Space: Structures and Features
Published

Quantum heat pump: A new measuring tool for physicists      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Physicists have built a quantum scale heat pump made from particles of light. This device brings scientists closer to the quantum limit of measuring radio frequency signals, useful in for example the hunt for dark matter.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

NASA's Webb detects carbon dioxide in exoplanet atmosphere      (via sciencedaily.com) 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first clear evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system. This observation of a gas giant planet orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away provides important insights into the composition and formation of the planet. The finding offers evidence that in the future Webb may be able to detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller rocky planets.

Paleontology: Dinosaurs
Published

Fossils of giant sea lizard that ruled the oceans 66 million years ago discovered      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Fossils of a giant killer mosasaur have been discovered, along with the fossilized remains of its prey.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

An extrasolar world covered in water?      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An international team of astronomers has discovered an exoplanet that could be completely covered in water.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

ESO telescope images a spectacular cosmic dance      (via sciencedaily.com) 

ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has imaged the result of a spectacular cosmic collision -- the galaxy NGC 7727. This giant was born from the merger of two galaxies, an event that started around a billion years ago. At its center lies the closest pair of supermassive black holes ever found, two objects that are destined to coalesce into an even more massive black hole.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Black hole collisions could help us measure how fast the universe is expanding      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astrophysicists have laid out a method for how to use pairs of colliding black holes to measure how fast our universe is expanding -- and thus help illuminate how the universe evolved, what it is made out of, and where it's going.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Ready for its close-up: New technology sharpens images of black holes      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Using new computational algorithms, scientists have measured a sharp ring of light predicted to originate from photons whipping around the back of a supermassive black hole.

Paleontology: Dinosaurs
Published

All the better to better eat you with -- dinosaurs evolved different eye socket shapes to allow stronger bites      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Large dinosaur predators, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, evolved different shapes of eye sockets to better deal with high bite forces, new research has shown.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Astronomers confirm star wreck as source of extreme cosmic particles      (via sciencedaily.com) 

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope confirms one supernova remnant as a launch site for some of our galaxy's highest-energy protons.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

First stars and black holes      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Just milliseconds after the universe's Big Bang, chaos reigned. Atomic nuclei fused and broke apart in hot, frenzied motion. Incredibly strong pressure waves built up and squeezed matter so tightly together that black holes formed, which astrophysicists call primordial black holes. Did primordial black holes help or hinder formation of the universe's first stars, eventually born about 100 million years later?

Paleontology: Dinosaurs
Published

Prehistoric podiatry: How dinos carried their enormous weight      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have cracked an enduring mystery, discovering how sauropod dinosaurs -- like Brontosaurus and Diplodocus -- supported their gigantic bodies on land.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Stars determine their own masses      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Using new simulations, astrophysicists discovered that star formation is a self-regulatory process. In other words, stars themselves set their own masses. This helps explain why stars formed in disparate environments still have similar masses.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Planet formation: ALMA detects gas in a circumplanetary disk      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study planet formation have made the first-ever detection of gas in a circumplanetary disk. What's more, the detection also suggests the presence of a very young exoplanet.

Paleontology: Dinosaurs
Published

The speed at which spinosaurid dinosaur teeth were replaced accounts for their overabundance in Cretaceous sites      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Spinosaurid dinosaurs were able to develop up to three generations of teeth at the same time, a high replacement rate that explains why so many teeth of this type have been found in Cretaceous sites.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Signs of disturbance in nearby dwarf galaxies indicate an alternative gravity theory      (via sciencedaily.com) 

According to the standard model of cosmology, the vast majority of galaxies are surrounded by a halo of dark matter particles. This halo is invisible, but its mass exerts a strong gravitational pull on galaxies in the vicinity. A new study challenges this view of the Universe. The results suggest that the dwarf galaxies of Earth's second closest galaxy cluster -- known as the Fornax Cluster -- are free of such dark matter halos.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Out with a bang: Explosive neutron star merger captured for the first time in millimeter light      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have recorded millimeter-wavelength light from a fiery explosion caused by the merger of a neutron star with another star. The team also confirmed this flash of light to be one of the most energetic short-duration gamma-ray bursts ever observed, leaving behind one of the most luminous afterglows on record.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Scientists reveal distribution of dark matter around galaxies 12 billion years ago -- further back in time than ever before      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Using Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation instead of visible light allows scientists to determine the distribution of dark matter several billion years earlier than previously possible.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Super-Earth skimming habitable zone of red dwarf      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A super-Earth planet has been found near the habitable zone of a red dwarf star only 37 light-years from the Earth. This is the first discovery by a new instrument on the Subaru Telescope and offers a chance to investigate the possibility of life on planets around nearby stars. With such a successful first result, we can expect that the Subaru Telescope will discover more, potentially even better, candidates for habitable planets around red dwarfs.

Paleontology: Dinosaurs
Published

Plesiosaur fossils found in the Sahara suggest they weren't just marine animals      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Fossils of small plesiosaurs, long-necked marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs, have been found in a 100-million year old river system that is now Morocco's Sahara Desert. This discovery suggests some species of plesiosaur, traditionally thought to be sea creatures, may have lived in freshwater.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Space study offers clearest understanding yet of the life cycle of supermassive black holes      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Supermassive black holes with varying light signatures are actually in different stages of the life cycle.