Posted on Nov 27, 2022 in Science
This weekend’s stories include The Mysterious Comets That Hide in the Asteroid Belt to The Seven Most Terrifying Things in Space to Wormholes may Look Almost Identical to Black Holes, and much more.
Be thankful for an out-of-equilibrium Universe–Every time our Universe cools below a critical threshold, we fall out of equilibrium, reports Big Think. “The Universe began from a very hot, energetic, dense, and random state. And yet, somehow, all of this complexity emerged. One underappreciated key to that process is the transitions that have taken place between unstable, high-energy states to lower-energy, more stable ones. This helped create the Universe as we know it, as complex organisms and living worlds couldn’t exist without these phase transitions.
The Mysterious Comets That Hide in the Asteroid Belt–Comets normally fly in from the far reaches of space. Yet astronomers have found them seemingly misplaced in the asteroid belt. Why are they there? reports New York Times Science.
JWST reveals first evidence of an exoplanet’s surprising chemistry–Ground-breaking observations by the James Webb Space Telescope reveal clouds and chemical reactions on a world outside our Solar System, reports Nature.com. “Observations of the planet, called WASP-39b, reveal patchy clouds, an intriguing chemical reaction in its atmosphere, and provide hints about its formation.”’
Where Do Space, Time and Gravity Come From? asks Quanta.com–Einstein’s description of curved space-time doesn’t easily mesh with a universe made up of quantum wavefunctions. Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll discusses the quest for quantum gravity with host Steven Strogatz.
How was the universe created? asks Paul Sutter for Live Science–Short answer: We don’t really know how the universe was created, though most astrophysicists believe it started with the Big Bang. “We know that we live in an expanding universe. That means the entire universe is getting bigger with every passing day. It also means that in the past our universe was smaller than it is today. Rewind that tape far enough, and the physics suggests our universe was once an infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point — a singularity.”
Hubble Telescope Observes Surreal Galactic Collision–The merging galaxies, heavily distorted by gravity, have formed an unusual celestial ring, reports Gizmodo.
Astronomers trace 84 bright blasts to colliding stars in ancient galaxies, reports Space.com. “Astronomers found that 85% of the short gamma-ray bursts they studied originated in young galaxies that are actively forming stars. Additionally, the researchers discovered that the majority of these high-energy radiation bursts were emitted when the 13.8-billion-year-old universe was young.”
We Finally Know How Black Holes Produce The Most Brilliant Light in The Universe, reports Science Alert. “Scientists have finally figured out the mechanism producing the incredible high-energy light that reaches us from billions of years ago: Shocks in the black hole’s jets that boost the speed of particles to mind-blowing velocities.”
Space Elevators Are Less Sci-Fi Than You Think, reports Stephen Cohen for Scientific American. “I’ve been working on space elevators for almost 20 years, and though we still have issues to solve, we are getting closer to making them reality.”
Researchers suggest that wormholes may look almost identical to black holes, reports Bob Yirka for Phys.org. “A group of researchers at Sofia University has found evidence that suggests the reason that a wormhole has never been observed is that they appear almost identical to black holes.”
Hubble Hunts an Unusual Galaxy, reports NASA. “The galaxy merger Arp-Madore 417-391 steals the spotlight in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The two galaxies were distorted by gravity and twisted into a colossal ring, leaving their cores nestled side by side.”
Weird young super-Jupiter challenges theories of planet formation, reports Robert Lea for Space.com. “Explaining how this planet, designated HD 114082 b, came to have eight times the mass crammed into a Jupiter-like diameter may require an update to planetary formation models that allows gas giants to possess unusually large solid planetary cores.”
The 7 most terrifying things in space, reports Jamie Carter for Live Science. From megacomets to rogue black holes, these formidable phenomena make the universe a truly dangerous place.
We may finally know how blazars act as cosmic particle accelerators–Supermassive black holes that beam powerful jets of matter towards Earth, known as blazars, accelerate particles to extraordinarily high energies – and astronomers have finally figured out how, reports New Scientist.
Will We Actually Be Able to Detect a Signal from an Alien Intelligence? asks The Daily Galaxy. “British physicist Stephen Wolfram believes extraterrestrial intelligent life is inevitable, but with a caveat. Although intelligent life is inevitable, we will never find it. Wolfram says that in order to compress more and more information into our communication signals – be they mobile phone conversations or computers – we remove all redundancy or pattern.”
Your free daily fix of stories of space and science –a random journey from Planet Earth through the Cosmos– that has the capacity to provide clues to our existence and add a much needed cosmic perspective in our Anthropocene epoch.
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