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Categories: Archaeology: General, Offbeat: Space

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Quasars are the supermassive black holes at the centres of early galaxies. Scientists have unlocked their secrets to use them as 'clocks' to measure time near the beginning of the universe.

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Scientists have revealed a uniquely different image of our galaxy by determining the galactic origin of thousands of neutrinos -- invisible 'ghost particles' which exist in great quantities but normally pass straight through Earth undetected. The neutrino-based image of the Milky Way is the first of its kind: a galactic portrait made with particles of matter rather than electromagnetic energy.

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A study offers new insights into how water from melting ice could have played a recent role in the formation of ravine-like channels that cut down the sides of impact craters on Mars.

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Galaxies are not scattered randomly across the universe. They gather together not only into clusters, but into vast interconnected filamentary structures with gigantic barren voids in between. This 'cosmic web' started out tenuous and became more distinct over time as gravity drew matter together.

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Black holes, some of the most captivating entities in the cosmos, possess an immense gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape. The groundbreaking detection of gravitational waves in 2015, caused by the coalescence of two black holes, opened a new window into the universe. Since then, dozens of such observations have sparked the quest among astrophysicists to understand their astrophysical origins. Thanks to the POSYDON code's recent major advancements in simulating binary-star populations, a team of scientists predicted the existence of merging massive, 30 solar mass black hole binaries in Milky Way-like galaxies, challenging previous theories.

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You can't see or feel it, but everything around you -- including your own body -- is slowly shrinking and expanding. It's the weird, spacetime-warping effect of gravitational waves passing through our galaxy. New results are the first evidence of the gravitational wave background -- a sort of soup of spacetime distortions pervading the entire universe and long predicted to exist by scientists.

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The star would have inflated up to 1.5 times the planet's orbital distance -- engulfing the planet in the process -- before shrinking to its current size at only one-tenth of that distance.

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For the first time, the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed starlight from two massive galaxies hosting actively growing black holes -- quasars -- seen less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

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Magnetotactic bacteria, which can align with the Earth's magnetic field, have been discovered in a new location. Previously observed on land and in shallow water, analysis of a hydrothermal vent has proven that they can also survive deep under the ocean. The bacteria were able to exist in an environment that was not ideal for their typical needs. Magnetotactic bacteria are of interest not only for the role they play in Earth's ecosystem, but also in the search for extraterrestrial life. Evidence of their existence can remain in rocks for billions of years. Their magnetic inclinations can also provide a record of how magnetic poles have shifted over time. This new discovery brings hope to researchers that the magnetic bacteria might be found in yet more unexpected locations, on Earth and perhaps even on Mars or beyond.

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The El Gigante rockshelter in western Honduras is among only a handful of archaeological sites in the Americas that contain well-preserved botanical remains spanning the last 11,000 years. Considered one of the most important archaeological sites discovered in Central America in the last 40 years, El Gigante was recently nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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The cosmos is a unique laboratory for testing the laws of physics, in particular those of Euler and Einstein. Euler described the movements of celestial objects, while Einstein described the way in which celestial objects distort the Universe. Since the discovery of dark matter and the acceleration of the Universe's expansion, the validity of their equations has been put to the test: are they capable of explaining these mysterious phenomena? A team has developed the first method to find out. It considers a never-before-used measure: time distortion.

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Isotope ratios found in meteorites suggest that a supernova exploded nearby while the Sun and Solar System were still forming. But the blast wave from a supernova that close could have potentially destroyed the nascent Solar System. New calculations shows that a filament of molecular gas, which is the birth cocoon of the Solar System, aided the capture of the isotopes found in the meteorites, while acting as a buffer protecting the young Solar System from the nearby supernova blast.

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The genome of a glass sponge species suggests that silica skeletons evolved independently in several groups of sponges.

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Astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst, may have detected a never-before-seen way to destroy a star. Unlike most GRBs, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of neutron stars, astronomers have concluded that this GRB came instead from the collision of stars or stellar remnants in the jam-packed environment surrounding a supermassive black hole at the core of an ancient galaxy.

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Fifteen years of archaeological work in the Tam Pa Ling cave in northeastern Laos has yielded a reliable chronology of early human occupation of the site. The team's excavations through the layers of sediments and bones that gradually washed into the cave and were left untouched for tens of thousands of years reveals that humans lived in the area for at least 70,000 years -- and likely even longer.

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An international team of scientists has discovered that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, emerged from a long period of dormancy some 200 years ago. The team, led by Frédéric Marin, a CNRS researcher at the Astronomical Strasbourg Observatory (CNRS/University of Strasbourg), has revealed the past awakening of this gigantic object, which is four million times more massive than the Sun. Their work is published in Nature on 21 June.

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How close can a rocky planet be to a star, and still sustain water and life? A recently discovered exoplanet may be key to solving that mystery.

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The face of a 16-year-old woman buried near Cambridge (UK) in the 7th century with an incredibly rare gold and garnet cross (the 'Trumpington Cross') has been reconstructed following analysis of her skull. The striking image is going on public display for the first time on 21st June, with new scientific evidence showing that she moved to England from Central Europe as a young girl, leading to an intriguing change in her diet.

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A scientific team has discovered the earliest-known evidence of freshwater fishing by ancient people in the Americas. The research offers a glimpse at how early humans used a changing landscape and could offer insight for modern people facing similar changes.

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A 3D model of a 407-million-year-old plant fossil has overturned thinking on the evolution of leaves. The research has also led to fresh insights about spectacular patterns found in plants.