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Categories: Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds, Space: Exploration

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Following in the footsteps of the Neptune image released in 2022, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has taken a stunning image of the solar system's other ice giant, the planet Uranus. The new image features dramatic rings as well as bright features in the planet's atmosphere. The Webb data demonstrates the observatory's unprecedented sensitivity for the faintest dusty rings, which have only ever been imaged by two other facilities: the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it flew past the planet in 1986, and the Keck Observatory with advanced adaptive optics.

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There's an invisible monster on the loose, barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. This supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long 'contrail' of newborn stars, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It's likely the result of a rare, bizarre game of galactic billiards among three massive black holes.

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Of the many different kinds of stars, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, usually slightly larger and older than our own sun, are known producers of interstellar dust. Dusty AGBs are particularly prominent producers of dust, and the light they shine happens to vary widely. For the first time, a long-period survey has found the variable intensity of dusty AGBs coincides with variations in the amount of dust these stars produce. As this dust can lead to the creation of planets, its study can shed light on our own origins.

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The early universe was a rambunctious place where galaxies often bumped into each other and even merged together. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other space and ground-based observatories, astronomers investigating these developments have made an unexpected and rare discovery: a pair of gravitationally bound quasars, both blazing away inside two merging galaxies. They existed when the universe was just 3 billion years old.

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Earth's magnetic field does more than keep everyone's compass needles pointed in the same direction. It also helps preserve Earth's sliver of life-sustaining atmosphere by deflecting high energy particles and plasma regularly blasted out of the sun. Researchers have now identified a prospective Earth-sized planet in another solar system as a prime candidate for also having a magnetic field -- YZ Ceti b, a rocky planet orbiting a star about 12 light-years away from Earth.

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When it comes to measuring how fast the Universe is expanding, the result depends on which side of the Universe you start from. A recent study has calibrated the best cosmic yardsticks to unprecedented accuracy, shedding new light on what's known as the Hubble tension.

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Researchers have developed a new way to produce and shape large, high-quality mirrors that are much thinner than the primary mirrors previously used for telescopes deployed in space. The resulting mirrors are flexible enough to be rolled up and stored compactly inside a launch vehicle and then reshaped after deployment.

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An international research team has determined that Troodon, a dinosaur very close to modern birds, was a warm-blooded animal (an endotherm), but had a reproductive system similar to that of modern reptiles. The scientists applied a new method which allowed for accurate determination of the temperature when the egg's carbonate shell was formed. Furthermore, the researchers showed that Troodon laid 4 to 6 eggs per clutch. As nests with up to 24 Troodon eggs had been found, the scientists conclude that several Troodon females laid their eggs in communal nests.

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A new study probing the structure and evolution of galaxy clusters shows good agreement with the predictions of standard cosmological models.

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A study has detected the presence of large quantities of complex organic molecules in one of the nearest star forming regions to the solar system.

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Researchers adapted a well-known computer-vision algorithm used for sharpening photos and, for the first time, applied it to astronomical images from ground-based telescopes. While astrophysicists already use technologies to remove blur, the adapted AI-driven algorithm works faster and produces more realistic images than current technologies. The resulting images are blur-free and truer to life.

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Astronomers have observed an explosion 180 million light years away which challenges our current understanding of explosions in space, that appeared much flatter than ever thought possible.

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A new study suggests that predatory dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, did not have permanently exposed teeth as depicted in films such as Jurassic Park, but instead had scaly, lizard-like lips covering and sealing their mouths.

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Astronomers have discovered a large reservoir of hot gas in the still-forming galaxy cluster around the Spiderweb galaxy -- the most distant detection of such hot gas yet. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest objects known in the Universe and this result further reveals just how early these structures begin to form.

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Much like how wind plays a key role in life on Earth by sweeping seeds, pollen and more from one place to another, galactic winds -- high-powered streams of charged particles and gases -- can change the chemical make-up of the host galaxies they form in, simply by blowing in a specific direction.

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Scientists believe the gamma-ray emission, which lasted over 300 seconds, is the birth cry of a black hole, formed as the core of a massive and rapidly spinning star collapses under its own weight.

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Asteroids sharing their orbits with the planet Neptune have been observed to exist in a broad spectrum of red color, implying the existence of two populations of asteroids in the region, according to a new study by an international team of researchers.

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Astronomers have found the atmospheric compositions of giant planets out in the galaxy do not fit our own solar system trend.

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An international team of researchers has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to measure the temperature of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b. The measurement is based on the planet's thermal emission: heat energy given off in the form of infrared light detected by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The result indicates that the planet's dayside has a temperature of about 500 kelvins (roughly 450 degrees Fahrenheit) and suggests that it has no significant atmosphere.

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If you've ever seen a shooting star, you might have seen a meteor on its way to Earth. Those that land here can be used to peek back in time, into the far corners of outer space or at the earliest building blocks of life. Scientists have conducted some of the most detailed analyses yet on the organic material of two meteorites.