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Mysterious 'unparticles' may be pushing the universe apart, new theoretical study suggests

New theoretical research suggests that a mysterious form of matter called "unparticles" could be the driving force behind the expansion of the universe.

SpaceX to launch 30th cargo mission to the ISS for NASA this week

SpaceX is scheduled to launch its 30th operational cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA on Thursday (March 21).

ESA kicks off two new navigation missions

ESA has signed contracts with several European companies for an overall amount of € 233 million to develop Genesis and a LEO-PNT demonstrator, two new missions within the FutureNAV programme that will keep Europe at the forefront of satellite navigation worldwide.

Why I'm going to Rochester NY to see my 1st-ever total solar eclipse

Here's why I am heading to Rochester, NY, to watch the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Visitors can expect a fun-filled few days at the ROC the Eclipse Festival.

Gaia maps largest ever collection of quasars in space and time

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Astronomers have created the largest yet cosmic 3D map of quasars: bright and active centres of galaxies powered by supermassive black holes. This map shows the location of about 1.3 million quasars in space and time, with the furthest shining bright when the Universe was only 1.5 billion years old.

The new map has been made with data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope. While Gaia’s main objective is to map the stars in our own galaxy, in the process of scanning the sky it also spots objects outside the Milky Way, such as quasars and other galaxies.

The graphic representation of the map (bottom right on the infographic) shows us the location of quasars from our vantage point, the centre of the sphere. The regions empty of quasars are where the disc of our galaxy blocks our view.

Quasars are powered by supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies and can be hundreds of times as bright as an entire galaxy. As the black hole’s gravitational pull spins up nearby gas, the process generates an extremely bright disk, and sometimes jets of light, that telescopes can observe.

The galaxies that quasars live in sit inside massive clouds of invisible dark matter. The distribution of dark matter gives insight into how much dark matter there is in the Universe, and how strong it clusters. Astronomers compare these measurements across cosmic time to test our current model of the Universe's composition and evolution.

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How long would it take to walk around Mars?

In this space mysteries piece we take a look at how long it would take to walk around Mars and what factors would affect journey time.

The James Webb Space Telescope is digging deep into the mysteries of gas planets

Scientists are slowly getting to the bottom of how some of the universe's most mind-bending worlds came to be.

Webb Reveals Secrets of Neptune’s Evolution

A twinset of icy asteroids called Mors-Somnus is giving planetary scientists some clues about the origin and evolution of objects in the Kuiper Belt. JWST studied them during its first cycle of observations and revealed details about their surfaces, which gives hints at their origins. That information may also end up explaining how Neptune got to be the way it is today.

The Mors-Somnus binary is part of a collection of objects beyond Neptune. They’re called, aptly enough, “Trans-Neptunian Objects” or TNOs, for short. About 3,000 are numbered and known, and many more aren’t yet surveyed. They all lie beyond the orbit of Neptune and are divided into various classes. There are the classical Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and scattered disc objects. Within those two classes, there are resonant TNOs—which move in resonance with Neptune and extreme TNOs, which orbit far beyond Neptune (around 30 AU). Then there are objects in orbits similar to Pluto’s, called “plutinos”. Mors-Somnus is also a Plutino.

The orbit of Mors-Somnus with respect to Neptune in the outer Solar System. Courtesy JPL.

Why is there such a varied bunch of objects “out there”? Where did they originate and how have they changed over time? One way to answer those questions is to study the surface properties of Kuiper Belt Objects and, in particular, icy rocks like Mors-Somnus. One way to do that is to take spectra of their surfaces. The data reveals information about the surface compositions of these objects. That, in turn, tells scientists something about the environments in which they formed and those they’ve experienced over time.

Neptune itself likely formed closer to the Sun but then migrated to the outer Solar System (along with Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus). At the same time, a huge dense disk of rocky and icy planetesimals and asteroids populated space out to about 35 AU. As the giant planets migrated to more distant orbits, they preferentially scattered those smaller bodies. These icy asteroids and cometary bodies settled into the Kuiper Belt, scattered disk, and the Oort Cloud. How that activity progressed and where those icy bodies came from in the first place are questions planetary scientists are working to answer.

An artist’s conception of Mors-Somnus, a binary duo comprised of a pair of icy asteroids bound by gravity, is shown. These lie just beyond the orbit of Neptune. JWST was used to analyze their surface compositions for the first time. Image credit: Angela Ramirez, UCF
A model of possible migration paths in the outer solar system due to giant planet migrations. Model: R. Gomes, image by Morbidelli and Levison.
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Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM II vs Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8 L IS USM

We're comparing the wide-angle zoom lenses in each brand's 'Holy Trinity' lineup to find out which one is worth your money.

Sleeping subduction zone could awaken and form a new 'Ring of Fire' that swallows the Atlantic Ocean

A modeling study suggests a slumbering subduction zone below the Gibraltar Strait is active and could break into the Atlantic Ocean in 20 million years' time, giving birth to an Atlantic "Ring of Fire."

Lego Creator 3-in-1 Space Astronaut review

Space.com's review of the Lego Creator 3-in-1 Space Astronaut kit. Has there ever been a Lego set more perfect for space fans?

Who are the Witches of Dathomir in 'Star Wars'?

Intrigued by the Witches of Dathomir from Star Wars: Ahsoka? Here's all you need to know.

