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Keyword: astronomy

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  • This 12-year-old memorized the periodic table at age 2. He’s heading to NYU after finishing high school in 2 years

    07/04/2024 7:36:10 AM PDT · by deport · 65 replies
    CNN ^ | Updated: 4:13 PM CDT Jul 1, 2024 | Ashley R. Williams, CNN
    Recent high school graduate Suborno Isaac Bari, 12, plans to start studying math and physics at New York University in the fall, but he's already got his ambitious sights set on beginning a doctoral program. "I hope to graduate college at 14 in spring 2026," said Suborno, who recently became the youngest graduate from his Long Island high school.
  • WEBB Telescope Discovers Mysterious “LITTLE RED DOTS” at Cosmic Dawn

    07/03/2024 9:53:50 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 26 replies
    The Debrief ^ | July 2, 2024 | AVI LOEB
    One of the surprising discoveries of the Webb telescope involves an early population of compact red galaxies at redshift above 7, a time when the Universe was 20 times younger than it is today. The galaxies are redder than expected from their cosmological redshift, indicating additional reddening by a layer of dust. Some of these galaxies contain as much mass in evolved stars as our own Milky Way galaxy. Nevertheless, they are a hundred times smaller in radius, of an order of a few hundred light years. These compact galaxies manifest an increase by a factor of a million in...
  • Too Many Missing Satellite Galaxies Found....Bringing us one step closer to solving the “missing satellites problem,” researchers at Tohoku University and abroad have discovered two new satellite galaxies.

    07/01/2024 6:27:19 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 11 replies
    Asia Research News ^ | June 28, 2024 | Tohoku University
    The position of a newly found dwarf galaxy (Virgo III) in the constellation Virgo (left) and its member stars (right; those circled in white). The member stars are concentrated inside the dashed line in the right panel NAOJ/Tohoku University ================================================================== For years, astronomers have worried about how to explain why the Milky Way has fewer satellite galaxies than the standard dark matter model predicts. This is called the “missing satellites problem.” In order to bring us closer to solving this problem, an international team of researchers used data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program (SSP) to discover two...
  • Earth's rotating inner core is starting to slow down — and it could alter the length of our days

    06/29/2024 7:16:57 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 57 replies
    Live Science ^ | June 19, 2024 | Harry Baker
    ...The heart of our planet has been spinning unusually slowly for the past 14 years, new research confirms. And if this mysterious trend continues, it could potentially lengthen Earth's days — though the effects would likely be imperceptible to us.Earth's inner core is a roughly moon-size chunk of solid iron and nickel that lies more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) below our feet. It is surrounded by the outer core — a superhot layer of molten metals similar to those in the inner core — which is surrounded by a more solid sea of molten rock, known as the mantle,...
  • Secrets of 2000-year-old Analog Computer Revealed With Help From Gravitational Wave Technology [Antikythera mechanism]

    06/28/2024 11:50:42 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 40 replies
    The Debrief ^ | June 28, 2024 | Micah Hanks
    New insights into the function of the world's oldest analog computer, the famous Antikythera mechanism, have been made with help from an unlikely source: technology developed for the study of gravitational waves...Roughly the size of a shoebox, the device features an array of intricately tooled gears that are surprisingly complex for any innovation from the second century BCE. Over the decades, studies of the device have revealed that it likely functioned as a hand-operated computer that would have allowed its operator to predict the arrival of eclipses, as well as calculate the positions of planets over time.Fast forward to 2020,...
  • Oldest Ever Star Clusters From When Universe Was 460 Million Years Old Discovered....This kind of object made the universe transparent in the first billion years.

    06/26/2024 8:35:19 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 16 replies
    IFL Science ^ | June 26, 2024 | DR. ALFREDO CARPINETI
    Galaxy cluster SPT-CL J0615−5746, the foreground object that created the gravitational lens. Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Bradley (STScI), A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the Cosmic Spring collaboration =============================================================================== Astronomers have discovered the most distant, and so the oldest, known stellar clusters. This is the first time astronomers have seen star clusters from before the first half a billion years of the Universe. The light of these gravitationally bound groups of stars comes to us from just 460 million years after the Big Bang. Two factors have been crucial to the discovery. The extremely keen infrared eye of...
  • James Webb Space Telescope Captures Images of Rare Phenomenon Long Anticipated By Astronomers

