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.
Thank God 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. All of this complexity was somehow possible. The transitions between unstable, high-energy states and lower-energy, stable states are an important part of this process. 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. However, astronomers have discovered them to be misplaced in an asteroid belt. What is the reason they are there? 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. Steven Strogatz hosts Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist, to discuss the search for quantum gravity.
How did the universe become? 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. This means that the universe is growing larger every day. It also indicates that our universe used to be smaller than it currently is. 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 find 84 bright flashes that point to colliding stars in old galaxiesSpace.com reports that this is the case. “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 now know how black holes produce the most brilliant light in the universe. Science Alert reports. “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 Have Less Sci-Fi than You Think,Scientific American reporter Stephen Cohen. “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 have suggested that wormholes could look very similar to black holes. Bob Yirka reports 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 Discovers a Unusual GalaxyNASA reports. “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.”
Super-Jupiter is a young super-Jupiter who challenges theories about planet formation Robert Lea reports 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 found in spaceJamie Carter reports for Live Science. These formidable phenomena make the universe a dangerous place, from megacomets all the way to rogue dark holes.
We might finally understand how blazars work 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 ever be able to detect signals from alien intelligences?The Daily Galaxy asks. “British physicist Stephen Wolfram believes extraterrestrial intelligent life is inevitable, but with a caveat. Intelligent life is inevitable but we won’t 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.”
