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.
Spacecraft with plasma sails could soar to Alpha Centauri like an albatross–-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 really a hologram? On Its 25th anniversary, physicists debate a famous idea–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.
What is the purpose of this universe? A New Calculation Suggests Our Cosmos Is TypicalCharlie Wood, Quanta’s writer, says: 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,Big Think reports. “Niels Bohr’s atom was a truly revolutionary idea, mixing old and new physics concepts. An atom is in some ways a mirror of the solar system, but it behaves quite strangely in others. Bohr realized that the world of the very small demanded a new way of thinking.”
A quantum computer simulation of a wormhole has been made 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
NASA Launches 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 –Clara Moskowitz and Nadieh Brmer, Scientific American report that the Gaia satellite is creating the most accurate and complete map of our galaxy’s stars.
A megatsunami was created on Mars by an ancient killer asteroid.New Scientist reports. “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 scientistsSpace.com’s Meghan Bartels reports that it is. “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. Engadget reports that the largest radio telescope in southern hemisphere joined the search for technosignatures. These signals indicate extraterrestrial technology.
A Quantum Computer is used by physicists to create a Holographic WormholeQuanta reports. “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 simulation by supercomputers animated the evolution of our 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 are dwarfed in distant galaxy clusters by mysterious structures, 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–2001Marina Koren reports for The Atlantic that A Space Odyssey is beautiful, prescient, and completely unsatisfactory. “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.
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