Ιούλιος 2016

Researchers of the Nanomagnetism Group and Electron Microscopy Group at CIC nanoGUNE devised and demonstrated a novel approach to nanoactuation that relies on magnetomechanics instead of the conventional electromechanics utilized in micro and nanoactuated mechanical systems. The work was reported in Small.

Now that scientists have identified a very high number of exoplanets, the next step — and probably the most exciting one — will consist in shortlisting actual Earth-like planets. Doing this requires an enormous quantity of spectroscopic data which the EXOMOL project just so happens to have compiled in a single database.

Completed in April 2016, EXOMOL (ExoMol: molecular line lists for exoplanet atmospheres) used a mixture of first principles and empirically-tuned quantum mechanical methods to provide comprehensive transition line lists for molecules found in hot atmospheres.

So far, NASA’s Kepler has led to the discovery of 2 325 exoplanets. But clearly not all of them are habitable. To help detect suitable candidates, identify the range of atmospheric conditions on planets with water and shed light on how planetary magnetic fields originate and evolve, the HOTMOL project is devising new tools relying on spectro-polarimetry.