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Astronomers Find Little Red Dots About to Merge Prior to its launch, astronomers were uncertain what the powerful JWST would find in the ancient, early Universe. One of its surprising findings was Little Red Dots, unexplained ancient objects. They’re widely considered to be connected to the growth of SMBHs in the Universe. New research suggests that we may be seeing some LRDs before they merge, on their way to becoming SMBH. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Meet ASTRID, the New High-Resolution Cosmological Simulation The ASTRID cosmological simulation has run from the Universe’s early days up to the present day, z=0. ASTRID is larger than some other simulations, and smaller than others. But with a higher number of particles, it has higher-resolution than its fellows. Among other things, this can tell astronomers where to look for gravitational waves from black hole mergers with future GW observatories. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Scientists Model the True Darkness of Venus’s Mysterious UV Absorber As any amateur astronomer can tell you, Venus is famous for its yellow coloration in visible light. But, ask a professional planetary scientist and they will tell you the strangest thing about Venus is how it appears in ultraviolet. In this spectrum, stark, high-contrast streaks are splattered across the planet’s cloud cover, and rotate on its four-day atmospheric rotation period. For over 100 years, scientists have wondered what could be causing those patterns, referring to an unknown “UV absorber”. A new paper, published in Astrobiology from Jan Spacek and an international team of researchers, hopesRead More →

Mars’s Interior is 400°C Hotter Under Southern Hemisphere The planet Mars is a cold and dry world completely devoid of life, but billions of years ago things were much different. This is when Mars had a much warmer interior than it does today, resulting in active volcanism that replenished its atmosphere, a magnetic field that protected the planet from harmful solar and cosmic radiation, and a surface of flowing liquid water. But due to Mars’s small size, the interior cooled far faster than Earth’s has cooled, leading to a loss of volcanism, near-absolute depletion of its magnetic field, and complete evaporation of all surface liquidRead More →

Astronomers Catch Black Hole Spewing Matter After Feeding Black holes are some of the most awe-inspiring and mysterious celestial objects in the universe. This is primarily because astronomers still don’t understand the underlying mechanisms that drive black holes, including its formation, evolution, and end. As their name implies, black holes can’t be viewed directly since they blend into the background of the vastness of space. Therefore, astronomers are limited to “seeing” black holes when they consume other celestial objects, most notably stars. When this happens, the astronomers see the light from the star being violently consumed by a nearby black hole in a spectacular display.Read More →

Quantum Physicist Takes Aim at the Universe’s Mysterious Arrow of Time Scientists and philosophers have argued over the nature of time since … well, since time immemorial. Is time real, or is it a convenient illusion? Why does time seem to flow in just one direction? In a new book called “On Time,” British physicist Jim Al-Khalili lays out what he thinks is the answer to such questions. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Martian Astronomy: Percy Sees a ‘Phobos Eclipse’ From Mars Sure. It’s just another image of Phobos crossing the disk of the Sun, as seen from the surface of Mars. Like so much of the modern space era, these images, once amazing, are now almost routine. But there’s some real science behind tasking the Mars rovers to conduct a little ‘Martian astronomy.’ Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

What Can Happen When a Rapidly Spinning Star Meets a Black Hole? Astrophysicists at Syracuse University in New York think they’ve found a hitherto-hidden explanation for strange activity during so-called repeating partial Tidal Disruption Events (rpTDEs). These are interactions between a supermassive black hole and a star that wanders too close for comfort, but not close enough to get swallowed up. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Looking for Earth 2.0 in Binary Systems While astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets over the last few decades, the true prize continues to elude them – they have yet to find an Earth-mass, rocky planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. That’s partially just due to cosmic geography – around half of all sun-like stars near us aren’t alone. They have one or more companion stars that complicate their orbital dynamics, as well as those of any planets they might host. But a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, suggests a new NASA Small Explorer mission called Searching for HabitableRead More →