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

Scientists find 14 new transient objects in space by peering through the 'Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster'      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have discovered 14 new transient objects during their time-lapse study of galaxy cluster MACS0416 -- located about 4.3 billion light years from Earth -- which they've dubbed as the 'Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster.'

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

Mystery resolved: Black hole feeding and feedback at the center of an active galaxy      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. An international research team has recently observed the Circinus galaxy, which is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, with high enough resolution to gain further insights into the gas flows to and from the black hole at its galactic nucleus.

Anthropology: Cultures Archaeology: General Offbeat: General Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology
Published

Long-distance weaponry identified at the 31,000-year-old archaeological site of Maisières-Canal      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The hunter-gatherers who settled on the banks of the Haine, a river in southern Belgium, 31,000 years ago were already using spearthrowers to hunt their game. The material found at the archaeological site of Maisières-Canal permits establishing the use of this hunting technique 10,000 years earlier than the oldest currently known preserved spearthrowers. This discovery is prompting archaeologists to reconsider the age of this important technological innovation.

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

Black holes are messy eaters      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New observations down to light-year scale of the gas flows around a supermassive black hole have successfully detected dense gas inflows and shown that only a small portion (about 3 percent) of the gas flowing towards the black hole is eaten by the black hole. The remainder is ejected and recycled back into the host galaxy.

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

Researchers find gravitational lensing has significant effect on cosmic birefringence      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Future missions will be able to find signatures of violating the parity-symmetry in the cosmic microwave background polarization more accurately after a pair of researchers has managed to take into account the gravitational lensing effect, reports a new study.

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

Exploding stars      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

When massive stars or other stellar objects explode in the Earth's cosmic neighborhood, ejected debris can also reach our solar system. Traces of such events are found on Earth or the Moon and can be detected using accelerator mass spectrometry, or AMS for short.

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

Giant planets cast a deadly pall      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Giant gas planets can be agents of chaos, ensuring nothing lives on their Earth-like neighbors around other stars. New studies show, in some planetary systems, the giants tend to kick smaller planets out of orbit and wreak havoc on their climates.

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

The Crab Nebula seen in new light by NASA's Webb      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Since the recording of this energetic event in 1054 CE by 11th-century astronomers, the Crab Nebula has continued to draw attention and additional study as scientists seek to understand the conditions, behavior, and after-effects of supernovae through thorough study of the Crab, a relatively nearby example.

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

Uranus aurora discovery offers clues to habitable icy worlds      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Astronomers confirm the existence of an infrared (IR) aurora on Uranus. This could help astronomers identify exoplanets that might support life, a large number of which are icy worlds.

Geoscience: Earth Science Geoscience: Geochemistry Geoscience: Geology Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Venus had Earth-like plate tectonics billions of years ago, study suggests      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Venus, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, a new study found. The finding sets up tantalizing scenarios regarding the possibility of early life on Venus, its evolutionary past and the history of the solar system.

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

Deep learning speeds up galactic calculations      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Supernovae, exploding stars, play a critical role in the formation and evolution of galaxies. However, key aspects of them are notoriously difficult to simulate accurately in reasonably short amounts of time. For the first time, a team of researchers apply deep learning to the problem of supernova simulation. Their approach can speed up the simulation of supernovae, and therefore of galaxy formation and evolution as well. These simulations include the evolution of the chemistry which led to life.

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

Massive space explosion observed creating elements needed for life      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have observed the creation of rare chemical elements in the second-brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen -- casting new light on how heavy elements are made.

Space: Astronomy Space: Cosmology Space: Structures and Features
Published

First detection of heavy element from star merger      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of scientists has used multiple space and ground-based telescopes to observe an exceptionally bright gamma-ray burst, GRB 230307A, and identify the neutron star merger that generated an explosion that created the burst. Webb also helped scientists detect the chemical element tellurium in the explosion's aftermath.

Anthropology: Cultures Anthropology: General Archaeology: General
Published

In Prehispanic Cancun, immigrants were treated just like Maya locals      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Ancient people immigrated to Cancun Island and were treated just like locals, according to a new study.

Anthropology: Cultures Anthropology: Early Humans Anthropology: General Paleontology: General
Published

Challenging prehistoric gender roles: Research finds that women were hunters, too      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Anthropologists challenge the traditional view of men as hunters and women as gatherers in prehistoric times. Their research reveals evidence of gender equality in roles and suggests that women were physically capable of hunting. The study sheds light on the gender bias in past research and calls for a more nuanced understanding of prehistoric gender roles.

Anthropology: Cultures Anthropology: General Archaeology: General Paleontology: Fossils
Published

Researchers identify the oldest pieces of Baltic amber found on the Iberian Peninsula: imports began over 5,000 years ago      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Baltic amber is a luxury material used in jewellery and handicrafts all over the world. Researchers have shown that Baltic amber arrived on the Iberian Peninsula at least in the 4th millennium BC, more than a millennium earlier than previously thought.

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

Black holes could come in 'perfect pairs' in an ever expanding Universe      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have shown it's theoretically possible for black holes to exist in perfectly balanced pairs -- held in equilibrium by a cosmological force -- mimicking a single black hole.

Anthropology: Cultures Anthropology: Early Humans Anthropology: General Offbeat: General Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology
Published

The encounter between Neanderthals and Sapiens as told by their genomes      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

About 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the western part of the Eurasian continent, gave way to Homo sapiens, who had arrived from Africa. This replacement was not sudden, and the two species coexisted for a few millennia, resulting in the integration of Neanderthal DNA into the genome of Sapiens. Researchers have analyzed the distribution of the portion of DNA inherited from Neanderthals in the genomes of humans (Homo sapiens) over the last 40,000 years. These statistical analyses revealed subtle variations in time and geographical space.

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

Grasping the three-dimensional morphology of kilonovae      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An advanced new three-dimensional (3D) computer simulation of the light emitted following a merger of two neutron stars has produced a similar sequence of spectroscopic features to an observed kilonova. '