It’s possible that the universe isn’t uniform past what we can see, and conditions are wildly different from place to place, says Caltech astrophysicist Sean Carroll. “That possibility is the cosmological multiverse. We don’t know if there is a multiverse in this sense, but since we can’t actually see one way or another, it’s wise to keep an open mind.”
Determining the age of a star can be one of the trickiest measurements an astronomer can make. Stars don’t obviate their age like humans do — with wrinkles around the eyes, grey hair, or brittle bones. Instead stars give hints at their age through things like their motion, rotation rate, chemistry, and placement in the Galaxy. Finding “extrema” on the age spectrum for stars — the oldest and youngest — is much easier than trying to find middle aged objects like our Sun. In this article, we reveal four fast facts about the oldest stars in the Galaxy.
An enormous amount of gravity from a cluster of distant galaxies causes space to curve so much that light from more distant galaxies is bent. This “gravitational lensing” effect has allowed University of Copenhagen astronomers to observe the same exploding star –SN Requiem–in three different places in the heavens, and may help solve the mystery of cosmic expansion and reveal the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
In 2019, astronomers accidentally discovered the faint, shimmering blob of a monster galaxy cloaked in dust and a lot of mystery in the early universe. Like a cosmic Yeti, the scientific community generally regarded these galaxies as folklore, given the lack of evidence of their existence, but astronomers in the United States and Australia managed to snap a picture of the beast for the first time. The discovery provides new insights into the some of the biggest galaxies in the universe.
“Planet Earth Report” provides descriptive links to headline news by leading science journalists about the extraordinary discoveries, technology, people, and events changing our knowledge of Planet Earth and the future of the human species.
“NASA’s ENIGMA (Evolution of Nanomachines In Geospheres and Microbial Ancestors) research team,” biophysicist Paul Falkowski told The Daily Galaxy, “is focused on answering a single, compelling question in astrobiology: How did proteins evolve to become the predominant catalysts of life on Earth?”
“There was quite some detective work involved, and the right people were there at the right time,” said Diana Dragomir,” an exoplanetologist at the University of New Mexico about exoplanets discovered in 2019 that could sustain life using its advanced Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). “But we were lucky,’ she noted, “and we caught the signals, and they were really clear.” The planetary system called L 98-59 is located around 35 light-years away from Earth and hosts five new worlds that have characteristics that are also found on planets orbiting the sun.
Enigmatic viruses –not living, yet not dead–help create, protect and transform the universe, observed Carl Zimmer in his classic A Planet of Viruses. Viruses, he notes, have had a huge impact on the history of all life on Earth–their population of Earth’s Oceans would stretch out into space 42 million light years.
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