    06/24/2024 11:46:04 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 55 replies
    The Debrief ^ | June 24, 2024 | Micah Hanks
    NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured striking new images of the Serpens Nebula that reveal a rare alignment of stellar jets, offering new insights into the formation of stars. Protostellar outflows occur when high-speed jets of hot gas produced by young stars collide with surrounding dust and gases. In the new Webb images, several outflows spotted in the northern area of the Serpens Nebula appear to all be aligned and oriented in the same direction. Located around 1,300 light-years from Earth, the Serpens Nebula is a dense cluster of young stars, some of which are only about 100,000 years...
  • First Look Inside SpaceX's Starfactory w/ Elon Musk [pt 1, 1:04:17]

    06/23/2024 10:47:48 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 7 replies
    YouTube ^ | June 22, 2024 | Everyday Astronaut
    Join Elon Musk for a tour inside SpaceX's Starbase and the brand new Starfactory. This video was shot the day before Flight 4, on June 5th, 2024.00:00 - Intro00:28 - Interview Starts10:12 - Starships in Highbay21:24 - Manufacturing talk23:50 - Reusability27:00 - Ice / Thruster talk31:30 - Megabay41:15 - Raptors49:07 - Inside Starfactory1:03:03 - OutroFirst Look Inside SpaceX's Starfactory w/ Elon Musk | 1:04:17 | Everyday Astronaut | 1.59M subscribers | 621,461 views | June 22, 2024
  • NASA, Boeing delay Starliner astronaut landing again, to study helium leaks and thruster issues

    06/23/2024 12:48:23 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 33 replies
    Space dot com ^ | June 22, 2024 | Mike Wall
    Starliner had been scheduled to come home on June 26, but it will now stay aloft until at least July 2...Starliner's current mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), sent NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS. CFT launched on June 5 and arrived at the orbiting lab a day later.But, as Stich noted, that arrival was not perfectly smooth. During its chasedown of the ISS, Starliner experienced problems with five of its 28 reaction control system (RCS) thrusters. Four of them were eventually brought back online.In addition, CFT team members have noticed five small helium leaks...
  • True Age of Jupiter's Great Red Spot Revealed - and It's Younger Than the United States

    06/21/2024 8:56:09 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 17 replies
    Daily Mail UK ^ | June 20, 2024 | Nikki Main
    The massive swirling storm system was originally thought to have been discovered by astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1665, but a new study found it was not the most recent spot.That means the Great Red Spot is roughly 190 years old since it was last documented in 1831.Researchers from Spain also discovered that the storm system is shrinking each year, dropping from 24,200 miles wide when it was observed in 1879 to just 8,700 miles wide today - suggesting it could also disappear one day.Researchers looked at early observations dating back to Cassini’s discovery, including his drawing of the celestial...
  • ‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ interstellar explosion will be visible from Earth this summer: NASA

    06/19/2024 9:54:52 PM PDT · by Libloather · 46 replies
    NY Post ^ | 6/19/24 | Ben Cost
    A star is dead? Keep your eyes on the skies, stargazers: NASA has predicted that the much-anticipated “once-in-a-life-time” star explosion — or nova — will be visible to the naked eye sometime this summer, per a recent press release. “It’s incredibly exciting to have this front-row seat,” said Dr. Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dubbed T Coronae Borealis or the “Blaze Star,” the celestial event is located 3,000 light years away and is comprised of a white dwarf, an “Earth-sized” remnant of a dead star. The starburst’s mass, meanwhile, is...
  • Earliest Twin Quasars Irradiated Young Universe

    06/19/2024 12:40:54 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 10 replies
    Asia Research News ^ | June 18, 2024 | Staff
    Using the Subaru Telescope and Gemini North telescope, an international team of astronomers including Kavli IPMU (WPI) has found the earliest pair of quasars, monsters shining with intense radiation powered by actively feeding super massive black holes. Figure 1: Twin super massive black holes, HSC J121503.42−014858.7 (C1) and HSC J121503.55−014859.3 (C2), discovered by the Subaru Telescope in the Universe 12.9 billion light-years away. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab) & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) https://www.ipmu.jp/en/20240618-TwinQuasars Using the Subaru Telescope and Gemini North telescope, both located on Maunakea in Hawai`i, an international team of...
  • Scientists say they've found where the sun's magnetic field originates

    06/15/2024 11:31:57 AM PDT · by powerset · 26 replies
    Accuweather (originally from CNN) ^ | 22 May 2024 | Katie Hunt, CNN
    FTA: "The model developed by the team could help scientists better understand the 11-year solar cycle and improve the forecasting of space weather, which can disrupt GPS and communication satellites as well as dazzle night sky watchers with auroras."
  • Einstein Telescope to Usher New Era in Astrophysics With Observations of Gravitational Waves

