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astronomy

Is the Universe Expanding So Quickly Because of “Bumblebee Gravity”?

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bumblebee gravity

Physicists have long assumed that the universe is pretty much the same in any direction, and now they’ve found a new way to test that hypothesis: by examining the shadow of a black hole. If that shadow is a wee bit smaller than existing physics theories predict, it could help prove a far-out notion called bumblebee gravity, which describes what would happen if the seemingly perfect symmetry of the universe isn’t so perfect after all. If scientists can find a black hole with such an undersized shadow, it would open the door to a brand-new understanding of gravity — and … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Find Six Star System

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multiple star system - deposit photos

Ever ridden a teacup ride at a state fair? If so, you might have a small taste of life in a whirling, twirling sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system. “Sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system” is astronomer-speak for a system with six stars all orbiting each other and all regularly eclipsing one another from the perspective of Earth — and astronomers have just found one named TIC 168789840. This six- star system is far enough from Earth (a bit less than 2,000 light-years away) that telescopes can’t resolve its individual stars, which blur together into a single point of light. Instead, astronomers were able … Read more

SPACE: Mars is Wobbly. Astronomers Don’t Know Why

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Mars - Pixabay

The Red Planet is wiggling and wobbling as it spins, research in the journal Geophysical Research Letters confirms, and astronomers have no idea why. Like a toy top that teeters as it loses speed, the poles of Mars are wandering ever-so-slightly away from the planet’s axis of rotation, moving about 4 inches (10 centimeters) off-center every 200 days or so, researchers reported in a study published Oct. 13, 2020. That makes Mars only the second known planet in the universe to exhibit this phenomenon — known as the Chandler wobble — with Earth being the first, according to the American … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Discover “Arches of Chaos” in the Solar System

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black hole - pixabay

A vast network of invisible energy structures have been discovered in the solar system — a celestial superhighway that future space probes might use to explore far-away corners of solar space. These hidden energy structures, called manifolds, emerge in space-time due to the gravitational interaction of massive objects like the planets, said Nataša Todorović, a mathematician at the Serbian Belgrade Astronomical Observatory and lead author of a paper on the discovery. While astronomers have long known about such pathways, and even used them to navigate our celestial neighborhood, the new study has revealed a new shape in these manifolds: “arches … Read more

What We Learned About Black Holes in 2020

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black holes - deposit photos

Physicists are currently in a golden age of new knowledge about black holes. Since 2015, researchers have been able to get signals directly from merging black holes using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), while observatories like the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) have produced the first image of a black hole’s shadow. This year was no exception, with a fresh crop of exciting and unique results expanding our black hole horizons. Here, we take a look at some of the most spectacular black hole findings of 2020.  Nobel Prize in physics goes to black holes As if to certify that this … Read more

SPACE: What We Learned About Aliens in 2020

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Here on the little space rock we call Earth, humans often wonder whether or not we are alone in this universe. Though that question was not answered in 2020, many discoveries seemed to increase the prospect of extraterrestrial entities existing. Findings on the closest planet to us, in the outer solar system and the far beyond seemed to point to the possibility that other worlds could host organisms ranging from bacteria to technological beings. Perhaps, new results in the coming year will finally reveal who else might be out there. Is E.T. phoning us from Proxima Centauri? The answer to … Read more

The Moon is (Extra) Full of Craters

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The moon has many more craters than we thought, a new study finds. More than 109,000 new craters were discovered in the low- and mid-latitude regions of the moon using artificial intelligence (AI) that was fed data collected by Chinese lunar orbiters. The number of craters recorded on the moon’s surface is now more than a dozen times larger than it was before. The findings were published Dec. 22 in the journal Nature Communications. “It is the largest lunar crater database with automatic extraction for the mid- and low-latitude regions of the moon,” study lead author Chen Yang, an associate … Read more

The Science Behind the Star of Bethlehem

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As the well-known story in the Gospel of Matthew goes, three Magi, or wise men, followed the Star of Bethlehem to Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. And after consulting with King Herod of Judea, the men found newborn baby Jesus in the little town of Bethlehem. Whether such an event really happened in history is difficult to prove, but if it did, what was the Star of Bethlehem? This is a question scholars have long pondered, not just from a religious or historical perspective, but from a scientific one, too. Plenty of theories have been proposed, from an astronomical event … Read more

Scientists May have Detected Radio Emissions from An Alien World

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Radio Telescope - Deposit Photos

Scientists may have detected radio emissions from a planet orbiting a star beyond our sun for the first time. The astronomers behind the new research used a radio telescope in the Netherlands to study three different stars known to host exoplanets. The researchers compared what they saw to observations of Jupiter, diluted as if being seen from a star system dozens of light-years away. And one star system stood out: Tau Boötes, which contains at least one exoplanet. If the detection holds up, it could open the door to better understanding the magnetic fields of exoplanets and therefore the exoplanets … Read more

SPACE: Is Dark Matter Really A Bunch of Tiny Black Holes?

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The universe might be full of tiny, ancient black holes. And researchers might be able to prove it. These mini black holes from the beginning of time, or primordial black holes (PBHs), were first dreamed up decades ago. Researchers proposed them as an explanation for dark matter, an unseen substance that exerts a gravitational pull throughout space. Most explanations for dark matter involve hypothetical particles with special properties that help them evade detection. But some researchers think swarms of little black holes moving like clouds through space offer a cleaner explanation. Now, a new study explains where these PBHs might … Read more