New ‘metalens’ shifts focus without tilting or moving

Polished glass has been at the center of imaging systems for centuries. Their precise curvature enables lenses to focus light and produce sharp images, whether the object in view is a single cell, the page of a book, or a far-off galaxy. Changing focus to see clearly at all these...

Experiment reveals new options for synchrotron light sources

Accelerator experts from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the German federal metrology institute Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and Tsinghua University in Beijing have used a laser to manipulate electron bunches at PTB's Metrology Light Source so that they emitted intense light pulses having a laser-like character. Using this method, specialized synchrotron radiation...

The world’s largest radio telescope should open its skies to all

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory has been more than 25 years in the planning and design, but finally launched earlier this month with the first meeting of its governing council. Construction of what will be the world’s largest radio telescope will start this summer, after an international treaty governing...

Mars landing team ‘awestruck’ by photo of descending rover

The world got its first close-up look at a Mars landing on Friday, as NASA released a stunning picture of its newest rover being lowered onto the dusty red surface. The photo was released less than 24 hours after the Perseverance rover successfully touched down near an ancient river delta,...

Image: Hubble takes portrait of nebula

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features an impressive portrait of M1-63, a beautifully captured example of a bipolar planetary nebula located in the constellation of Scutum (the Shield). A nebula like this one is formed when the star at its center sheds huge quantities of material from its outer...