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Categories: Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology, Space: Structures and Features

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Three different moments in a far-off supernova explosion were captured in a single snapshot by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The star exploded more than 11 billion years ago, when the universe was less than a fifth of its current age of 13.8 billion years.

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A supernova is a stellar explosion, which occurs when the lives of some really massive stars come to an end. In this violent epilogue, the star expels the material from its outer layers by means of a shock wave, allowing us to see the various elements it was composed of.

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For the first time in its eight years orbiting Mars, NASA's MAVEN mission witnessed two different types of ultraviolet aurorae simultaneously, the result of solar storms that began on Aug. 27.

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An intermediate-mass black hole lurking undetected in a dwarf galaxy revealed itself to astronomers when it gobbled up an unlucky star that strayed too close. The shredding of the star, known as a 'tidal disruption event' or TDE, produced a flare of radiation that briefly outshone the combined stellar light of the host dwarf galaxy and could help scientists better understand the relationships between black holes and galaxies.

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With wings spanning nearly 16 feet, a new species of pterosaurs has been identified from the Atlantic coast of Angola.

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An international research team has measured the size of a star dating back more than 11 billion years ago using images that show the evolution of the star exploding and cooling. The research could help scientists learn more about the early Universe.

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Researchers have unearthed an ivory comb from 1700 BCE inscribed with a plea to eradicate lice. The finding provides direct evidence for the use of the Canaanite alphabet in daily activities some 3700 years ago.

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As low Earth orbit becomes more cluttered, it becomes increasingly necessary to use middle Earth orbits, and radiation-tolerant cell designs will be needed. Making photovoltaics thinner should increase their longevity because the charge carriers have less far to go during their shortened lifetimes. Scientists propose a radiation-tolerant photovoltaic cell design that features an ultrathin layer of light-absorbing material. Compared to thicker cells, nearly 3.5 times less cover glass is needed for the ultra-thin cells to deliver the same amount of power after 20 years of operation.

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Computer simulations by Rice University scientists and their collaborators are the first to integrate a model of planet formation and evolution that explains two puzzling observations of exoplanets orbiting distant stars: the rarity of worlds about 1.8 times larger than Earth and the near-identical size of adjacent planets in hundreds of planetary systems.

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The earliest morphological traces of life on Earth are often highly controversial, both because non-biological processes can produce relatively similar structures and because such fossils have often been subjected to advanced alteration and metamorphism. Stromatolites, layered organo-sedimentary structures reflecting complex interplays between microbial communities and their environment, have long been considered key macrofossils for life detection in ancient sedimentary rocks; however, the biological origin of ancient stromatolites has frequently been criticized.

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Astronomers have identified the oldest star in our galaxy that is accreting debris from orbiting planetesimals, making it one of the oldest rocky and icy planetary systems discovered in the Milky Way.

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Astronomers have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth. This is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximity to Earth, a mere 1600 light-years away, offers an intriguing target of study to advance our understanding of the evolution of binary systems.

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A signature in the X-ray light emitted by a highly magnetized dead star known as a magnetar suggests the star has a solid surface with no atmosphere.

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The first observations of a mass-accreting black hole from the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission reveal new details about the configuration of extremely hot matter in the region immediately surrounding it. Researchers are using measurements of the polarization of X-rays to test and refine models that describe how black holes swallow matter, becoming some of the most luminous sources of light -- including X-rays -- in the universe.

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Scientists have found evidence of high-energy neutrino emission from NGC 1068, also known as Messier 77, an active galaxy in the constellation Cetus and one of the most familiar and well-studied galaxies to date.

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Archaeological researchers have identified human remains as a child, who may have been laid on a bed of down in a Stone Age burial site discovered in Eastern Finland. There may also have been a canid at the child's feet. It reveals interesting details of how Stone Age humans buried their dead about 8000 years ago.

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An exceptionally well-preserved collection of fossils discovered in eastern Yunnan Province, China, has enabled scientists to solve a centuries-old riddle in the evolution of life on earth, revealing what the first animals to make skeletons looked like.

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Bizarre quantum properties of black holes -- including their mind-bending ability to have different masses simultaneously -- have been confirmed by physicists.

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A beautiful tapestry of colors, showing the ghostly remains of a gigantic star, was captured in incredible detail with the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal site in Chile.

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A new study has shed new light on a mysterious, unpredictable and potentially devastating kind of astrophysical event.