Astrophysics

A night full of stars. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Twinkle little star

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What are stars? Why do they twinkle? And how can we identify the planets closest to us in the starry sky?
A vast spiral galaxy alongside the Milky Way for a scale comparison of the universe. Credit: Bagchi and Ray et al/Hubble Space Telescope

Monstrous jets from black hole in spiral galaxy may foretell Milky Way's terrifying future

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A giant spiral galaxy with powerful jets from a black hole has shocked scientists, because it shows that even galaxies like ours can release dangerous radiation at some point.
Radiation from active galactic nuclei (AGN), usually thought to be deadly, may actually help life thrive – by strengthening the protective ozone layer in oxygen-rich atmospheres, thus making planets more resilient. Credit: IRLab/NSF/AURA/J. daSilva/M. Zamani

Black holes may contribute to the flourishing of life on nearby planets

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New research reveals that radiation from active galactic cores can strengthen the protective ozone layer in oxygen-rich atmospheres and protect life from extinction.
The composition of the universe. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Hidden change in dark energy could rewrite the laws of physics

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Dark energy may not be constant after all. DESI analysis of millions of galaxies shows signs that it may be evolving, suggesting a huge shift in cosmology
Illustration: An image showing the Orion Nebula in visible and infrared light. Astronomers have discovered that about 14 million years ago, the solar system sailed through the Orion Nebula, a dense region where stars are forming. This journey may have compressed the heliosphere and increased the amount of interstellar dust, which could have affected Earth's climate and left an imprint on the geological record. Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, and F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, J. DePasquale, L. Hustak, L. Frattare, M. Robberto, M. Gennaro (STScI), R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC), M. Kornmesser (ESA); Special thanks: A. Fujii, R. Gendler)

Scientists reveal that the sun's journey through the Orion Nebula could have changed Earth's climate

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About 14 million years ago, in the middle of the Miocene epoch, the solar system passed through the Orion Nebula. At the same time, the Earth cooled and the Antarctic ice sheet formed. Is there a connection between the two phenomena?
This artist's illustration shows a planet (left) that came too close to a white dwarf (right) and was torn apart by tidal forces from the star. The white dwarf is at the center, and a nebula appears as blue gas in the background. The planet is part of a star system that includes another planet in the upper left corner and another in the lower right corner. The engulfed planet may have originally been a considerable distance from the white dwarf, but has drifted inward due to gravitational interactions with other planets in the system. Credit: CXC/SAO/M.Weiss

Planet-devouring star observed for the first time

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Astronomers may finally solve a decades-old mystery: A strange X-ray signal from a dying star at the end of its life may indicate that the white dwarf destroyed a nearby planet.
Molecular emission lines from mysterious icy bodies captured by ALMA. The background image is a composite color map of the AE, with 1.2-micron light shown in blue and 4.5-micron light in red, based on AE data from 2MASS and WISE. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), T. Shimonishi et al. (Niigata Univ.)

Alien ice or cosmic relic? Scientists wonder about chilling discovery in deep space

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Scientists have discovered two mysterious interstellar objects containing water-rich ice and organic molecules, but their characteristics do not match any known objects. Are these cosmic relics or a new environment for the formation of living molecules?
A black hole with an accretion disk and energy emissions in deep space.

The secret energy inside every black hole is more powerful than we thought

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Researchers have discovered that black holes can pump and release huge amounts of energy through magnetic fields and magnetized accretion disks, which could change our understanding of galaxy formation and the evolution of the universe.
LIGO Gravitational Wave Observatory in the US, credit: caltech

LIGO gravitational wave detectors are about to undergo an upgrade

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Scientists have developed an innovative optical system designed to improve the sensitivity of the LIGO detector, the American gravitational wave detector that was a partner, along with the European Virgo, in the initial detection of gravitational waves and in many subsequent discoveries.
The KM3NeT experiment uses an array of light sensor modules fixed to the floor of the Mediterranean Sea. This image shows the deployment process of one set of modules. Credit: INFN/A. Simonelli

The highest-energy neutrino to date was discovered in an underwater facility in the Mediterranean Sea.

