Nuclear science & astronomy

A Michigan State University astronomer is part of an international team of scientists that has discovered a galaxy so far, far away that its light was emitted not all that long after the Big Bang occurred.

The research of MSU’s physics and astronomy professor Megan Donahue and colleagues is detailed in the recent issue of the journal Nature. They found that this galaxy began emitting light “just” 490 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 3.6 percent of its present age.

The Michigan State University Board of Trustees has given its approval to the next step in the development of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, a world-class nuclear research facility that will attract scientists from all over the world to East Lansing while creating more than $1 billion in economic activity in the region.

In approving the administration’s request to proceed with the project, the board established a budget of $20 million, which will be used for site preparation and excavation.

When the Large Hadron Collider is running at full speed, it produces more data than any single computer in the world could process. Every 25 nanoseconds, bunches of protons collide and hundreds of thousands of individual sensors inside the detector report and create a massive flow of data. Some data makes its way from CERN in Geneva, Switzerland to East Lansing where it is processed as part of the global ATLAS experiment.

Capturing fleeting bits of matter to reveal the nature of the universe is a little like trying to trap incredibly tiny, impossibly speedy mice alive.

A better mousetrap could be at hand, promising new insights that could bring researchers out of the woodwork to conduct cutting-edge experiments at Michigan State University’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.

Michigan State scientists landed a $3.28 million federal grant to develop an electromagnetic trap to snag and quickly extract rare isotope ricochets from high-speed particle collisions they create.