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Category: space – Page 116

Chandra diagnoses cause of fracture in galactic ‘bone’

Astronomers have discovered a likely explanation for a fracture in a huge cosmic “bone” in the Milky Way galaxy, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes.

The bone appears to have been struck by a fast-moving, rapidly spinning neutron star, or a pulsar. Neutron stars are the densest known stars and form from the collapse and explosion of massive stars. They often receive a powerful kick from these explosions, sending them away from the explosion’s location at high speeds.

Enormous structures resembling bones or snakes are found near the center of the galaxy. These elongated formations are seen in radio waves and are threaded by magnetic fields running parallel to them. The radio waves are caused by energized particles spiraling along the magnetic fields.

“Mining the Moon Begins”: US Firm’s Robot to Extract Rare Helium-3 and Launch Payloads Back to Earth for Futuristic Energy Use

IN A NUTSHELL 🌕 Interlune, a Seattle-based startup, plans to extract helium-3 from the moon, aiming to revolutionize clean energy and quantum computing. 🚀 The company has developed a prototype excavator capable of digging up to ten feet into lunar soil, refining helium-3 directly on the moon for efficiency. 🔋 Helium-3 offers potential for nuclear

Deepnight AI-Powered Night Vision: Revolutionizing Visibility in Complete Darkness

Deepnight’s Algorithm-intensified image enhancement for NIGHT VISION

Instead of using expensive image-intensification tubes, this startup is using ordinary low light sensors coupled with special computer algorithms to produce night vision. This will bring night vision to the general public. At present, even a generation 2 monocular costs around $2000, while a generation 3 device costs around $3500. The new system has the added advantage of being in color, instead of monochromatic. Hopefully, this will pan out, and change the situation for Astronomy enthusiasts worldwide.

Lucas Young, CEO of Deepnight, showcases how their AI technology transforms a standard camera into an affordable and effective night vision device in extremely dark environments.

Stretched in a cross pattern: Our neighboring galaxy is pulled in two axes, new evidence indicates

Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have discovered that Cepheid variable stars in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are moving in opposing directions along two distinct axes. They found that stars closer to Earth move towards the northeast, while more distant stars move southwest.

This newly discovered movement pattern exists alongside a northwest-southeast opposing movement that the scientists previously observed in .

These complex bidirectional movements along two different axes indicate that the SMC is being stretched by multiple external gravitational forces—its larger neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in one direction and another currently unknown mechanism in the other. The findings are published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Solar storms and cyberattacks can both cause blackouts. Knowing the difference could save billions of dollars

“Space weather can impact systems that use IT for critical functions and everyday processes,” James Spann, a senior scientist at the Office of Space Weather Observations at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) department, told Space.com in an email. “These space weather impacts can have the same symptoms as a cyberattack, where systems will be brought down, or lockup, or transmit erroneous information.”

NESDIS oversaw a tabletop space weather exercise conducted in May 2024, the first such drill testing the U.S. preparedness for a major solar storm. Results of the exercise, which brought together 35 US government agencies, were published in a report in April.

In one of the simulations during the exercise, NOAA and the U.S. Air Force reported a severe solar flare and radio burst, but another federal department or agency “reported contradictory information, suggesting that the radio and communications disruptions were possibly the result of a cyberattack,” according to the report. Above all, it showed the need for effective communication following such events.

A multitude of protoplanetary disks detected in the Milky Way’s galactic center

For decades, astronomers have discovered hundreds of protoplanetary disks—structures believed to represent the early stages of our own solar system. However, most of these discoveries lie within our neighborhood, which may not reflect the extreme conditions found in other parts of the Milky Way.

Among the most dynamic and turbulent regions is the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) near the Milky Way galactic center, where and density may shape star and planet formation in fundamentally different ways. Studying protoplanetary systems in the CMZ provides a rare opportunity to test and refine our theories of solar system formation.

An international team of researchers have conducted the most sensitive, highest-resolution, and most complete survey to date of three representative molecular clouds in the Milky Way’s CMZ. Their observations revealed over five hundred dense cores—the sites where stars are being born.

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