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New Discovery Offers a Glimpse of Our Solar System’s Potential Fate when the Sun Dies

“A team including UMD astronomers found a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a white dwarf star Astronomers have discovered the first confirmed planetary system that offers a glimpse into the fate of our solar system about five billion years into the future …

Comet ATLAS May Have Been a Blast from the Past

“UMD-led research suggests that a comet seen in 2020 is a remnant of one that crossed the sky during the Stone Age University of Maryland astronomer Quanzhi Ye and colleagues discovered that a comet observed in early 2020 was …

New Approach to Information Transfer Reaches Quantum Speed Limit

“Even though quantum computers are a young technology and aren’t yet ready for routine practical use, researchers have already been investigating the theoretical constraints that will bound quantum technologies. One of the things researchers have discovered is that there …

UMD-led Study Reveals a ‘Fizzled’ Gamma-ray Burst

“Astronomers detect shortest gamma-ray burst ever recorded from a collapsing star NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a pulse of high-energy radiation on Aug. 26, 2020 that had been racing toward Earth for nearly half the age of the …

Unconventional Superconductor Acts the Part of a Promising Quantum Computing Platform

“Scientists on the hunt for an unconventional kind of superconductor have produced the most compelling evidence to date that they’ve found one. In a pair of papers, researchers at the University of Maryland’s (UMD) Quantum Materials Center (QMC …

University of Maryland Engineers Have 3D Printed a Soft Robotic Hand That Can Play Nintendo

“A team of researchers from the University of Maryland has 3D printed a soft robotic hand that is agile enough to play Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros.—and win! The feat, highlighted on the front cover of the latest issue …

Why Does Mercury Have Such a Big Iron Core? Magnetism!

“A new study disputes the prevailing hypothesis on why Mercury has a big core relative to its mantle (the layer between a planet’s core and crust). For decades, scientists argued that hit-and-run collisions with other bodies during the formation …

First Clear View of a Boiling Cauldron Where Stars are Born

“UMD-led team used NASA’s SOFIA telescope to capture high-resolution details of a star nursery in the Milky Way University of Maryland researchers created the first high-resolution image of an expanding bubble of hot plasma and ionized gas where …

JQI Researchers Generate Tunable Twin Particles of Light

“Identical twins might seem “indistinguishable,” but in the quantum world the word takes on a new level of meaning. While identical twins share many traits, the universe treats two indistinguishable quantum particles as intrinsically interchangeable. This opens the door for …

Somersaulting Photons

“Spinning or rotating objects are commonplace, from toy tops and fidget spinners to spinning figure skaters. And from water circling a drain to far less welcome tornadoes and hurricanes. In physics, there are two kinds of rotational motion, spin rotation …