    06/14/2024 11:08:03 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 21 replies
    The Debrief ^ | June 14, 2024 | Micah Hanks
    A state-of-the-art new gravitational wave detector could mark the beginning of a new era in astrophysics with the development of the Einstein Telescope. The telescope, currently still in the planning stages, will employ advanced laser technology to measure gravitational waves and help scientists peer even more deeply at phenomena associated with some of the universe’s greatest secrets. Construction could begin in Europe, and the project could revolutionize our understanding of cosmic events, including the collisions of neutron stars and black holes. The Einstein Telescope will build on the 2015 discovery of gravitational waves and observations in 2017 produced by the...
  • Scientists Achieve Million-Fold Energy Enhancement in Diamond Optical Antennas

    06/14/2024 2:43:22 AM PDT · by Jonty30 · 18 replies
    https://scitechdaily.com/ ^ | JUNE 11, 2024 | PAUL DAILING, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
    Theory has become practice as new work from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering taps diamond defects’ remarkable ability to concentrate optical energy. Researchers have developed atomic antennas using germanium vacancy centers in diamonds, achieving a million-fold optical energy enhancement. This advancement allows the study of fundamental physics and opens new research avenues. The collaboration between theoretical and experimental teams was essential to this breakthrough. Atomic Antennas: Harnessing Light for Powerful Signals Similar to how a radio antenna captures a broadcast from the air and concentrates the energy into music, individual atoms can collect and concentrate the...
  • Astrobiologist Makes 'Improbable' Find Atop Massive Martian Volcanoes

    06/11/2024 12:56:42 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 20 replies
    The Debrief ^ | June 11, 2024 | CHRISTOPHER PLAIN
    Screen The frost on Olympus Mons, is shaded in blue. CREDIT: Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlishot A Brown University astrobiologist and an international team of planetary scientists say they have found an ‘improbable’ series of patches of water frost sitting atop a number of massive Martian volcanoes. According to the researchers behind the discovery, this finding represents the first time that water frost of any kind has been spotted near the planet’s equator. It would also be a finding that goes against current models describing the red planet’s atmosphere and water cycle. “We thought it was improbable for frost to form around...
  • Gravity Without Mass? New Study Challenges the Existence of Hypothetical Dark Matter

    06/10/2024 9:00:46 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 63 replies
    The Debrief ^ | June 07, 2024 | Micah Hanks
    A recent study that presents new challenges to the existence of dark matter suggests gravity may be able to exist even in the absence of mass. Although all life on Earth experiences its effects daily, gravity remains one of the great mysteries of modern physics. Now, a new study published by Dr. Richard Lieu with The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) proposes that the gravitational effects observed in galaxies and clusters may be the result of what he likens to topological defects in the universe, a theory that does not require the inclusion of dark matter to explain phenomena...
  • A strange intermittent radio signal from space has astronomers puzzled

    06/06/2024 11:46:47 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 37 replies
    The Conversation ^ | June 05, 2024 | Staff
    When astronomers turn our radio telescopes out towards space, we sometimes detect sporadic bursts of radio waves originating from across the vast expanse of the universe. We call them “radio transients”: some erupt only once, never to be seen again, and others flicker on and off in predictable patterns. We think most radio transients come from rotating neutron stars known as pulsars, which emit regular flashes of radio waves, like cosmic lighthouses. Typically, these neutron stars spin at incredible speeds, taking mere seconds or even a fraction of a second to complete each rotation. Recently, we discovered a radio transient...
  • Stunning New Pics of Jupiter's Hellish Moon Snapped From Earth's Surface

    06/06/2024 9:26:08 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 13 replies
    Science Alert ^ | June 05, 2024 | MATT WILLIAMS, UNIVERSE TODAY
    The Jovian moon Io as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft. The mission's camera caught a view of one of this moon's volcanos erupting. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), located on Mount Graham in Arizona and run by the University of Arizona, is part of the next generation of extremely large telescopes (ELTs). With two primary mirrors measuring 8.4 m (~27.5 ft), it has a collecting area slightly greater than that of a 30-meter (98.4 ft) telescope. With their resolution, adaptive optics, and sophisticated instruments, these telescopes are expected to probe deeper...
  • William Anders dies in plane crash: Apollo 8 astronaut, 90, named as pilot killed in Washington fireball smash

    06/07/2024 8:38:15 PM PDT · by Morgana · 41 replies
    Daily Mail UK ^ | June 7, 2024 | James Gordon
    Retired American astronaut William Anders, who was part of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, has died after his small plane crashed into Puget Sound in Washington State. The 90-year-old died after the small aircraft he was piloting crashed near Orcas Island on Friday, resulting in a fireball as the plane hit the water. Officials with the United States Coast Guard Pacific Northwest said the crash happened just before 11:45am on Friday. Video footage shot on the Sound shows the plane flying high in the sky before it plummets as it begins a dive. Just before the plane began to...