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A still partially operational underwater neutrino detection experiment has detected what appears to be the highest-energy cosmic neutrino measured to date.
Schematic overview of a wide orbiting binary system within the Milky Way. As it moves through the galaxy, the ellipticity of its orbit changes due to the gravitational influence of the galaxy and encounters with nearby stars, leading to close encounters (small image). Credit: Jakob Stegmann et al 2024 ApJL 972 L19

The role of galactic gravity in black hole collisions: a groundbreaking study

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New research shows how the host galaxy's gravity affects distant pairs of stars, bringing the black holes into extreme and rare collisions accompanied by powerful gravitational waves
Supernova explosions reveal patterns in star formation across the universe. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Supernova explosions reveal patterns in star formation across the universe

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Scientists are cracking the secrets of star formation by following the explosive trails of dead stars. This method could prove that all stars, everywhere in the universe, are created in the same way
The antenna galaxies are in the process of collisions. Credit: NASA

How cosmic collisions created the largest galaxies in the universe

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The study suggests that these galaxies were formed from large flows of cold gas and collisions between galaxies in the early universe, which led to the formation of stars at an extremely fast rate
WEAVE data are superimposed on an image from the Stephen Quintet's James Webb Space Telescope, with green contours showing data from the LOFAR radio telescope. The orange and blue colors follow the hydrogen-alpha luminosity measured by WEAVE LIFU, which shows where the intergalactic gas is ionizing. The hexagon marks WEAVE's observational coverage, 36 kilofarsecs wide (similar to the width of the Milky Way). Credit: University of Hertfordshire.

A galactic collision at a speed of 3.2 million km/h has been documented in great detail

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The dramatic event took place in the Stefan Quintet group, a galactic group that has been studied for nearly 150 years. The collision created a powerful shock wave, described as "like the supersonic boom of a fighter jet," one of the most impressive energetic processes
A magnificent black hole with an allocation disk and a cosmic hill of matter.

Supermassive black holes defy physics to become cosmic giants

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Researchers have linked X-ray emissions from 21 distant quasars to the rapid growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe
A white dwarf orbits a rapidly spinning neutron star. The image was prepared using DALEE and is not a scientific image

716 revolutions per second: the fastest spinning neutron star in the Milky Way

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Using a telescope on the International Space Station, researchers have discovered a neutron star in the Milky Way that rotates at an incredible 716 times per second - among the fastest ever discovered
Eddy currents at the solar poles. The image was prepared using DALEE and is not a scientific image

Magnetic eddies at the poles of the Sun

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A black hole with its bright event horizon. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Black holes send signals - a breakthrough method by astrophysicists to decipher them

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Astrophysicists have developed a method for detecting echoes of light from black holes that will allow measuring their mass and rotation
The developments in modern astrophysics make it increasingly possible to discover astrophysical explosions

A revolution in astrophysics: a model of the most powerful explosions in the universe

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The developments in modern astrophysics make it increasingly possible to discover astrophysical explosions
Artist's illustration of the V404 Cygni double X-ray system. Credit: Jorge Lugo

The discovery of the first triple black hole system provides clues to the formation of black holes

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A surprising discovery challenges existing models of black hole creation and reveals the age of the stellar system
Observations on the first light of the universe. The image was prepared using DALEE and is not a scientific image

Cosmic Archaeology: Deciphering the Mystery of the First Light of the Universe 

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Illustration of the anatomy of the sun. Credit: ESA–S.Poletti

When the sun doesn't behave accordingly: the mysterious time gaps in solar flares challenge scientists

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Researchers have identified significant time gaps in emissions in solar flares that challenge the accuracy of current models of solar flares, and point to possible alternative energy transfer mechanisms
The image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1559 as seen by the James B. Space Telescope. The galaxy contains a clear central region with a distinctive open pattern in the loose spiral arms. NGC 1559 is about 35 million light-years away in the little-observed southern constellation, the Reticulum. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy, J. Lee and the PHANGS team.

