CALET sees events in millions
Just a few months after its launch (CERN Courier November 2015 p11) and the successful completion of the on-orbit commissioning phase aboard the International Space Station, the CALorimetric Electron ...
Fast radio bursts reveal unexpected properties
Two studies show that fast radio bursts (FRBs) have a richer phenomenology than initially thought and might originate in two different classes. While a group could, for the first time, pinpoint the lo...
Gamma-ray excess is not from dark matter
An excess of gamma rays at energies of a few GeV was found to be a good candidate for a dark-matter signal (CERN Courier April 2014 p13). Two years later, a pair of research articles refute this inter...
LIGO: a strong belief
Résumé LIGO : l’aboutissement d’un long chemin Vingt ans de travail acharné porté par la conviction que ces efforts conduiraient un jour à une découverte hist...
Neutrons in full flight at CERN’s n_TOF facility
Accurate knowledge of the interaction probability of neutrons with nuclei is a key parameter in many fields of research. At CERN, pulsed bunches from the Proton Synchrotron (PS) hit the spallat...
LUNA observes a rare nuclear reaction that occurs in giant red stars
In December, the Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA) experiment (CERN Courier October 2004 p31) reported the first direct observation of sodium production in giant red stars, one of...
Is there a ‘ninth planet’ after all?
Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet of the solar system, until it was relegated to a “dwarf planet” by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006. It was judged to be too s...
The eye that looks at galaxies far, far away
Résumé Un œil ouvert sur des galaxies très, très lointaines Le Très Grand Télescope (VLT, Very Large Telescope) est le plus grand instrument optique du monde. Ce qui...
Nearby supernova accounts for cosmic-ray ‘anomalies’
The observed spectrum of cosmic rays has several puzzling features. For instance, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) measured an excess of positrons and antiprotons at around 100 GeV. While it...
CAST: enlightening the dark
Our star has been the target of human investigation since the beginning of science. However, a plethora of observations are not yet understood. A good example is the unnaturally hot solar coron...
