0:00 Early impacts on Earth 0:40 Signs of frequent impacts 1:30 How did this affect Earth? 2:40 New study - huge s2 impact 3:45 Effects from this event and how we know this 5:20 Not just survival but proliferation of life 6:30 Blooming biosphere 8:10 How did life survive though? 9:30 Signs of new metabolism and evolution 10:15 Conclusions and implications
Simon Whistler from Astrographics has a fun video concerning Hypernovae:
Discover the explosive power of hypernovas, the universe's most catastrophic star deaths. Explore how these rare, intense cosmic events outshine galaxies and shape the universe in unimaginable ways.
First young brown dwarfs found outside the Milky Way?
An international team of astronomers has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to detect the first brown dwarf candidates outside the Milky Way in the star cluster NGC 602.
An international team of astronomers has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to detect the first brown dwarf candidates outside the Milky Way in the star cluster NGC 602.
Every alternate month, a techbro reinvents phrenology or the bus. Every alternate month an astronomer finds that planets around red dwarfs may or may not be habitable.
A new study finds that rocky planets orbiting small stars do have the potential for stable, life-supporting atmospheres. The finding supports continued study of the TRAPPIST-1 system and other top...
Many rocky planets formed with large, H2-rich atmospheres. Here, the authors show that the loss of these primary atmospheres from temperate planets such as TRAPPIST-1e typically leaves behind secondary atmospheres and habitable surface conditions.
0:00 Cosmic ray history 1:40 Different types and energies 2:30 How they are created 3:50 How we find them 4:50 PeVatron discoveries in the Milky Way 6:10 What about galactic center? 7:50 Unknown source 8:10 What we know so far
First picture of Milky Way black hole ‘may not be accurate’
The first picture of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy may not be a true reflection of its appearance, new research suggests.
drupal-media[data-view-mode=half_page_width] { display: inline-block; width: 50%; } The first picture of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way ga...
ABSTRACT. We propose that the ring structure found by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHTC) as the black hole shadow of Sgr A* is an artefact ca
Curious Droid has just put out a video about the size of the Solar System:
When most people think of the solar system, they think of the sun and the planets Mercury, Venus Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and that’s it. But over the last 50 years there has been a number of discoveries that have shown that our solar system is much bigger than you may have thought and in this video, we will see just how big it is really is.
The size of the Solar system extends to the Oort cloud of comets and that is aproximately half way to Proxima Centauri and the Alpha Centauri system. So it is larger than what many non Astronomer's think.
Uranus’ Moon Miranda May Have an Ocean Beneath Its Surface, New Study Finds
A new study suggests Uranus’ moon Miranda may harbor a water ocean beneath its surface, a finding that would challenge many assumptions about the moon’s history and composition and could put it in the company of the few select worlds in our solar system with potentially life-sustaining environments.
At some point, the moons’ orbital ballet desynchronized, slowing the heating process so that the moon’s insides started to cool and solidify. But the team doesn’t think Miranda’s interior has fully frozen yet. If the ocean had completely frozen, Nordheim explained, it would have expanded and caused certain telltale cracks on the surface, which aren’t there. This suggests that Miranda is still cooling — and may have an ocean beneath its surface even now. Miranda’s modern-day ocean is probably relatively thin, Strom noted. “But the suggestion of an ocean inside one of the most distant moons in the solar system is remarkable,” he said.
“We won’t know for sure that it even has an ocean until we go back and collect more data,” he said. “We’re squeezing the last bit of science we can from Voyager 2’s images. For now, we’re excited by the possibilities and eager to return to study Uranus and its potential ocean moons in depth.”
Scientists have discovered that Uranus’ moon Miranda may have a hidden ocean beneath its surface. The surprising finding, based on a study of the moon’s surface features and computer modeling, suggests Miranda’s interior may still be warm and harbor liquid water even today, challenging...
Yet another moon in the Solar System with a suspected Ocean underneath the ice, I had always though that it was only Europa that had an under ice ocean.
