Recent news from The Johns Hopkins University
This section contains regularly updated highlights of the news from around The Johns Hopkins
University. Links to the complete news reports from the nine schools,
the Applied Physics Laboratory and other centers and institutes are to
the left, as are links to help news media contact the Johns Hopkins
communications offices.
When a solar flare filled with charged particles erupts from the sun, its magnetic fields sometime break a widely accepted rule of physics. The flux-freezing theorem dictates that the magnetic lines of force should flow away in lock-step with the particles, whole and unbroken. Instead, the lines sometimes break apart and quickly reconnect in a way that has mystified astrophysicists. But in a paper published in the May 23 issue of the journal Nature, an interdisciplinary research team led by a Johns Hopkins mathematical physicist says it has found a key to the mystery.
May 22, 2013 Tags: astrophysics, flux-freezing theorem, magnetic fields, solar flares, turbulence
| Category: Engineering, Physics and Astronomy, Technology
Two Johns Hopkins University research scientists who use the Japanese art of paper folding, known as origami, as a metaphor for understanding the complexity of the cosmos have been named winners of an award through the “New Frontiers in Astronomy & Cosmology International Grant and Essay Writing Competition,” funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Mark Neyrinck and Miguel Aragón-Calvo, both of the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, were chosen from an international competition led by the University of Chicago’s Donald G. York to receive a grant to explore fundamental questions in astronomy and cosmology that engage groundbreaking ideas on the nature of the universe
October 4, 2012 Tags: Alexander Szalay, astrophysics, cosmic web, cosmology, Donald G. York, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, huge data sets, John Templeton Foundation, Johns Hopkins' Institute for Data-Intensive Engineering and Science, Mark Neyrinck, Miguel Aragon-Calvo, origami universe, University of Chicago
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Institutional News, Physics and Astronomy, University-Related
The Maryland Space Grant Observatory and Johns Hopkins University are inviting star gazers of every experience level to an event that not only will allow them to view the transit, but also to learn more about it, beginning at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, June 5 at the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, 3799 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, 21218.
June 4, 2012 Tags: Adam Riess, astrophysics, Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, cosmology, Maryland Space Grant Consortium, Peter McCullough, Space Telescope Science Institute, The Johns Hopkins University, Venus transit
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Events Open to the Public, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy, University-Related
All three of the most highly cited scientific papers in the world published in 2011 were from an astrophysics space mission project led by a Johns Hopkins University scientist, according to Thomson Reuters’ Science Watch. The papers cite results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), a NASA spacecraft launched in 2001 that has revolutionized our knowledge of the history, composition, and geometry of the universe. The WMAP mission is led by Charles L. Bennett, Alumni Centennial Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Johns Hopkins Gilman Scholar
April 16, 2012 Tags: astrophysics, Charles L. Bennett, COBE, Comstock Prize in physics, Cosmic Background Explorer, Daniel Reich, Goddard Space Flight Center, Harvey Prize, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, John Mather, Johns Hopkins University, NASA, Peter Gruber Foundation, Science Watch, Shaw Prize, Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, WMAP
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy, University-Related
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University is hosting its 9th Annual Physics Fair from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, coinciding with the annual Spring Fair celebration on the Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St. in Baltimore. Events will take place in the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, located on the north end of the campus near Homewood Field.
April 10, 2012 Tags: astrophysics, Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins, N. Peter Armitage, Peter Armitage, Physics Fair, QuarkNet
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Education/K-12, Events Open to the Public, Physics and Astronomy, University-Related
A team of Johns Hopkins astrophysicists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected a distant Type Ia supernova, the farthest stellar explosion that can be used to measure the expansion rate of the universe. The supernova is the remnant of a star that exploded 9 billion years ago.
