Today’s stories include NASA’s Webb Uncovers Dense Cosmic Knot in The Early Universe to JWST spots smallest galaxy outside our local universe to The Infinite Possibilities in a Tiny Smudge From Outer Space, and much more.
What Is Space?–Imagine the fabric of space-time peeled back layer by layer,Thomas Lin, Quanta’s reporter. “The fundamental nature of space-time remains shrouded in mystery: Where does its structure come from? What do space-time and gravity look like in the subatomic quantum realm?”
Signatures of alien technology could be the first step in humanity finding extraterrestrial lifeMacy Huston reports Penn State for The Conversation
Is Early Earth a model for emerging life on Alien Planets, or is it? The Daily Galaxy. ““The Archean Eon stands out for being so incredibly distant, and incredibly distinct, from modern Earth,” University of Washington astrobiologist, Tyler Robinson, told The Daily Galaxy about the eon when life on Earth likely emerged. “The conditions on this near-alien version of Earth are so unique that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) should be able to distinguish Archean-like features from signatures more synonymous with modern Earth, Mars, or Venus.
NASA’s Webb Uncovers Dense Cosmic Knot in The Early Universe–Astronomers looking into the early universe have made a surprising discovery using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope: a cluster of massive galaxies in the process of forming around an extremely red quasar. This will allow us to better understand how the galaxy clusters of the early universe formed the cosmic web that we see today.
JWST identifies the smallest galaxies outside of our local universe–The James Webb Space Telescope has glimpsed the smallest galaxy outside our local universe – and it is a thousand times less massive than the Milky Way, reports New Scientist.
Evil doppelgängers, alternate timelines and infinite possibilities: the physics of the multiverse explained,Robert Lea reports on BBC Science Focus. “The word ‘universe’ once described everything that exists. But as our horizons have expanded, many scientists have begun to consider what’s beyond our own cosmos, and whether there may be many other universes lurking tantalizingly out of sight.”
Like the Borg of Star Trek, these ‘aliens’ assimilate DNA from other microbes, reports UC Berkeley. “In an alien world only a meter or two below our feet , researchers have now found large DNA molecules that aren’t quite viruses, which are DNA or RNA wrapped in proteins, but that seem to have infected archaea and acquired along the way a slew of genes from their archaeal hosts.”
There are infinite possibilities in a tiny smudge from outer space.–Astronomers have captured a poignant view of another planetary system in the making, reports Marina Koren for The Atlantic.
Why Scientists’ Latest Dark Matter and Dark Energy Calculations Are a Big Deal–We may now have the sharpest-ever measurements of the dark side of our universe. Here’s what that means for science, reports CNET.
Nearby, a Monster Black Hole was discovered silently minding its business. reports Matt Williams for Universe Today.
Have Scientists Found A ‘Mirror World’ Parallel Universe That Explains Everything?Forbes: Jamie Carter Reports on the Truth Behind the Headlines
Juno Provides Amazing New Views of Great Red Spot –Scientists and the public are dazzled by images from the spacecraft’s close encounter with Jupiter’s largest—and the solar system’s most famous—storm, reports Lee Billings for Scientific American. “Snapped earlier this week by NASA’s basketball court–size solar-powered Juno spacecraft, the new images from just 9,000 kilometers above Jupiter reveal never-before-seen details of the Great Red Spot and its turbulent surroundings that raise just as many questions as they answer.”
The Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst Ever Recorded Rattled Earth’s Atmosphere–The death of a massive star far across the universe affected lightning on our planet and could teach us about the Milky Way, reports Phil Plait for Scientific American.
Jupiter’s Ocean Moon Europa Is Ready for Its Close-up–Fresh data from the Juno probe’s flyby of Europa could help scientists learn whether this icy moon of Jupiter is habitable—or even inhabited, reports Daniel Leonard for Scientific American.
In search of answers, planetary scientists plan a return to Uranus.PNAS reports. “istant and obscure, the giant planets Uranus and Neptune lurk in the dark far from the Sun. Voyager 2, a fleeting visitor from Earth four decades ago, visited them. There has never been another spacecraft to visit the area since. -They are the least explored planets in our solar system,” says Heidi Hammel, a planetary scientist at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, DC.
Experiments spell doom for the decades-old explanation of Quantum Weirdness–Physical-collapse theories have long offered a natural solution to the central mystery of the quantum world. Phillip Ball reports for Quanta that they are becoming less plausible due to a series of more precise experiments.
‘Marshmallow’ world defies expectations for planets orbiting red dwarf stars, Robert Lea reports on Space.com. “Astronomers have discovered a gas giant planet with the density of a marshmallow orbiting a cool red dwarf star located 580 light-years from Earth. The Jupiter-like exoplanet is the lowest-density world ever observed orbiting a red dwarf.”
Exoplanet Ratio Detection Map. “We propose a new statistical method for direct imaging of exoplanets based on a likelihood ratio detection map, which assumes that the noise after the background subtraction step obeys a Laplacian distribution. We compare the method with two detection approaches based on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) map after performing the background subtraction by the widely used Annular Principal Component Analysis (AnnPCA).”
Why military forces consider the moon a strategic priority.The US Space Force has already taken steps to secure future moon bases. Could this mean that other powers, such as China, will also be stepping up their military activities on the moon? New Scientist asks.
The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff curates
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