This weekend’s stories include JWST’s Data Is So Incredible That Even Those Who Built It Are Questioning Previous Science to to Do fundamental laws of nature apply to all objects, at all times and in all locations, all across the Universe? There are many more.
JWST’s Data Is So Incredible That Even Those Who Built It Are Questioning Previous Science. “Over its few operational months, Webb has already offered an illuminating breadth of information — findings that have confirmed, confounded, and even contradicted existing theories about the cosmos.”
NASA Is about to Fall Into an Asteroid. Here’s How to Watch, reports Kenneth Change for The New York Times. Since last year’s launch, DART has been flying toward its target. It will link up Monday night.
Is there a universe created from nothing?According to The Debrief, a team of physicists has proven that a 70-year-old quantum theory can be used to create something out of nothing.
Astronomers detect hot gas bubble swirling around the Milky Way’s supermassive black holeAccording to the ESO, “We think we’re looking at a hot bubble of gas zipping around Sagittarius A* on an orbit similar in size to that of the planet Mercury, but making a full loop in just around 70 minutes. This requires a mind blowing velocity of about 30% of the speed of light!” says Maciek Wielgus of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, who led the study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.”
SETI Researchers have begun scanning background images for Alien Signals. Extreme Tech reports. ” Michael Garrett of the University of Manchester and Andrew Siemion from the Berkeley SETI Research Center are more interested in the “astronomical exotica” in the deep background of Breakthrough Listen observations.”
Hubble Discovers an Astronomical ExplosionNASA reports. “A shroud of thick gas and dust surrounds a bright young star in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 inspected a young stellar object, over 9,000 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, to help astronomers understand the earliest stages in the lives of massive stars. This object – which is known to astronomers as IRAS 05506+2414 – may be an example of an explosive event caused by the disruption of a massive young star system.”
Maarten Schmidt, Caltech Astronomer, Dies.The Los Angeles Times. “Schmidt had only recently arrived at Caltech when he ascended in the observing cage of the great Palomar Mountain telescope to try to understand measurements radio astronomers were getting from a bizarre object that should have been a star but couldn’t possibly be.”
The Biggest Ideas in The Universe: NPR Science Friday, reports. Sean Carroll talks about exploring where physics equations leave off and philosophical concepts begin, and the nebulous world in between.
Immortal Mystery Object–Every Brown Dwarf Ever Created Still ExistsJackie Faherty is an astrophysicist and senior scientist at The American Museum of Natural History.
New photos taken by a space telescope capture Neptune’s rings shining through, reports Phys.org The pictures taken in July show not only Neptune’s thin rings, but its faint dust bands, never before observed in the infrared, as well as seven of its 14 known moons.
Why does nature have to obey laws?–asks Ethan Siegal for Big Think. “As far as we can tell, the same fundamental laws of nature apply to all objects, at all times and in all locations, all across the Universe. It’s easy to imagine a Universe where this isn’t the case: where laws or constants vary in time and space or where things are simply inconstant and inconsistent from moment to moment. Yet our Universe doesn’t appear to be this way, reflecting a relatively recent shift in our thoughts as human beings. Why is this so; why does nature obey laws at all?”
Dead stars in Milky Way’s companion galaxy cause mysterious gamma-ray cocoonRobert Lea reports for Space.com. Fermi bubbles, which are huge structures that extend from the Milky Way and reach 50,000 light years in length, are enormous structures.
How infinity threatens cosmology –The mind-boggling mystery of infinityPeter Cameron reports for iAi. “Infinity is back. Or rather, it never (ever, ever…) went away. While mathematicians have a good sense of the infinite as a concept, cosmologists and physicists are finding it much more difficult to make sense of the infinite in nature, writes Peter Cameron.”
Which star is the largest? (What about the smallest?Live Science: Isobel Whitcomb “The big stars make our sun look puny.”
