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Categories: Offbeat: Computers and Math, Offbeat: Space
Published Webb snaps highly detailed infrared image of actively forming stars



Young stars are rambunctious! NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the 'antics' of a pair of actively forming young stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in high-resolution near-infrared light. To find them, trace the bright pink and red diffraction spikes until you hit the center: The stars are within the orange-white splotch. They are buried deeply in a disk of gas and dust that feeds their growth as they continue to gain mass. The disk is not visible, but its shadow can be seen in the two dark, conical regions surrounding the central stars.
Published A simpler method for learning to control a robot


A new machine-learning technique can efficiently learn to control a robot, leading to better performance with fewer data.
Published Robotic hand rotates objects using touch, not vision


Inspired by the effortless way humans handle objects without seeing them, engineers have developed a new approach that enables a robotic hand to rotate objects solely through touch, without relying on vision.
Published Dark energy camera captures galaxies in lopsided tug of war, a prelude to merger


The spiral galaxy NGC 1532, also known as Haley's Coronet, is caught in a lopsided tug of war with its smaller neighbor, the dwarf galaxy NGC 1531.
Published New image reveals secrets of planet birth


Astronomers have gained new clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young star, that could collapse to create giant planets.
Published Webb detects water vapor in rocky planet-forming zone


Water is essential for life as we know it. However, scientists debate how it reached the Earth and whether the same processes could seed rocky exoplanets orbiting distant stars. New insights may come from the planetary system PDS 70, located 370 light-years away. The star hosts both an inner disk and outer disk of gas and dust, separated by a 5 billion-mile-wide (8 billion kilometer) gap, and within that gap are two known gas-giant planets.
Published Future AI algorithms have potential to learn like humans


Memories can be as tricky to hold onto for machines as they can be for humans. To help understand why artificial agents develop holes in their own cognitive processes, electrical engineers have analyzed how much a process called 'continual learning' impacts their overall performance.
Published Ancient, high-energy impacts could have fueled Venus volcanism



A team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth's sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics. The team compared the early collision histories of the two bodies and determined that Venus likely experienced higher-speed, higher-energy impacts creating a super-heated core that promoted extended volcanism and resurfaced the planet.
Published Galaxy J1135 reveals its water map


Researchers look at water in galaxies, its distribution and in particular its changes of state from ice to vapor, as important markers indicating areas of increased energy, in which black holes and stars are formed. A new study has now revealed the distribution of water within the J1135 galaxy, which is 12 billion light years away and formed when the Universe was a 'teenager', 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang . This water map, with unprecedented resolution, is the first ever to be obtained for such a remote galaxy. The map can help scientists to understand the physical processes taking place within J1135 and shed light on the dynamics, still partially unclear, surrounding the formation of stars, black holes and galaxies themselves.
Published Unveiling the quantum dance: Experiments reveal nexus of vibrational and electronic dynamics


Scientists have demonstrated experimentally a long-theorized relationship between electron and nuclear motion in molecules, which could lead to the design of materials for solar cells, electronic displays and other applications that can make use of this powerful quantum phenomenon.
Published Does this exoplanet have a sibling sharing the same orbit?


Astronomers have found the possible 'sibling' of a planet orbiting a distant star. The team has detected a cloud of debris that might be sharing this planet's orbit and which, they believe, could be the building blocks of a new planet or the remnants of one already formed. If confirmed, this discovery would be the strongest evidence yet that two exoplanets can share one orbit.
Published The puzzle of the galaxy with no dark matter


New research has found the first evidence of a massive galaxy with no dark matter. The result is a challenge to the current standard model of cosmology.
Published Unusual white dwarf star is made of hydrogen on one side and helium on the other



In a first for white dwarfs, the burnt-out cores of dead stars, astronomers have discovered that at least one member of this cosmic family is two faced. One side of the white dwarf is composed of hydrogen, while the other is made up of helium.
Published A faster way to teach a robot


A new technique enables a human to efficiently fine-tune a robot that failed to complete a desired task with very little effort on the part of the human. Their system uses algorithms, counterfactual explanations, and feedback from the user to generate synthetic data it uses to quickly fine-tune the robot.
Published Giant swirling waves at edge of Jupiter's magnetosphere


A team has found that NASA's Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter frequently encounters giant swirling waves at the boundary between the solar wind and Jupiter's magnetosphere. The waves are an important process for transferring energy and mass from the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, to planetary space environments.
Published ROSE: Revolutionary, nature-inspired soft embracing robotic gripper


Soft robotic grippers could greatly increase productivity in many fields. However, currently existing designs are overly complex and expensive. A research team has developed ROSE, a novel embracing soft gripper inspired by the blooming and closing of rose flowers. Bearing a surprisingly simple, inexpensive, and scalable design, ROSE can pick up many kinds of objects without damaging them, even in challenging environments and conditions.
Published James Webb Telescope catches glimpse of possible first-ever 'dark stars'


Three bright objects initially identified as galaxies in observations from the James Webb Space Telescope might actually represent an exotic new form of star. If confirmed, the discovery would also shed light on the nature of dark matter.
Published Rare, double-lobe nebula resembles overflowing cosmic 'jug'



A billowing pair of nearly symmetrical loops of dust and gas mark the death throes of an ancient red-giant star. The resulting structure, said to resemble an old style of English jug, is a rarely seen bipolar reflection nebula. Evidence suggests that this object formed by the interactions between the dying red giant and a now-shredded companion star.
Published When the stars align: Astronomers find answers to mysterious action of ghost stars in our Galaxy



Scientists have found a source for the mysterious alignment of stars near the Galactic Center.
Published New superconductors can be built atom by atom


The future of electronics will be based on novel kinds of materials. Sometimes, however, the naturally occurring topology of atoms makes it difficult for new physical effects to be created. To tackle this problem, researchers have now successfully designed superconductors one atom at a time, creating new states of matter.