Let’s speak neutrinos
Two darkish matter experiments have noticed indicators of neutrinos knocking into atomic nuclei of their detectors. The discovering portends a future impediment for the detectors, Emily Conover reported in “ ‘Fog’ invades darkish matter experiments” (SN: 8/24/24, p. 12).
These detectors scan for darkish matter’s interactions with the nucleus of a xenon atom. Reader Robert Walty puzzled how that would work. Doesn’t darkish matter work together with regular matter solely by gravity?
To date, scientists have detected darkish matter solely by its gravitational interactions with regular matter. However the mysterious substance may doubtlessly work together by different forces, Conover says. It’s doable darkish matter may work together by way of the weak nuclear drive, for instance. “That kind of interplay is what these detectors are in search of,” she says.
Walty additionally requested how a neutrino, which is far smaller than a proton, may slam into a whole atomic nucleus.
“Subatomic particles aren’t like billiard balls of various sizes bouncing round. As an alternative, they act like waves,” Conover says. If a particle’s wavelength is longer than an atom’s nucleus, it’ll work together with the nucleus as an entire, quite than with a person proton or neutron. Within the case of a neutrino hitting a nucleus, the interplay truly happens by one other particle, known as a Z boson, which the neutrino exchanges with the nucleus. If the Z boson’s wavelength is sufficiently big, the entire nucleus will recoil as one.
Pollination and plastics
The electrostatically charged wings of moths and butterflies may draw pollen out of close by flowers with out the bugs needing to land on the blooms, Anna Gibbs reported in “Pollination by way of static electrical energy” (SN: 8/24/24, p. 13).
Reader Michael Skinner requested whether or not that static may additionally appeal to microplastics and intervene with pollination.
Sadly, the reply might be sure, says ecologist Sam England of the Pure Historical past Museum in Berlin. Microplastics are typically electrostatically charged, so they might doubtless be drawn to pollinators with the alternative cost, he says. The supplies may additionally presumably mess with pollination, since they “are identified to intervene with many alternative organic processes in crops,” England says. However this has but to be examined, so the magnitude of those potential results are unknown.
Portraits of a rover
NASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered its first doable trace of historical life on Mars, Lisa Grossman reported in “Mars rover finds a serious shock” (SN: 8/24/24, p. 6).
Readers requested how the rover, nicknamed Percy, snapped the picture of itself featured within the story.
Percy’s “selfies” are literally a staff effort. The rover’s WATSON digicam is primarily designed for close-ups of rocks and captures solely small elements of a scene. So engineers on Earth direct Percy to take dozens of pictures of itself from numerous angles. Picture processing engineers then use software program to scrub up and assemble the pictures into a whole picture.