The light of knowledge: a new look at the grief into the southern group of the hunting net

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The Hubble Space Telescope photograph of NGC 1559 shows the active star formation regions of the galaxy using special light filters
Galaxy display in the deep valley, including spectacular spiral and amorphous galaxies and diverse stars.

In the "Pablo" galaxy, high-speed ejection of gas by the black hole stopped the formation of new stars

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The Sun is now again approaching its 11-year "Schwab Cycle" maximum activity, here image taken by Solar Orbiter in October 2023. Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team

A cosmic mystery solved? New evidence shows that the planets influence the Sun's magnetic cycles.

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Researchers identify eddy currents in the Sun, called Rossby waves, as mediating the tidal effects of Venus, Earth and Jupiter on the Sun's magnetic activity

Astronomers have discovered potential dark matter objects in space using pulsars

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These pulsars—neutron stars that rotate and emit beacon-like beams of radio waves that scan space—have been used to detect mysterious hidden masses.
Computer simulations made by astronomers, including those at the University of California at Irvine, support the existence of dark matter. Although dark matter has not been directly detected, many scientists believe it must exist to explain various phenomena in the observable universe.

Properties of galaxies reveal the invisible hand of dark matter

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Astronomical computer simulations point to strong evidence that dark matter exists, supported by observations of features in galaxies that are hard to explain without it
A supernova explosion. Illustration: depositphotos.com

The unexpected revival of supernova 1181 

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Supernova 1181, produced by the dramatic collision of two white dwarf stars, was studied using a combination of historical records and modern astronomy. The remains, now identified in the constellation Cassiopeia, reveal a complex structure with
An artist's impression showing what happened when two giant galaxy clusters, known together as MACS J0018.5, collided: the dark matter in the galaxy clusters (blue) moved ahead of the associated clouds of hot gas, or normal matter (orange). Both dark matter and normal matter feel gravity, but only normal matter experiences additional effects such as shocks and eddies that slow it down during a collision. Credit: WM Keck Observatory / Adam Macarenko

Dark matter overtakes normal matter in the collision of giant galaxy clusters

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Astronomers have managed to unravel a complicated collision between two giant galaxy clusters in which the clusters' vast dark matter clouds separated from the normal matter. Each of the clusters contains thousands of galaxies and is located billions of miles apart
The Xenon top array detector array of the XENONnT partnership. PR photo

The international XENONnT experiment: first measurement of nuclear recoil from solar neutrinos

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Prof. Rani Bodnik from the Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at the Weizmann Institute of Science is a partner in this research, and among other things built the control and calibration systems and took part in the data analysis
Prof. Martin Rees, winner of the 2024 Wolf Prize in Physics. Photo courtesy of the Wolf Prize Foundation

The British Astronomer Royal won the Wolff Prize in Physics

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The Wolf Prize in Physics for 2024 is awarded to Professor Martin Rees of the University of Cambridge, England, for his "pioneering contributions to high-energy astrophysics, the formation of galaxies and structures in the universe, and cosmology"
A red giant star and a white dwarf orbit each other in a nova animation similar to that of T corona borealis. The red giant is a large ball in shades of red, orange and white, with the side facing the white dwarf being in lighter shades. The white dwarf is hidden in a bright white and yellow glow, representing an accretion disk around the star. A stream of material, shown as a diffuse cloud of red, flows from the red giant to the white dwarf. When the red giant passes behind the white dwarf, a nova explosion occurs on the white dwarf, creating a ball of ejected novae material shown in bright orange. After the fog dissipates, a small white dot remains, indicating that the white dwarf survived the eruption. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Don't miss it: in the coming months, a nova eruption is expected to occur that will be visible to the naked eye