Yet another moon in the Solar System with a suspected Ocean underneath the ice, I had always though that it was only Europa that had an under ice ocean.
The Cassini probe showed that Enceladus also had a subsurface ocean too but it's certainly smaller than Europa's ocean given that Enceladus is only 300 miles in diameter.
In an Oct. 30 letter to Patrick Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center, six members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D), asked for more details about the operation of the 25-year-old X-ray space telescope and the effects potential NASA budget cuts would have on it.
The members noted their efforts to convince NASA to defer any decisions on Chandra’s budget until after the 2025 appropriations bills are complete. “We are glad NASA looked at the evidence we presented and decided to restore Chandra’s funding for another year, but Congress and NASA need to continue their support for X-ray astronomy,” the letter stated.
Legendary star lacks evidence for large planet formation
In the 1997 movie “Contact,” adapted from Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, the lead character, scientist Ellie Arroway (played by actress Jodie Foster), takes a space-alien-built wormhole ride to the star Vega. She emerges inside a snowstorm of debris encircling the star – but no obvious planets are visible.
For comparison, there is a nearby star, Fomalhaut, which is about the same distance, age, and temperature as Vega. However, Fomalhaut’s circumstellar architecture is greatly different from Vega’s. Fomalhaut has three nested debris belts.
Planets are suggested as shepherding bodies around Fomalhaut that gravitationally constrict the dust into rings, though no planets have been positively identified yet. “Given the physical similarity between the stars of Vega and Fomalhaut, why does Fomalhaut seem to have been able to form planets while Vega hasn’t?” said team member George Rieke of the University of Arizona. “What’s the difference? Did the circumstellar environment or the star itself create that difference? What’s puzzling is that the same physics is at work in both,” added Wolff.
The Initiative for Interstellar Studies has announced a competition to design the habitat of a generation starship, Hyperion. They expect to announce winners 2nd June next year.
It would appear that Vega's solar-system is very young and hasn't formed any significant planetismals yet, I suspect that over the next few years you'll see planets forming starting with gas-giants appearing first.
An interesting video from Astrographics about the whether or not the Sun has a long lost twin:
Journey into the cosmos and discover the mysteries of our Sun's possible long-lost twin. Could our solar system have once been binary? Explore the Sun's origins and the secrets of star companions.
0:00 SgrA* image before and how it was produced 2:05 Was this inaccurate though? 2:50 Here's what the new image looks like and why they think it's correct 4:50 So who's correct? 6:10 What we see here 6:45 What's next? 7:40 Conclusions
The pale disc is the main dust shield. Behind it are the radiators used to cool the habitat and ship's systems. Behind that is a second ring-shaped dust shield for the wider aft sections. Why not just one?
The drum behind it is the habitat. The ring of green rectangles are windows looking in on a planted landscape on the main habitat centrifuge. Windows, I assume, are artistic license - no need for them in interstellar space and if you want to prevent the passengers from getting solipsistic, there are more practical ways to design observatories and viewing galleries.
Fuel behind the habitat acts as radiation shield to protect the passengers from emissions by the engine. I'm assuming that the engine is the same as that for the Initiative's earlier Firefly project (it's not part of the brief): Z-pinch fusion. The glowing radiator fins resemble Firefly's but squarer and simpler in proportion. That's logical, as the whole ship is immensely bigger and the centrifuge has a radius far greater than Firefly's payload bay.
Actually, Firefly carried its fuel forward of the payload bay in a long spire that would be discarded in segments en route and that might be the case here.
The brief requires a multidisciplinary team, including an architect and sociologist or similar. Passenger complement is 1000 +/-500, flight time ~250 years.