NASA's 'Snap It!' computer game teaches kids about solar eclipses

NASA has launched a new computer game to help kids learn about solar eclipses ahead of April 8 when the moon's shadow will sweep across North America.

Little Red Dots in Webb Photos Turned Out to Be Quasars

In its first year of operation, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) made some profound discoveries. These included providing the sharpest views of iconic cosmic structures (like the Pillars of Creation), transmission spectra from exoplanet atmospheres, and breathtaking views of Jupiter, its largest moons, Saturn’s rings, its largest moon Titan, and Enceladus’ plumes. But Webb also made an unexpected find during its first year of observation that may prove to be a breakthrough: a series of little red dots in a tiny region of the night sky.

These little red dots were observed as part of Webb’s Emission-line galaxies and Intergalactic Gas in the Epoch of Reionization (EIGER) and the First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopically Complete Observations (FRESCO) surveys. According to a new analysis by an international team of astrophysicists, these dots are galactic nuclei containing the precursors of Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) that existed during the early Universe. The existence of these black holes shortly after the Big Bang could change our understanding of how the first SMBHs in our Universe formed.

The research was led by Jorryt Matthee, an Assistant Professor in astrophysics at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and ETH Zürich. He was joined by researchers from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, the Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the Niels Bohr Institute, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), and multiple universities and observatories. Their findings were published in a study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.

This image shows the region of the sky in which the record-breaking quasar J0529-4351 was observed by the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Credit: ESO

Scientists have known for some time that Supermassive Black Holes reside at the center of most massive galaxies. And whereas some are relatively dormant, like the SMBH located in the center of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A*), others are extremely active and are growing at the rate of several Solar masses a year. These fast-growing black holes power particularly luminous Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) – or quasars – which become so bright they temporarily outshine all the stars in their disk, the brightest of which are known as quasars.

JWST's near-infrared view of the star-forming region NGC 604 in the Triangulum galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

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Mercury slammed by gargantuan eruption from the sun's hidden far side, possibly triggering 'X-ray auroras'

A gigantic plasma eruption from the sun's hidden far side recently launched a sizable coronal mass ejection that slammed into Mercury, potentially triggering invisible X-ray auroras around the planet's rocky surface.

This Week In Space podcast: Episode 102 — A New Volcano on Mars!

On Episode 102 of This Week In Space, Rod and Tariq talk with Dr. Pascal Lee about the intriguing features he and his associates found on Mars.

'3 Body Problem:' How Netflix's sci-fi saga employs the famous Wow! SETI signal

An explanation of the Wow! signal as used in the new Netflix sci-fi series, "3 Body Problem."

Solar eclipse 2024 weather prospects: Q&A with an expert

It's still too early to know what the weather will be like across the path of totality for the April 8 total solar eclipse, but one expert shares more on the early outlook and the best practices when it comes to weather forecasts closer to the event.

New NASA astronauts celebrate moon missions, private space stations as they get ready for liftoff (exclusive)

NASA's newest generation of astronauts have moon missions and a growing space program in their future. The 2024 class tells Space.com they are excited for what's next.

The Maximum Mass of a Neutron Star is 2.25 Solar Masses

When stars grow old and die, their mass determines their ultimate fate. Many supermassive stars have futures as neutron stars. But, the question is, how massive can their neutron stars get? That’s one that Professor Fan Yizhong and his team at Purple Mountain Observatory in China set out to answer.

It turns out that a non-rotating neutron star can’t be much more than 2.25 solar masses. If it was more massive, it would face a much more dire fate: to become a black hole. To figure this out, the team at Purple Mountain looked into what’s called the Oppenheimer limit. That’s the critical gravitational mass (abbreviated MTOV) of a massive object. If a neutron star stays below that Oppenheimer limit, it will remain in that state. If it grows more massive, then it collapses into a black hole.

A composite image of the Crab Nebula features X-rays from Chandra (blue and white), optical data from Hubble (purple), and infrared data from Spitzer (pink). The Crab Nebula is powered by a quickly spinning, highly magnetized neutron star called a pulsar, which was formed when a massive star ran out of its nuclear fuel and collapsed. Scientists now want to know how much mass characterizes a neutron star as opposed to a black hole.

So, why determine the upper mass of a neutron star? The Oppenheimer limit for these objects has some implications for both astrophysics and nuclear physics. Essentially, it indicates that compact objects with masses greater than 2.25 solar masses are probably what scientists term the “lightest” black holes. Those objects would likely exist in a range of 2.5 to 3 solar masses.

The whole thing is rooted in the way that stars age. Everything depends on their starting mass. So, for example, our Sun is a lower-mass yellow dwarf and it will take more than 10 billion years to go through its whole life cycle. It’s about 4.5 billion years old now. As it ages, it will consume heavier elements in its core, which will heat it up. That drives expansion, which means the Sun will become a red giant and cast off its outer layers beginning in about five billion years. Eventually, it will shrink to become a white dwarf. That tiny object will contain less than the mass of the Sun, although some white dwarfs can be slightly more massive.

X-ray image of the Tycho supernova, also known as SN 1572, located between 8,000 and 9,800 light-years from Earth. Its core collapse could result in a neutron star or a black hole, depending on final mass. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIKEN & GSFC/T. Sato et al; Optical: DSS)
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