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The T Corona Borealis system includes a white dwarf—an Earth-sized remnant of a star with a mass similar to that of our Sun—and an ancient red giant whose hydrogen has been sucked up by a force
A simulation of a possible explanation for the speed of an L substar named CWISE J124909+362116.0 shows it as part of a binary star pair that ended in a supernova explosion of the white star. Credit: Adam Makarenko / WM Keck Observatory

An extremely fast star has been discovered speeding through the Milky Way at a speed of 2.1 million km/h

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The planet was discovered thanks to the efforts of 80 participants in a citizen science project called "Rear Worlds: Planet 9" and a team of astronomers from all over the United States
This image of NGC 5468, a galaxy about 130 million light-years from Earth, combines data from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. It is the most distant galaxy in which Hubble has detected variable Cepheid stars. These stars serve as important landmarks for measuring the expansion rate of the universe.

The Webb and Hubble space telescopes confirm the universe's expansion rate, the puzzle continues

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Web sightings provide new insights into a decade-long mystery
This groundbreaking idea proposed by Prof. Liu's team allows a single astronomical telescope in the Earth's magnetosphere to function as a gravitational wave signal detector. Credit: HKUST

Astrophysicists harness planetary power to explore the universe's greatest mysteries

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Observing the universe using gravitational waves poses significant technological challenges, especially in the investigation of the frequency range above one kilohertz, the astronomers are technologically assisted in the magnetosphere of planets to detect the gravitational waves
A collage of artist renderings highlighting the innovative approaches proposed by 2 NIAC Phase 2024 grantees for possible future missions. Credit: From left: Edward Balaban, Mary Knapp, Mahmooda Sultana, Brianna Clements, Ethan Schaler

Straight out of science fiction: NASA promotes six futuristic space technologies

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Each completed the first phase of NASA's accelerator program, in which it showed that its future ideas — such as a lunar rail system and liquid-based telescopes — might provide perspectives
Perseus galaxy cluster. The image, taken by the Euclid satellite, shows the Perseus galaxy cluster illuminated by the soft blue light emitted by orphan stars. These stars are scattered throughout the cluster, and reach a distance of 2 million light years from its center. The cluster galaxies stand out in illuminated elliptical shapes against the dark space. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, Image processing: M. Montes (IAC) and J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay).

The Euclid mission reveals 1.5 trillion orphan stars cruising through space

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The Perseus cluster is among the most massive structures in the universe, containing thousands of galaxies and located about 240 million light years from Earth. Within this vast expanse, the Euclid satellite detected faint and ghostly lights - the orphan stars
Yahal Sofer Rimelt, a graduate of the bachelor's degree track in physics and neuroscience at Bar Ilan University and currently at the Weizmann Institute, specializes in the design of observation systems in astrophysics

affects space exploration

Yahal Sofer Rimelt, a graduate of the bachelor's degree track in physics and neuroscience at Bar Ilan University and currently at the Weizmann Institute, specializes in the design of observation systems in astrophysics
Scientists have discovered a large black hole that "hiccups", and emits gas fluxes. Analysis revealed that a small black hole repeatedly punctures the gas disk of the large black hole, causing the perturbations to be released. Strong magnetic fields, north and south of the black hole, shown by the orange cone, shoot the flux up and out of the disk. Each time the small black hole punctures the disk, it emits another star, in a regular periodic pattern. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT

Black hole "hiccuping" - astronomers are surprised by periodic eruptions in a distant galaxy

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In a distant galaxy, the supermassive black hole's intermittent gas fluxes led to the discovery of a smaller black hole in its orbit
Stars are born. Science site credit via DALEE. The image is for illustration only and should not be seen as a scientific image

The place where stars are born

In interstellar molecular clouds, large molecules can form despite the non-ideal conditions prevailing there
Photon Multiplier Tubes - A multiplier will detect flashes of energy produced when neutrinos interact with matter. Credit: Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