It's only an illustration, but the planet might be a hypothetical planet in orbit around one of the stars of Alpha Centauri. None are known yet. One side of this planet is lit by a whitish sun - α Centauri A or Rigil Kentaurus, is a G0 or G2, a bit hotter and brighter than Sol, and likely the planet's sun. The other star, α Centauri B, also known as Toliman, is a K1. That I assume would be the sun rising over the red-lit horizon. Proxima Centauri would still only be visible as a point, not a disc. The vegetation analogue might itself be red and I've seen articles arguing that a red or purple pigment would be a viable alternative to chlorophyll, maybe even superior.
By the way, I've decided to use this thread because it's live and there isn't really enough yet available on this project to justify a thread of it's own until the competition winners are announced next year. Moderators, feel free to disagree. Maybe it's worthwhile opening a thread on theoretical starship design studies? Serious concepts, not fictional (no matter how 'hard sf'), no warp drives that require cramming the mass of Jupiter into a 1km sphere, no wormholes requiring exotic matter.
And I thought that the multiverse was weird Flyaway. The standard theory is that time travel is not possible, but the Universe could travel backwards in time to start again in another Big Bang, so farewell to the Big Rip if this turns out to be true.
Geo Girl has put out a video concerning the Chixulub impactor and the end of the non-avian dinosaurs:
What actually killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago? In this video, we go through the series of events that followed the asteroid impact, the effect these events had on marine and terrestrial life, the recovery of life, and a potenital missing piece of the puzzle that might help us explain the dinosaurs demise. Be sure to check out part 2 here:
• Was it an Asteroid or Volcanos that K... after watching this one!
0:00 Impact & Timing of KPg Extinction 2:57 Evidence of Asteroid Impact 4:09 How an Asteroid Killed the Dinos 4:37 1. The Broil 6:27 Blocked Sunlight & Photosynthesis 8:58 2. Impact Winter 9:23 3. Toxic Chemicals 9:42 4. Global Warming 10:48 How an Asteroid Caused Warming 11:23 How Warming Affected Life 12:43 5. Acid Rain 13:40 6. Ocean Acidification 14:42 Recovery of Life after KPg 15:39 Missing link?
0:00 Extreme neutron star discovered 0:55 Star system: neutron star and a white dwarf 2:10 Neutron star rotation and how it evolves 3:00 Bursts and explosions 3:30 Remarkable discovery from x-ray observations 4:20 Pulsar that's surprisingly similar 5:10 Is this the pulsar limit? How fast can they spin? 6:20 Other pulsars with extreme spins 7:20 So is this the physical limit after all? 8:50 Conclusions
The JWST science community keeps breaking records! The Cycle 4 Call for Proposals saw a total number of 2,377 unique proposals; this is 446 more proposals than the previous JWST record of 1,931 during the Cycle 3 call.
The total time requested is ~78,000 hours, corresponding to a ~9:1 oversubscription rate (similar to Cycle 3). The Cycle 4 call had newly-defined science categories; “High-z galaxies” was the most popular, followed closely by “Exoplanet Atmospheres” and “Stars and Stellar Populations”.
The proposal review process will be made possible thanks to the broad support of the scientific community, with over 600 members participating in the JWST Cycle 4 review
0:00 Alien signal decoded! But... 1:39 What is this project? 2:38 Decoded! Here's what we have 4:25 What's next for this project? 4:50 METI in a nutshell 5:30 How we started sending messages and why 7:00 Is this useful though? Conclusions
#symbiotic#binary#raquarii 0:00 R Aquarii is gorgeous 0:30 Timelapse by NASA 1:30 What's happening here? Symbiotic binary 3:10 Nova explosions? 4:10 More about the system and why it's unusual 5:10 Jets and why they're so common 5:55 Why this is important and what this can teach us 7:10 Unanswered questions and future studies 7:35 Planetary nebulae are similar but not the same
0:00 Jupiter updates! 0:20 Great Red Spot and first observations in 1600s 1:20 Observations in 1800s 2:00 Conclusion: different spots! Here's what's different 3:20 How it's generated 4:30 Images and discoveries on Io 5:55 Volcanoes and their mysteries 7:58 Ganymede and weird stripes - was this a collision? 10:10 Europa and its ice 12:00 Protection for life
Now, reporting in the journal Nature, Caltech-led researchers have uncovered where FRBs are more likely to occur in the universe—massive star-forming galaxies rather than low-mass ones. This finding has, in turn, led to new ideas about how magnetars themselves form. Specifically, the work suggests that these exotic dead stars, whose magnetic fields are 100 trillion times stronger than Earth's, often form when two stars merge and later blow up in a supernova. Previously, it was unclear whether magnetars form in this way, from the explosion of two merged stars, or whether they might form when a single star explodes.
