News (Page 20)

Black Holes Need Refreshing Cold Gas to Keep Growing The Universe is filled with supermassive black holes. Almost every galaxy in the cosmos has one, and they are the most well-studied black holes by astronomers. But one thing we still don’t understand is just how they grew so massive so quickly. To answer that, astronomers have to identify lots of black holes in the early Universe, and since they are typically found in merging galaxies, that means astronomers have to identify early galaxies accurately. By hand. But thanks to the power of machine learning, that’s changing. With the power of current and future sky surveys,Read More →

Cyborg Jellyfish Could Help Explore Oceans Autonomously Earth’s oceans are—like space—a largely unexplored frontier. Relatively few humans have explored either place, using specialized life-support equipment. Unlike space, however, the oceans also have other beings that can explore them: jellyfish. They can head to places underwater that humans can never go. That makes them interesting candidates for autonomous ocean exploration. Jahn Dabiri, a researcher at Caltech, is modifying these creatures to create biohybrid robotic jellyfish. These cyborg jellies do what they’ve done since time immemorial: swim, eat, sting, and breed. But, with a few enhancements—including a little electronics pack and a prosthetic hat—these little guys nowRead More →

SpaceX is Gearing Up for the Starship’s Third Orbital Test Flight The Starship/Super Heavy is the world’s first fully reusable launch system and the most powerful rocket in history. It is also the key to fulfilling SpaceX’s long-term vision of broadband satellite internet, delivering crews and cargo to the lunar surface, and creating the first self-sustaining city on Mars. After years of development, design changes, and “hop tests” at the company’s launch facility near Boca Chica, Texas, orbital test flights finally began in April last year. The first two flights ended in the loss of both vehicles, though the second flight saw the Starship prototypeRead More →

Ariane 6 is Coming Together The European Space Agency (ESA)’s next generation heavy lift rocket is just months away from its first flight, and its major components are now being assembled for launch at the Vehicle Assembly Building in Kourou, French Guiana. The new rocket is Europe’s upgrade to the retired Ariane 5, which flew for the last time in 2023. With a large payload fairing and lift capacity, Ariane 6 will be able to carry seriously heavy satellites (or multiple smaller ones). The heavy lift capability of the Ariane 6 is achieved using Hydrolox engines on both the first and second stages, assisted byRead More →

This Hot Jupiter is Doomed to Crash Into its Star in Just Three Million Years In 2008, astronomers with the SuperWASP survey spotted WASP-12b as it transited in front of its star. At the time, it was part of a new class of exoplanets (“Hot Jupiters”) discovered a little more than a decade before. However, subsequent observations revealed that WASP-12b was the first Hot Jupiter observed that orbits so closely to its parent star that it has become deformed. While several plausible scenarios have been suggested to explain these observations, a widely accepted theory is that the planet is being pulled apart as it slowlyRead More →

White Dwarfs Might Be Less Dead Than We Thought At the end of their lives, most stars including the Sun will become white dwarfs. After a red dwarf or sun-like star consumes all the hydrogen and helium it can, the remains of the star will collapse under its own weight, shrinking ever more until the quantum pressure of electrons becomes strong enough to counter gravity. White dwarfs begin their days as brilliantly hot embers of degenerate matter and grow ever cooler and dimmer as they age. Because a white dwarf doesn’t produce new energy through nuclear fusion, it has only remnant thermal energy to keepRead More →

Pentagon Report Rules Out UFO Coverup, But the Debate Goes On The Pentagon office in charge of investigating UFO reports — now known officially as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs — today provided its most detailed explanation for what it said were false or misconstrued claims of alien visitations over the decades. The first volume of a historical record report released by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, in response to a congressional mandate did include a fresh disclosure: During the 2010s, U.S. government officials considered a proposed program code-named “Kona Blue” that would have looked into the possibility that extraterrestrial technology could beRead More →

Science Fiction is Learning About Exoplanets From Science As long as it has existed as a genre, there has been a notable relationship between science fiction and science fact. Since our awareness of the Universe and everything in it has changed with time, so have depictions and representations in popular culture. This includes everything from space exploration and extraterrestrial life to extraterrestrial environments. As scientists keep pushing the boundaries of what is known about the cosmos, their discoveries are being related to the public in film, television, print, and other media. In the field of science communication, however, there is a certain hesitancy to useRead More →

Satellite Measurements Show That Global Carbon Emissions are Still Rising According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), human activities have significantly impacted the planet. As global greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide) have continued to increase, so too have global temperatures – with severe ecological consequences. Between 2011 and 2020, global surface temperatures rose by an estimated 1.07 °C (2.01 °F) above the average in 1850–1900. At this rate, temperatures could further increase by 1.5 to 2 °C (2.7 to 3.6 °F) in the coming decades, depending on whether we can achieve net zero by 2050. Unfortunately, the dataRead More →

Astronomers Image 62 Newly-Forming Planetary Systems Astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile have now completed one of the largest surveys ever to hunt for planet-forming discs. They were able to find dozens of dusty regions around young stars, directly imaging the swirling gas and dust which hints at the locations of these new worlds. Just like the wide variety in the types of exoplanets that have been discovered, these new data and stunning images show how protoplanetary systems are surprisingly diverse, with different sizes and shapes of disks. In research presented in three new papers, researchers imaged 86 young stars and found 62Read More →

Into Totality: Our Complete Guide to the April 8th Total Solar Eclipse Across North America What to watch for on April 8th as totality sweeps across the continent. The time has come. Seven years ago on an August afternoon, the shadow on the Moon swept across the United States. Now we’re in the one month stretch, leading up to the big ticket astronomical event for 2024: the April 8th total solar eclipse spanning North America. This is the last total solar eclipse for the ‘lower 48 states’ until August 23rd, 2044. Totality does nick remote northwest corner of the state of Alaska on March 30th,Read More →