January 11, 2012 Tags: Adam Riess, astronomy, astrophysics, Hubble Space Telescope, Space Telescope Science Institute, supernovae
| Category: Physics and Astronomy, Technology
Financed by a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant, one of the world’s fastest and most advanced scientific computer networks—one capable of transferring in and out of The Johns Hopkins University per day the amount of data equivalent to 80 million file cabinets filled with text—will be built on the university’s Homewood campus, with support from the University of Maryland, College Park.
November 7, 2011 Tags: Alexander Szalay, astrophysics, Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, College Park, computer science, Data-Scope, datasets, genomics, Homewood High-Performance Computing Cluster, Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science, Jonathan Bagger, large-scale computations, Mark Robbins, medical research, National Science Foundation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, petabytes, physics, San Diego Supercomputer Center, scientific computer network, turbulence, U.S. Senatory Barbara Mikulski, University of Maryland, Whiting School of Engineering
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Social Sciences
Johns Hopkins University astronomer Joseph Silk has been awarded the 2011 Balzan Prize, for his pioneering work on the infant universe. The $950,000 award is given annually to people or organizations that have made outstanding achievements in the fields of the natural sciences, humanities and culture, as well as for peace-promoting endeavors.
September 12, 2011 Tags: 2011 Balzan Prize, astrophysics, cosmic background radiation, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Joseph Silk, the early universe, The Johns Hopkins University, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy, University-Related
Marc Kamionkowski, considered one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists for his work in large-scale structures and the early history of the universe, will join the faculty in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences on July 1. An endowed professor at California Institute of Technology, Kamionkowski has spent much of his career researching astrophysics, cosmology and elementary particle theory.
June 27, 2011 Tags: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, American Astronomical Society, American Physical Society, astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Caltech, Daniel Reich, galaxy formation, gravitational lensing, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Marc Kamionkowski, particle dark matter, phase transitions in the early universe, stellar astrophysics, the epoch of reionization, The Johns Hopkins University, The Robinson Professor of Theoretical Physics
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy
Johns Hopkins astronomer Imants Platais and a colleague conducted a census of stars in the NGC 6791 star cluster and found it is an interesting hybrid that sheds new light on scientists’ understanding of how stars form and evolve. A paper on the study appeared in the May 20 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
June 1, 2011 Tags: astronomy, astrophysics, Center for Astrophysical Science, globular clusters, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Imants Platais, Johns Hopkins University, metallicity, Milky Way, stars
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy
A website that brings the universe into the homes and onto the computer screens of professional and amateur astronomers alike has won a Science Prize for Online Resources in Education, known as SPORE, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Built by a Johns Hopkins University team led by astrophysicist and computer scientist Alexander Szalay, the SkyServer search tool of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s database makes more than 350 million stars and galaxies available to students, teachers and the public. SkyServer’s Mapquest-like interface allows them to pan through the sky, zoom in and out, and click on stars and galaxies for more information.
August 26, 2010 Tags: AAAS, AAS, Alexander Szalay, astronomy, astrophysics, Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Human Genome Project, Johns Hopkins University, Jordan Raddick, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, quasars, Science, Science Prize for Online Resources in Education, SkyServer, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, stars, universe
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Physics and Astronomy, University-Related
Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Charles Bennett and two colleagues today have been awarded this year’s $1 million Shaw Prize in astronomy for groundbreaking research determining the precise age, composition and curvature of the universe.
May 27, 2010 Tags: astrophysics, Bennett, cosmology, Shaw Prize, WMAP
| Category: Homewood Campus News, Institutional News, Physics and Astronomy
A team led by Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett has won a $5 million National Science Foundation grant – administered through the stimulus act – to build an instrument designed to probe what happened during the universe’s first trillionth of a second, when it suddenly grew from submicroscopic to astronomical size in far less than time than it takes to blink your eye.
March 15, 2010 Tags: ARRA, astronomy, astrophysics, Charles Bennett, CLASS, COBE, cosmic background radiation, cosmos, gravitational waves, inflation, job creation, Johns Hopkins, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, National Science Foundation, origins of the universe, space, stimulus act, telescope, WMAP
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Institutional News, Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy
