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Saint-Sauves-d'Auvergne via Armand Guillaumin

Egypto-Phoenician Silver Swivel Ring, C. 1000 BC

The thick solid silver shank tapering at the terminal and holding a solid silver scarab engraved with the falcon Horus in the center with the “Ames Scepter” and a protective Uraeus on either side, all standing on the Neb (Lord) sign.

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The Only Library Ever Recovered from Antiquity: The 1800 Scrolls of Herculaneum

The Villa of the Papyri is the name given to a private house that was uncovered in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum. This city, along with nearby Pompeii, is perhaps best remembered for its destruction during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. When the villa was rediscovered, archaeologists were lucky to discover a library of 1800 scrolls. This is the only known library to have survived from the Classical world.

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The Boatyard at Saint Mammes by Alfred Sisley

Size: 38.8x56 cm

First signs of weird quantum property of empty space?

A team led by Roberto Mignani from INAF Milan (Italy) and from the University of Zielona Gora (Poland), used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile to observe the neutron star RX J1856.5-3754, about 400 light-years from Earth [1].

Despite being amongst the closest neutron stars, its extreme dimness meant the astronomers could only observe the star with visible light using the FORS2 instrument on the VLT, at the limits of current telescope technology.

Neutron stars are the very dense remnant cores of massive stars – at least 10 times more massive than our Sun – that have exploded as supernovae at the ends of their lives. They also have extreme magnetic fields, billions of times stronger than that of the Sun, that permeate their outer surface and surroundings.

These fields are so strong that they even affect the properties of the empty space around the star. Normally a vacuum is thought of as completely empty, and light can travel through it without being changed. But in quantum electrodynamics (QED), the quantum theory describing the interaction between photons and charged particles such as electrons, space is full of virtual particles that appear and vanish all the time. Very strong magnetic fields can modify this space so that it affects the polarisation of light passing through it.

Mignani explains: “According to QED, a highly magnetised vacuum behaves as a prism for the propagation of light, an effect known as vacuum birefringence.”

Among the many predictions of QED, however, vacuum birefringence so far lacked a direct experimental demonstration. Attempts to detect it in the laboratory have not yet succeeded in the 80 years since it was predicted in a paper by Werner Heisenberg (of uncertainty principle fame) and Hans Heinrich Euler.

“This effect can be detected only in the presence of enormously strong magnetic fields, such as those around neutron stars. This shows, once more, that neutron stars are invaluable laboratories in which to study the fundamental laws of nature.” says Roberto Turolla (University of Padua, Italy).

After careful analysis of the VLT data, Mignani and his team detected linear polarisation – at a significant degree of around 16% – that they say is likely due to the boosting effect of vacuum birefringence occurring in the area of empty space surrounding RX J1856.5-3754 [2].

Vincenzo Testa (INAF, Rome, Italy) comments: “This is the faintest object for which polarisation has ever been measured. It required one of the largest and most efficient telescopes in the world, the VLT, and accurate data analysis techniques to enhance the signal from such a faint star.”

“The high linear polarisation that we measured with the VLT can’t be easily explained by our models unless the vacuum birefringence effects predicted by QED are included,” adds Mignani.

“This VLT study is the very first observational support for predictions of these kinds of QED effects arising in extremely strong magnetic fields,” remarks Silvia Zane (UCL/MSSL, UK).

Mignani is excited about further improvements to this area of study that could come about with more advanced telescopes: “Polarisation measurements with the next generation of telescopes, such as ESO’s European Extremely Large Telescope, could play a crucial role in testing QED predictions of vacuum birefringence effects around many more neutron stars.”

“This measurement, made for the first time now in visible light, also paves the way to similar measurements to be carried out at X-ray wavelengths,” adds Kinwah Wu (UCL/MSSL, UK).

This research was presented in the paper entitled “Evidence for vacuum birefringence from the first optical polarimetry measurement of the isolated neutron star RX J1856.5?3754”, by R. Mignani et al., to appear in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

European Southern Observatory

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PEOPLE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Lucius Verus (Marcus Aurelius’ Co-Emperor) 

LUCIUS Verus (161-169 CE) was Marcus Aurelius’ adopted brother and co-emperor, a man whose time on the throne is overshadowed by the reign of the last of the Five Good Emperors.

 In the final years of the Pax Romana, a period of almost two centuries of relative peace and stability following the rule of Augustus, a young Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, came to the throne in 161 CE, and for the first time in the empire’s short history he chose to have someone rule at his side; his adopted brother Lucius Verus.

The future emperor Lucius Ceionius Commodus was born in 130 CE and raised in Rome, the eldest son of the one-time consul Lucius Aelius Caesar.

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Article by Donald L. Wasson on AHE

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Yowah Koroit Boulder Opal | #Geology #GeologyPage #Opal #Mineral

83.10Ct Natural Australian Queensland Yowah Koroit Boulder Opal

Dimensions (mm): 37.5 x 18.3 x 12mm

Locality: Queensland, Australia

Photo Copyright © opalauctions

Geology Page www.geologypage.com

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Space station flyover of Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa

European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took this photograph from the International Space Station and posted it to social media on Jan. 30, 2015. Cristoforetti wrote, “A spectacular flyover of the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. #HelloEarth”

Image credit: NASA/ESA/Samantha Cristoforetti

Anahita and Ishtar: Connections to the Planet Venus

Anahita was a goddess associated with water, fertility, wisdom, warfare, and eventually the planet Venus. During the Achaemenid dynasty in Persia, she became incorporated into the Zoroastrian religion as a Yazata, a type of minor divinity. Her association with warfare and the planet Venus was not very prominent before the Achaemenid Period, leading some to conclude that her cult and persona may have become influenced by the goddess Ishtar. In becoming associated with Ishtar, she may have taken on the characteristics of a Venus god/Venus goddess, a type of god which appears to occur across cultures associated with the planet Venus.  

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