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Categories: Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR), Space: Structures and Features
Published Hubble follows shadow play around planet-forming disk



The young star TW Hydrae is playing 'shadow puppets' with scientists observing it with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In 2017, astronomers reported discovering a shadow sweeping across the face of a vast pancake-shaped gas-and-dust disk surrounding the red dwarf star. The shadow isn't from a planet, but from an inner disk slightly inclined relative to the much larger outer disk -- causing it to cast a shadow. One explanation is that an unseen planet's gravity is pulling dust and gas into the planet's inclined orbit. The young star TW Hydrae is playing 'shadow puppets' with scientists observing it with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Now, a second shadow -- playing a game of peek-a-boo -- has emerged in just a few years between observations stored in Hubble's MAST archive. This could be from yet another disk nestled inside the system. The two disks are likely evidence of a pair of planets under construction.
Published Astronomers spot a star swallowing a planet



Scientists have observed a star swallowing a planet for the first time. Earth will meet a similar fate in 5 billion years.
Published Astronomers find distant gas clouds with leftovers of the first stars



Using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), researchers have found for the first time the fingerprints left by the explosion of the first stars in the Universe. They detected three distant gas clouds whose chemical composition matches what we expect from the first stellar explosions. These findings bring us one step closer to understanding the nature of the first stars that formed after the Big Bang.
Published Joyful music could be a game changer for virtual reality headaches



Listening to music could reduce the dizziness, nausea and headaches virtual reality users might experience after using digital devices, research suggests. Cybersickness -- a type of motion sickness from virtual reality experiences such as computer games -- significantly reduces when joyful music is part of the immersive experience, the study found. The intensity of the nausea-related symptoms of cybersickness was also found to substantially decrease with both joyful and calming music.
Published A stormy, active sun may have kickstarted life on Earth



The first building blocks of life on Earth may have formed thanks to eruptions from our Sun, a new study finds. A series of chemical experiments show how solar particles, colliding with gases in Earth's early atmosphere, can form amino acids and carboxylic acids, the basic building blocks of proteins and organic life.
Published Webb finds water vapor, but from a rocky planet or its star?



Astronomers used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to study a rocky exoplanet known as GJ 486 b. It is too close to its star to be within the habitable zone, with a surface temperature of about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius). And yet, their observations show hints of water vapor.
Published Realistic simulated driving environment based on 'crash-prone' Michigan intersection



The first statistically realistic roadway simulation has now been developed. While it currently represents a particularly perilous roundabout, future work will expand it to include other driving situations for testing autonomous vehicle software.
Published Researchers explore why some people get motion sick playing VR games while others don't



The way our senses adjust while playing high-intensity virtual reality games plays a critical role in understanding why some people experience severe cybersickness and others don't.
Published Astronomers detect 'nearby' black hole devouring a star



Astronomers have discovered a new 'tidal disruption event,' in which the center of a galaxy lights up as its supermassive black hole rips apart a passing star. The outburst is the closest tidal disruption event observed to date, and one of the first to be identified at infrared wavelengths.
Published Superflare with massive, high-velocity prominence eruption



A team of Japanese astronomers used simultaneous ground-based and space-based observations to capture a more complete picture of a superflare on a star. The observed flare started with a very massive, high-velocity prominence eruption. These results give us a better idea of how superflares and stellar prominence eruptions occur.
Published Most massive touching stars ever found will eventually collide as black holes



A new study looked at a known binary star (two stars orbiting around a mutual center of gravity), analyzing starlight obtained from a range of ground- and space-based telescopes. The researchers found that the stars, located in a neighboring dwarf galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud, are in partial contact and swapping material with each other, with one star currently 'feeding' off the other. They orbit each other every three days and are the most massive touching stars (known as contact binaries) yet observed.
Published Direct image of a black hole expelling a powerful jet



Astronomers have observed, in one image, the shadow of the black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87) and the powerful jet expelled from it. Thanks to this new image, astronomers can better understand how black holes can launch such energetic jets.
Published Astronomers solve the 60-year mystery of quasars -- the most powerful objects in the Universe



Scientists have unlocked one of the biggest mysteries of quasars -- the brightest, most powerful objects in the Universe -- by discovering that they are ignited by galaxies colliding.
Published Medium-sized black holes eat stars like messy toddlers



In new 3D computer simulations, astrophysicists modeled black holes of varying masses and then hurled stars (about the size of our sun) past them to see what might happen. If they exist, intermediate-mass black holes likely devour wayward stars like a messy toddler -- taking a few bites and then flinging the remains across the galaxy.
Published Astrophysicists reveal the nature of dark matter through the study of crinkles in spacetime



Astrophysicists have provided the most direct evidence yet that Dark Matter does not constitute ultramassive particles as is commonly thought but instead comprises particles so light that they travel through space like waves. Their work resolves an outstanding problem in astrophysics first raised two decades ago: why do models that adopt ultramassive Dark Matter particles fail to correctly predict the observed positions and the brightness of multiple images of the same galaxy created by gravitational lensing?
Published Webb reveals early-universe prequel to huge galaxy cluster



Every giant was once a baby, though you may never have seen them at that stage of their development. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has begun to shed light on formative years in the history of the universe that have thus far been beyond reach: the formation and assembly of galaxies. For the first time, a protocluster of seven galaxies has been confirmed at a distance that astronomers refer to as redshift 7.9, or a mere 650 million years after the big bang. Based on the data collected, astronomers calculated the nascent cluster's future development, finding that it will likely grow in size and mass to resemble the Coma Cluster, a monster of the modern universe.
Published Researchers use AI to discover new planet outside solar system



A research team has confirmed evidence of a previously unknown planet outside of our solar system, and they used machine learning tools to detect it. A recent study by the team showed that machine learning can correctly determine if an exoplanet is present by looking in protoplanetary disks, the gas around newly formed stars. The newly published findings represent a first step toward using machine learning to identify previously overlooked exoplanets.
Published New programmable smart fabric responds to temperature and electricity



A new smart material is activated by both heat and electricity, making it the first ever to respond to two different stimuli.
Published Surface steers signals for next-gen networks



5G signals known as millimeter-wave carry enormous amounts of information but are very easy to block. A new device helps these signals get around obstacles posed by walls, furniture and people.
Published Could this copycat black hole be a new type of star?



It looks like a black hole and bends light like a black hole, but it could actually be a new type of star. Though the mysterious object is a hypothetical mathematical construction, new simulations by Johns Hopkins researchers suggest there could be other celestial bodies in space hiding from even the best telescopes on Earth.