A huge facility in China will study the neutrino particles - mainly those generated from nuclear power plants

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The facility, named JUNO, consists of a huge tank that surrounds an array of detectors. The container contains a substance that causes a scintillation which is recorded in the detectors and thus allows to identify a neutrino event, its type and mass, since the neutrino particles change
AI PHYSIST Artificial intelligence that studies the laws of physics and develops new theories. Credit - The Knowledge Site, via DALEE

New artificial intelligence will open up new theories in physics

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Researchers in Germany have developed an artificial intelligence capable of postulating physical theories by identifying patterns in complex data sets and after being fed all known physics
Artificial color JWST image of a small portion of the GOODS South field, with emphasis on JADES-GS-z7-01-QU. This type of galaxy is extremely rare. Credit: JADES Collaboration

Cosmic Time Runs Back: Webb Space Telescope Discovers 'Dead' Galaxy 13 Billion Years Old

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This galaxy experienced a tumultuous and fast life: the star formation process worked quickly and suddenly ended, a situation that is not expected at such an early stage in the evolution of the universe. It is still not clear if the "frozen" state of the galaxy
The three-body problem. The figure was prepared with the help of DALEE artificial intelligence software for illustration purposes only and should not be considered a scientific image

A breakthrough in predicting chaotic results in the three body system

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New research from the Larkach Institute of Physics reveals a significant advance in chaos theory, by confirming in detail the flux-based statistical theory that predicts chaotic outcomes in non-hierarchical Newtonian three-body systems. This breakthrough lies
An image of Jupiter taken by Juno in 2019, showing storm zones in the northern hemisphere. Credit: Enhanced image by Kevin M. Gill (CC-BY) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Extrasolar Planet Hunter Targets Jupiter: A New Twist in the Space Exploration Plot

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For the first time, NASA activated a tool designed to discover planets many light years away on an object in the solar system, in a study of the winds of Jupiter
The galaxy AM 1054-325 has been warped from a normal pancake-like spiral shape into an S shape by the gravitational pull of a neighboring galaxy, as seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image. As a result, new star clusters were formed along a tidal tail stretched over thousands of light years, resembling a string of pearls. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Jayanne English (University of Manitoba)

Hubble discovers how collisions between galaxies create conditions for star formation

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The discovery of an S-shaped galaxy could revolutionize the understanding of the process of star formation
Merging galaxies create the most powerful radio burst ever discovered. The image was prepared using Dali (artificial intelligence) and should not be considered a scientific image

The Hubble Space Telescope reveals the source of the most powerful radio burst ever recorded

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"Astronomers discover that the fastest radio burst ever observed came not from a single galaxy, but from a group of merging galaxies"
A multi-wavelength view of the surroundings of the supermassive black hole SgrA* (yellow X). In the red of the stars, in the blue of the dust. Many of the young stars are hidden by the dust or absorbed by the bright stars. Credit: Florian Peissker / University of Cologne

Stellar surprise: A fountain of youth at the center of our galaxy 'should be impossible'.

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Researchers have discovered that the star cluster IRS13 near the supermassive black hole SagittariusA* at the center of our galaxy is much younger than predicted
Prof. Zvi Piren. Photo: Noam Chai

For the first time, Israeli researchers will participate in a black hole and neutron star research group

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Professor Zvi Piren, head of the Schwartzman Chair at the Rakah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University and Professor Amir Levinson from Tel Aviv University will take part in a research group of the prestigious Simmons Foundation as part of an international collaboration
NASA's Parker Solar Probe recently passed through one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded. Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Brian Monroe

Parker floated through a powerful coronal mass ejection that "sucked up" interplanetary dust

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"These interactions between the Sun's coronal mass ejections and interplanetary dust were theorized twenty years ago, but were not observed until the Parker Solar Probe saw that the coronal ejection acts like a vacuum cleaner.