Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

NASA's Fermi finds new feature in brightest gamma-ray burst yet seen      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

In October 2022, astronomers were stunned by what was quickly dubbed the BOAT -- the brightest-of-all-time gamma-ray burst (GRB). Now an international science team reports that data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals a feature never seen before.

Environmental: General Environmental: Wildfires Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geochemistry
Published

Solar absorption by black carbon in fire clouds quantified      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Aerosol scientists quantify the extent of light absorption by black carbon in fire clouds to better model climate impacts of extreme wildfire events.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

Dark matter flies ahead of normal matter in mega galaxy cluster collision      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Astronomers have untangled a messy collision between two massive clusters of galaxies in which the clusters' vast clouds of dark matter have decoupled from the so-called normal matter.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Images of nearest 'super-Jupiter' open a new window to exoplanet research      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers imaged a new exoplanet that orbits a star in the nearby triple system Epsilon Indi. The planet is a cold super-Jupiter exhibiting a temperature of around 0 degrees Celsius and a wide orbit comparable to that of Neptune around the Sun. This measurement was only possible thanks to JWST's unprecedented imaging capabilities in the thermal infrared. It exemplifies the potential of finding many more such planets similar to Jupiter in mass, temperature, and orbit. Studying them will improve our knowledge of how gas giants form and evolve in time.

Environmental: General Environmental: Wildfires Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geography
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Researchers warn of unprecedented arsenic release from wildfires      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The wildfire season of 2023 was the most destructive ever recorded in Canada and a new study suggests the impact was unprecedented. It found that four of the year's wildfires in mine-impacted areas around Yellowknife, Northwest Territories potentially contributed up to half of the arsenic that wildfires emit globally each year.

Environmental: Ecosystems Environmental: General Environmental: Wildfires Geoscience: Earth Science Geoscience: Severe Weather
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Researchers enhance tool to better predict where and when wildfires will occur      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A newly enhanced database is expected to help wildfire managers and scientists better predict where and when wildfires may occur by incorporating hundreds of additional factors that impact the ignition and spread of fire.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
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Astrophysicists uncover supermassive blackhole/dark matter connection in solving the 'final parsec problem'      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have found a link between some of the largest and smallest objects in the cosmos: supermassive black holes and dark matter particles. Their new calculations reveal that pairs of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) can merge into a single larger black hole because of previously overlooked behavior of dark matter particles, proposing a solution to the longstanding 'final parsec problem' in astronomy.

Computer Science: General Environmental: Wildfires Geoscience: Severe Weather Mathematics: Modeling
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Scientists use AI to predict a wildfire's next move      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have developed a new model that combines generative AI and satellite data to accurately forecast wildfire spread.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Life signs could survive near surfaces of Enceladus and Europa      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Europa and Enceladus, icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, have evidence of oceans beneath their crusts. A NASA experiment suggests -- if these oceans support life -- signatures of that life in the form of organic molecules (like amino acids and nucleic acids) could survive just under the surface ice despite the harsh, ionizing radiation on these worlds. If robotic landers were to go to these moons to look for life signs, they would not have to dig very deep to find amino acids that have survived being altered or destroyed by radiation.

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Published

Another intermediate-mass black hole discovered at the center of our galaxy      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

So far, only about ten intermediate-mass black holes have been discovered in the entire universe. The newly identified black hole causes surrounding stars in a cluster to move in an unexpectedly orderly way.

Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astrophysics Space: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

Want to spot a deepfake? Look for the stars in their eyes      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

In an era when the creation of artificial intelligence (AI) images is at the fingertips of the masses, the ability to detect fake pictures -- particularly deepfakes of people -- is becoming increasingly important. So what if you could tell just by looking into someone's eyes? That's the compelling finding of new research which suggests that AI-generated fakes can be spotted by analyzing human eyes in the same way that astronomers study pictures of galaxies.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Astronomers spot a 'highly eccentric' planet on its way to becoming a hot Jupiter      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The newly discovered planet TIC 241249530 b has the most highly elliptical, or eccentric, orbit of any known planet. It appears to be a juvenile planet that is in the midst of becoming a hot Jupiter, and its orbit is providing some answers to how such large, scorching planets evolve.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

How astronomers are using pulsars to observe evidence of dark matter      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Tantalizing evidence of potential dark matter objects has been detected with the help of the Universe's 'timekeepers'. These pulsars -- neutron stars which rotate and emit lighthouse-like beams of radio waves that rapidly sweep through space -- were used to identify mysterious hidden masses. Pulsars earned their nickname because they send out electromagnetic radiation at very regular intervals, ranging from milliseconds to seconds, making them extremely accurate timekeepers.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Cosmology Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Sun-like stars found orbiting hidden companions      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Astronomers have uncovered what appear to be 21 neutron stars in orbit around stars like our Sun. The discovery is surprising because it is not clear how a star that exploded winds up next to a star like our Sun.

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Published

Bizarre 'garden sprinkler-like' jet is spotted shooting out of neutron star      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A strange 'garden sprinkler-like' jet coming from a neutron star has been pictured for the first time. The S-shaped structure is created as the jet changes direction due to the wobbling of the disc of hot gas around the star -- a process called precession, which has been observed with black holes but, until now, never with neutron stars.

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Published

NASA's Webb investigates eternal sunrises, sunsets on distant world      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have finally confirmed what models have previously predicted: An exoplanet has differences between its eternal morning and eternal evening atmosphere. WASP-39 b, a giant planet with a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter, but similar mass to Saturn that orbits a star about 700 light-years away from Earth, is tidally locked to its parent star. This means it has a constant dayside and a constant nightside -- one side of the planet is always exposed to its star, while the other is always shrouded in darkness.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
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Scorching storms on distant worlds revealed      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An international study reveals the extreme atmospheric conditions on the celestial objects, which are swathed in swirling clouds of hot sand amid temperatures of 950C. Using NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers set out to capture the weather on a pair of brown dwarfs -- cosmic bodies that are bigger than planets but smaller than stars.

Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Cosmology Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

JWST unveils stunning ejecta and CO structures in Cassiopeia A's young supernova      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers announced the latest findings from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of the supernova remnant, Cassiopeia A (Cas A). These observations of the youngest known core collapse supernova in the Milky Way provide insights into the conditions that lead to the formation and destruction of molecules and dust within supernova ejecta. The study's findings change our understanding of dust formation in the early universe in the galaxies detected by JWST 300 million years after the Big Bang.

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Published

Cosmic wrestling match      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Our universe is around 13.8 billion years old. Over the vastness of this time, the tiniest of initial asymmetries have grown into the large-scale structures we can see through our telescopes in the night sky: galaxies like our own Milky Way, clusters of galaxies, and even larger aggregations of matter or filaments of gas and dust. How quickly this growth takes place depends, at least in today's universe, on a sort of wrestling match between natural forces: Can dark matter, which holds everything together through its gravity and attracts additional matter, hold its own against dark energy, which pushes the universe ever further apart?