help explain the rest.
From CERN Courier, March 23, 2020: A quadrupole magnet for the High-Luminosity LHC has been tested successfully in the U.S., attaining a conductor peak field of 11.4 tesla — a record for a focusing magnet ready for installation in an accelerator. The device is based on the superconductor niobium-tin and is one of several quadrupoles being built by U.S. labs and CERN for the HL-LHC, where they will squeeze the proton beams more tightly within the ATLAS and CMS experiments to produce a higher luminosity.