optics
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NASA’s New Horizons Probe Is So Far Away, It Now Sees Stars in Different Positions Than We Do
A NASA parallax experiment involving New Horizons shows the probe now sees some stars in slightly different positions than we do on Earth, revealing just how far the spacecraft is from home.
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Scientists Made A Weird System To Study The Mysteries Of Photonic Crystals
When you see light, you’re looking at photons spat out by an excited atom. But what if instead of light, an excited atom released a wave of matter?
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A Wild New 3D Display Uses Lasers And Bubbles To Create Images You Can Walk Around
Researchers really want to make good three-dimensional displays. It is so much harder than you might think — at this point, we have lots, but most attempts are literally smoke (light projected and scattered on some medium) and mirrors (optical illusions). There aren’t many examples of voxels, 3D pixels, lined up to create an image…
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Scientists Just Made A Working Laser Using Blood
Lasers are behind so much of our cutting-edge technology. Now scientists at the University of Michigan have successfully shown it is possible to build a working laser with blood, the better to spot tumours in the human body.