Earth’s inner core is textured, not smooth The Earth’s solid inner core is textured with ripples in the “fabric” that are more pronounced deeper into the core. Researchers examined seismic data from 2,455 earthquakes and found that the pattern of texture may mean Earth’s core endured a period of rapid growth before slowly hardening. Full […]
Simulated accretion disks may explain black hole growth Researchers using the Mega Ampere Generator for Plasma Implosion Experiments produced spinning columns that mimicked artificial accretion disks by accelerating and then colliding plasma jets. One of the research team’s primary goals is to understand how black holes are able to grow when accretion disks’ orbits stay […]
Scientists use AI to sharpen first black hole image Scientists have used artificial intelligence to refine the first image of a black hole taken in 2019. The picture reveals a skinnier doughnut-shaped ring and darker center than the original image. Full Story: The Associated Press Volcanic eruptions led to 2 ancient extinctions Carnivores died in […]
Quantum hair: The solution to the Hawking paradox? Researchers claim to have solved the Hawking paradox, or the conflict between quantum mechanics and the idea that black holes destroy all information about the stars that served as their creators. They suggest the radiation around black holes, also known as quantum hair, can hold onto information […]
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration produced the first-ever image of a black hole, stunning the world. Now, scientists are taking it further. The next generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) collaboration aims to create high-quality videos of black holes. But this next-generation collaboration is groundbreaking in other ways, too. It’s the first large […]
Ancient fish that ate humans’ ancestors discovered Researchers have excavated the remains of a giant ancient bony fish species with fangs from about 350 million years ago in what is now South Africa. The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, indicate that the Hyneria udlezinye species measured up to 2.7 meters long and likely […]
Gas clouds in the Cygnus X Region, a region where stars form, are composed of a dense core of molecular hydrogen (H2) and an atomic shell. These ensembles of clouds interact with each other dynamically in order to quickly form new stars. The Cygnus X region is a vast luminous cloud of gas and dust […]
Matter outflows in the form of jets are observed in astronomical systems at fast, medium and slow speeds. The fastest jets are highly relativistic, namely travel very close to the speed of light. The origin, as well as many properties of the jets, is uncertain. One of the puzzles, that jet velocities seem to have […]
Astronomers identify 2 planets as possible water worlds Using data from the Kepler, Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, astronomers have identified two exoplanets orbiting a red-dwarf star 218 light-years away suspected of being made mostly of water. “It is the first time we observe planets that can be confidently identified as water worlds, a type […]
Flash thought to result from black hole swallowing a star Two separate teams of scientists, who have published papers in Nature and Nature Astronomy, have concluded that a flash of light that appeared in February was the astrophysical jet that erupted from a massive black hole as it swallowed a star. “From the data we […]