Analysis of the stellar population properties of 30 host galaxies of fast radio bursts (FRBs) suggests an abundance of FRBs in massive star-forming galaxies, and implies that the formation of FRB sources—magnetars—is linked to core-collapse supernovae of stellar merger remnants.
Interesting, Magnetars are just extremely young pulsars (Neutron Stars) with extremely violent magnetic fields that could wipe any credit card or Solid State Disk drive that goes near it, and of course mess's up our genetics should the Earth come across one. So not pleasant objects.
Here's a video about what was the Solar-system like 3.8 billions years ago (That would be right at the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment period):
Explore the fascinating possibilities of ancient planets and how they may have differed from the ones we know today! From the formation of the solar system to the evolution of life, scientists have long been intrigued by the mysteries of the past. Were ancient planets completely different from today? Join us on a journey through the cosmos and uncover the secrets of the ancient world. We'll delve into the latest research and discoveries that are reshaping our understanding of the universe and its history. Get ready to have your mind blown by the incredible possibilities of what ancient planets may have looked like and how they may have supported life.
0:00 Makemake in a nutshell 1:18 Previous discovery suggested oceans and eruptions 2:10 How is this possible though? 3:30 New observation - hotspots 4:20 Explanations 5:30 What this means 7:10 Comparing this to Ceres and what we know 8:35 What this means for these dwarf planets 9:40 What's next and conclusions
Yes, and the evidence would suggest that Makemake has a large metallic core containing significant quantities of radioisotopes to keep its' interior warm.
Here's a video about why the discovery of Dark Oxygen gives a new solution to the Fermi paradox:
Some of the wildest things humanity has ever stumbled upon were found in the depths of space and the mysterious bottom of the ocean. Recently, while diving 13,000 feet down in the Pacific Ocean, dark oxygen was mysteriously discovered in the terrifying darkness. And no, dark oxygen isn't the opposite of oxygen like dark matter; it's just a source of oxygen that shouldn't be there. Since the hunt for alien biospheres has mostly been about searching for oxygen deposits, this discovery might just help answer one of science’s biggest questions: How does this accidental find give us a new angle on the Fermi Paradox? Let’s find out!
A big challenge moving forward in the search for alien life, especially now that we have the James Webb, is figuring out which gases really signal a biosphere. The tricky part is that a lot of gases life on Earth produces aren’t just from living things. Methane and sulfur dioxide, for example, can also come from geological processes, so they don't cut it as biosignatures. Sure, sulfur dioxide can be made by biology, but in many places in the solar system, you’ll find it from non-living sources. So, it can’t really stand alone as proof of life. Volcanoes make it, industries pump it out, and even chemical reactions can create it. It’s all around! That’s the big issue: biology, volcanoes, and chemical reactions all churn out similar gases. The key is to pinpoint the gases that biology produces that nature doesn’t, and then look for another gas that seems out of place and go from there. Stay with us as we explore the recently discovered source of oxygen, and what it means for the Fermi Paradox.
0:00 Creating supersolid state of matter 0:40 States of matter 1:40 Quantum vortices 3:25 What are supersolids? 5:10 New experiments 6:12 Finally found it! Vortices that spin 7:00 What these discoveries show us 7:50 Why it matters and conclusions
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