Space: The Solar System
Published

Mercury has magnetic storms      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An international team of scientists has proved that Mercury, our solar system's smallest planet, has geomagnetic storms similar to those on Earth. Their finding, a first, answers the question of whether other planets, including those outside our solar system, can have geomagnetic storms regardless of the size of their magnetosphere or whether they have an Earth-like ionosphere.

Space: The Solar System
Published

Mounds of ice in craters give new insight into Mars’ past climate      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Newly discovered deposits of layered ice in craters scattered around Mars' southern hemisphere provide insights into how the planet's orientation controlled the planet's climate over the past 4 million years, according to a new study. The findings help scientists understand what controlled Mars' past climate, which is essential for predicting when the planet could have been habitable.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Methane could be the first detectable indication of life beyond Earth      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study assesses the planetary context in which the detection of methane in an exoplanet's atmosphere could be considered a compelling sign of life.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Ancient helium leaking from core offers clues to Earth's formation      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Helium-3, a rare isotope of helium gas, is leaking out of Earth's core, a new study reports. Because almost all helium-3 is from the Big Bang, the gas leak adds evidence that Earth formed inside a solar nebula, which has long been debated.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Mysterious death of carbon star plays out like six-ring circus      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists studying V Hydrae (V Hya) have witnessed the star's mysterious death throes in unprecedented detail. The team discovered six slowly-expanding rings and two hourglass-shaped structures caused by the high-speed ejection of matter out into space.

Space: The Solar System
Published

On Jupiter's moon Europa, 'chaos terrains' could be shuttling oxygen to ocean      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have built the world's first physics-based computer simulation of oxygen transport on Europa, finding that it's possible for oxygen to drain through the moon's icy shell and into its ocean of liquid water -- where it could potentially help sustain alien life -- by hitching a ride on salt water under the moon's 'chaos terrains.' The results show that not only is the transport possible, but that the amount of oxygen brought into Europa's ocean could be on a par with the quantity of oxygen in Earth's oceans today.

Space: The Solar System
Published

Scientists solve solar secret      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The further we move away from a heat source, the cooler the air gets. Bizarrely, the same can't be said for the surface of the Sun, but scientists may have just explained a key part of why.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Researchers map the movement of white dwarfs of the Milky Way      (via sciencedaily.com) 

White dwarfs were once normal stars similar to the Sun but then collapsed after exhausting all their fuel. These interstellar remnants have historically been difficult to study. However, a recent study reveals new information about the movement patterns of these puzzling stars.

Space: The Solar System
Published

Nearby star could help explain why our Sun didn’t have sunspots for 70 years      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers identified a nearby star whose sunspot cycles appear to have stopped. Studying this star might help explain the unusual period from the mid 1600s to the early 1700s when our Sun paused its sunspot cycles.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Look! Up in the sky! Is it a planet? Nope, just a star      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Among thousands of known exoplanets, astronomers have flagged three that are actually stars.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Scientists announce discovery of supermassive binary black holes      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have discovered a supermassive black hole binary system, one of only two known such systems.

Space: Exploration Space: The Solar System
Published

Magnetic reconnection breakthrough may help predict space weather      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have recently discovered a breakthrough in magnetic reconnection that could ultimately help predict space weather.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Black hole billiards in the centers of galaxies      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers provide the first plausible explanation to why one of the most massive black hole pairs observed to date by gravitational waves also seemed to merge on a non-circular orbit. Their suggested solution involves a chaotic triple drama inside a giant disk of gas around a super massive black hole in a galaxy far, far away.

Mathematics: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

Mathematical discovery could shed light on secrets of the Universe      (via sciencedaily.com) 

How can Einstein's theory of gravity be unified with quantum mechanics? It is a challenge that could give us deep insights into phenomena such as black holes and the birth of the universe. Now, a new article presents results that cast new light on important challenges in understanding quantum gravity.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Event horizons are tunable factories of quantum entanglement      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Physicists have leveraged quantum information theory techniques to reveal a mechanism for amplifying, or 'stimulating,' the production of entanglement in the Hawking effect in a controlled manner. Furthermore, these scientists propose a protocol for testing this idea in the laboratory using artificially produced event horizons.

Mathematics: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

Dark energy: Neutron stars will tell us if it's only an illusion      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists provide the first simulation of neutron star collisions in extensions of general relativity relevant for cosmology, offering a new approach to test gravity.

Space: The Solar System
Published

A solar illusion: Coronal loops may not be what they seem      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Many coronal loops -- ropey strands of plasma that scientists have long thought existed in the sun's atmosphere -- may actually be optical illusions, according to a new paper that challenges prevailing assumptions of what we know, and don't know, about the sun.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

'Closest black hole' system found to contain no black hole      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

In 2020, astronomers reported the closest black hole to Earth, located just 1000 light-years away in the HR 6819 system. But the results of their study were contested by other researchers. In a new paper, these two teams have united to report that there is in fact no black hole in HR 6819, which is instead a 'vampire' two-star system in a rare and short-lived stage of its evolution.

Energy: Nuclear Space: The Solar System
Published

Deep neural network to find hidden turbulent motion on the sun      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists developed a neural network deep learning technique to extract hidden turbulent motion information from observations of the Sun. Tests on three different sets of simulation data showed that it is possible to infer the horizontal motion from data for the temperature and vertical motion. This technique will benefit solar astronomy and other fields such as plasma physics, fusion science, and fluid dynamics.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

New simulations refine axion mass, refocusing dark matter search      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Axions are today's most popular candidate for dark matter, and numerous experiments are trying to detect them in microwave cavities where the axion should rarely convert into an electromagnetic wave. But a new simulation of the production of axions in the early universe provides a more refined mass estimate, and higher frequency for the EM wave, that is outside the range of these experiments. The new mass comes from adaptive mesh refinement in supercomputer simulations.