Posted on Dec 2, 2022 in Astrobiology, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Extraterrestrial Life, quantum physics, Science, Science News, Space News, Universe
This weekend’s stories include A quantum computer has simulated a wormhole for the first time to James Webb Space Telescope view of Saturn’s weirdest moon Titan to Southern hemisphere’s largest radio telescope joins search for extraterrestrial technology to Magnetic Milky Way filaments dwarfed by mysterious structures in distant galaxy cluster, and much more.
Plasma sail spacecraft could soar like an albatross to Alpha Centauri–-A spacecraft equipped with a “sail” made from plasma could build up speed by repeatedly crossing the boundary at the edge of the solar system, just as an albatross soars by taking advantage of regions of different wind speeds, reports New Scientist.
Is Our Universe a Hologram? Physicists Debate Famous Idea on Its 25th Anniversary–The Ads/CFT duality conjecture suggests our universe is a hologram, enabling significant discoveries in the 25 years since it was first proposed, reports Anil Ananthaswamy for Scientific American.
Why This Universe? A New Calculation Suggests Our Cosmos Is Typical, writes Charlie Wood for Quanta. Two physicists have calculated that the universe has a higher entropy — and is therefore more likely — than alternative possible universes.
How Niels Bohr’s idea changed the world, reports Big Think. “Niels Bohr’s atom was a truly revolutionary idea, mixing old and new physics concepts. In some ways, an atom resembles the solar system; in other ways, it behaves rather bizarrely. Bohr realized that the world of the very small demanded a new way of thinking.”
A quantum computer has simulated a wormhole for the first time--“Researchers have used Google’s Sycamore quantum computer to simulate a simplified wormhole for the first time, and sent a piece of quantum information through it,” reports New Scientist
How NASA Launched Its Asteroid Killer–“Asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as seen by the DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact. DART’s onboard DRACO imager captured this image from a distance of 42 miles. The DART mission, in which a spacecraft knocked an asteroid off course, is a rehearsal for saving the world,” reports David W. Brown for The New Yorker.
Milky Way Census Shows Stars Take Varied Paths--The Gaia satellite is making the most detailed and complete map of the stars in our galaxy, reports Clara Moskowitz and Nadieh Bremer for Scientific American.
Ancient killer asteroid created a megatsunami on Mars, reports New Scientist. “New evidence suggests that 3.4 billion years ago, an asteroid impact created a ~110-km wide crater and a megastunami that extended for ~1500 kilometers.”
James Webb Space Telescope view of Saturn’s weirdest moon Titan thrills scientists, reports Meghan Bartels for Space.com. “Titan is a strange world — a little bit Earthlike, if land were made of water ice, rivers and seas were filled with liquid methane and other hydrocarbons, and the atmosphere were thick and hazy, dotted with methane clouds”
Southern hemisphere’s largest radio telescope joins search for extraterrestrial technology–MeerKAT will increase the number of targets that Breakthrough Listen can observe by a thousand fold. The largest radio telescope in the southern hemisphere has joined the search for technosignatures, signals that indicate the presence of technology developed by extraterrestrial intelligence, reports Engadget.
Physicists Create a Holographic Wormhole Using a Quantum Computer, reports Quanta. “The unprecedented experiment explores the possibility that space-time somehow emerges from quantum information, even as the work’s interpretation remains disputed.”
Google’s quantum computer suggests that wormholes are real–Perhaps wormholes will no longer be relegated to the realm of science fiction, reports Big Think.
A new supercomputer simulation animates the evolution of the universe–It’s the most accurate, detailed glimpse of the early cosmos yet, researchers report, writes James R. Riordon for Science News. “This virtual glimpse into the cosmos’s past is the result of CoDaIII, the third iteration of the Cosmic Dawn Project, which traces the history of the universe, beginning with the “cosmic dark ages” about 10 million years after the Big Bang.
Magnetic Milky Way filaments dwarfed by mysterious structures in distant galaxy cluster, reports Robert Lea for Space.com–“These filaments dangle around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Astrophysicist Farhad Zadeh, now at Northwestern University in Illinois, first discovered the structures in the 1980s, when they left him puzzled and fascinated.”
The Most Overhyped Space Movie–2001: A Space Odyssey is prescient, beautiful, and entirely unsatisfactory, reports Marina Koren for The Atlantic. “What follows is my real-time reaction to watching 2001 on a recent evening, edited for length and clarity. Even though the movie has been out for 54 years, I feel a duty to warn you that there are major spoilers ahead.”
2022 Space Telescope Advent Calendar--It’s time once more for one of my favorite holiday traditions: the 15th annual Space Telescope Advent Calendar—this year featuring images from both NASA’s Hubble telescope and its brand-new James Webb Space Telescope, reports The Atlantic.
Curated by The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
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.
Yes, Sign Me Up for “The Galaxy Report” Newsletter
Read about The Daily Galaxy editorial team here
