Best of Australian Science: January 2013
Follow2013: The Year to Come by Charles Ebikeme
In 2013 expect the comet Ison to garner some column inches towards the back end of the year. In early 2013 October it will pass very near Mars and possibly be visible to rovers and orbiting spacecraft. The newly discovered comet could develop a spectacular tail, becoming as bright as the full Moon as it passes by our Sun. The comet is currently falling toward the Sun from between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. There is a chance it won’t survive this encounter. Whatever survives will then pass nearest the Earth in late 2013 December. Read more>>
The Higgs: An Unexpected Boson by Markus Hammonds
Physicists are interesting folk, and I’m sure some would be fascinated if this turned out to be something new. Fabiola Gianotti, director of the ATLAS experiment at CERN has appeared noticeably excited before by the prospect of new and unknown physics being discovered. However, the other thing about physicists is that by their nature, they need to be highly skeptical, particularly when it comes to their own work. Adam Falkowski, a Paris-based particle physicist, states what most researchers are probably thinking on his blog Résonaances – that the result is most likely due to a “a systematic problem