NASA’s Solar Probe creates history

Welcome to this edition of Over a Cup of Coffee!

Thank you for reading this newsletter diligently every week.

The newsletter now supports comments and likes. If you like something or want to add something to the story, just click to contribute.

We would love to hear your thoughts.

Before, we head to the newsletter, a word from this week’s sponsors.

Science Links Mitochondria & Muscle Strength

As we age, our muscles naturally lose mass, strength, and functionality, which can lead to fatigue and weakness beginning as early as our 30s. Recent studies indicate that our mitochondria—the cellular powerhouses that generate 90% of our energy—play a crucial role in this decline, contributing to reduced muscle function as we age.

A new way to support and improve muscle health as we age, Mitopure® by Timeline is clinically shown to meaningfully boost our mitochondrial health to improve muscle strength and endurance, without any change in exercise required.

Ready to feel stronger, for longer with Mitopure? Over a Cup of Coffee readers can take 30% off their first month with code NEWSLETTER30 for a limited time. While supplies last.

A tunnel connects our solar system to other stars

NASA has confirmed that its mission to “touch” the Sun survived its record-breaking closest approach to the solar surface. On Dec. 24, 2024, the space agency’s Parker solar probe flew just 3.8 million miles above the surface of the Sun 

The space probe hurtled through the solar atmosphere at a blazing 430,000 miles per hour which was faster than any human-made object has ever moved. On December 26 a beacon tone was received, which confirmed the spacecraft had made it through the encounter safely and was operating normally.

Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe has spent six years preparing for this breakthrough. The spacecraft relies on a carbon foam shield to protect itself from the extreme heat in the upper solar atmosphere. 

So far, the spacecraft has only transmitted that it’s safe, but soon it will be in a location that will allow it to downlink the data it collected on this latest solar pass. This can help scientists better understand how the region gets so hot, traces origins of the solar wind and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to half the speed of light.

Quantum teleportation over the internet

Engineers at Northwestern University engineers have made a remarkable advance in quantum computing by demonstrating quantum teleportation over a standard fiber optic cable carrying everyday Internet traffic. 

Quantum teleportation is a process where the state of a particle (like a photon) is transferred to another distant particle without the particles interacting physically. Such a system can enable near-instantaneous data sharing in the future.

The research team successfully tested a setup that allows quantum information to weave through the bustling flow of regular Internet data without interference. Earlier demonstrations of quantum teleportation typically involved pristine settings or dedicated fibers. Some researchers believed that real-world cables, teeming with signals, would smother the faint quantum light. That assumption has been proven wrong.

In tests at Northwestern, the researchers ran quantum signals and classical communications over the same fiber optic cable without them colliding. They measured how well the quantum information arrived at its destination and confirmed that it was still correct at the other end.

The immediate plan is to scale the system to longer runs and then transition to underground fiber connections. The group believes that an eventual shift to real-world cables could be next. 

The study is published in the journal Optica.

Dear readers,

Coffee Table Science is run by a small team of science enthusiasts who are passionate about sharing interesting science.

We DO NOT make any profits from this newsletter or our Instagram page. But there are costs to running this project. Sending this newsletter costs us $40 a month.

If you enjoy reading this newsletter, consider supporting it and keeping the light bulb on.

How fast was Santa this Christmas

Father Christmas only has one night to deliver presents to children all around the globe, so researchers wanted to know how fast can he travel and Rudolph, the red-nose reindeer can help. 

The Doppler effect is a change in the frequency of a wave on account of its direction of travel. If light travels away from you, the wavelength is stretched out and becomes more red or "redshifted." When traveling towards you, the wavelength is compressed and the light becomes more blue or "blueshifted."

Using this principle on Rudolph’s red nose, scientists assumed that if the reindeer moved at 10% of the speed of light or 107 million kilometers per hour, Rudolph's nose would be blue shifted to bright orange (624 nanometers) when flying toward your home and redshifted to a very dark red (763 nanometers) when moving away. Since the darkest red human eyes can see is around 780 nanometers, Rudolph's nose would be almost black.

Now that they know what to expect, astronomers just need to catch Rudolph moving on their telescopes someday, according to The Conversation piece..

Microwaved grapes for quantum sensing

When a cut grape is targetted with irradiating microwaves, some of the molecules generate charged ions and the electromagnetic field causes these ions to flow from one grape half to the other through the connecting skin. Eventually, the ions start passing through the surrounding air as well, ionizing it to produce that hot plume of plasma.

Researchers have now realized that the skin bridge isn't necessary for the effect to occur. Rather, the plasma is generated by an electromagnetic "hot spot." Grapes have the right refractive index and size to "trap" microwaves, so putting two of them close together leads to the generation of a hot spot between them. 

This can be used to build alternative microwave resonators for quantum sensing applications, such as satellite technology, masers, microwave photon detection, hunting for axions (a dark matter candidate), and others  

Researchers placed a nanodiamond atop a thin glass fiber and placed it between two grapes. Then they shone green laser light through the fiber, making the defect centers glow red. Measuring the brightness told them the strength of the magnetic field around the grapes, which turned out to be twice as strong with grapes than without.

The size and shape of the grapes used in the experiments proved crucial; they must be about 27 millimeters long to get concentrated microwave energy at just the right frequency for the quantum sensor. 

The findings were published in the Physical Review Applied.

Drop your comments by clicking on the newsletter!

If you like this newsletter, you will also like Breefx, which carries interesting facts and insights about the world around us. Sign up today to get their next issue directly in your inbox.

Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
Adya