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Nobody has known what exists in this region of space known as the “Zone of Avoidance.” Now astronomers edge one step closer.

Astronomers have found a giant “extragalactic structure” concealed behind the Milky Way, according to a new study published in Arxiv.

The study explained that the zone of avoidance (ZOA) does not allow clear optical observations of extragalactic sources behind the Milky Way.


Genty/Pixabay.

The discovery of the structure, which appears to be a colossal galaxy cluster, contributes to filling in this mysterious region of our cosmic map, known as the “zone of avoidance.” Nobody has known what exists in this region which obscures 10 to 20 percent of the sky-until now.

Sean Carroll: We might solve free will one day. But here’s why I doubt it.

Up next, The great free will debate ► https://youtu.be/3O61I0pNPg8

Debates about the existence of free will have traditionally been fought by two competing camps: those who believe in free will and those who don’t because they believe the Universe is deterministic.

Determinism is the thesis that every event — from when a volcano erupts to what cereal you buy at the supermarket — is a theoretically predictable result of the long chain of events that came before it. Free will, it was long thought, cannot exist in a world where all events are already causally determined.

But free will and determinism aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. As physicist Sean Carroll told Big Think, the compatibilist conception of free will argues that it makes sense to conceptualize ourselves as able to make free decisions, regardless of whether the Universe is deterministic or indeterministic.

Why? The main argument centers on the phenomenon of emergence.

With the new observations we are seeing a mixture of particle physics being the new physics governing even long standing laws like gravity. Also that string theory is still alive and well. I think we may never know everything unless we essentially get to a type 5 civilization or beyond.


Finding cannot be explained by classical assumptions.

An international team of astrophysicists has made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton’s laws of gravity, the researchers write in their publication. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. However, this is controversial among experts. The results have now been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The University of Bonn played a major role in the study.

In their work, the researchers investigated the so-called open star clusters, which are loosely bound groups of a few tens to a few hundred stars that are found in spiral and irregular galaxies. Open clusters are formed when thousands of stars are born within a short time in a huge gas cloud. As they “ignite,” the galactic newcomers blow away the remnants of the gas cloud. In the process, the cluster greatly expands. This creates a loose formation of several dozen to several thousand stars. The cluster is held together by the weak gravitational forces acting between them.

Sometimes astrophysics gets super weird.


A recent study of the star’s surface, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, says that we’re seeing Gamma Columbae in a short, deeply weird phase of a very eventful stellar life, one that lets astronomers look directly into the star’s exposed heart.

What’s New – The mix of chemical elements on the surface of Gamma Columbae look like the byproducts of nuclear reactions that should be buried in the depths of a massive star, not bubbling on its surface.

Demand is growing for effective new technologies to cool buildings, as climate change intensifies summer heat. Now, scientists have just designed a transparent window coating that could lower the temperature inside buildings, without expending a single watt of energy. They did this with the help of advanced computing technology and artificial intelligence. The researchers report the details today (November 2) in the journal ACS Energy Letters.

Cooling accounts for about 15% of global energy consumption, according to estimates from previous research studies. That demand could be lowered with a window coating that could block the sun’s ultraviolet and near-infrared light. These are parts of the solar spectrum that are not visible to humans, but they typically pass through glass to heat an enclosed room.

Energy use could be even further reduced if the coating radiates heat from the window’s surface at a wavelength that passes through the atmosphere into outer space. However, it’s difficult to design materials that can meet these criteria simultaneously and at the same time can also transmit visible light, This is required so they don’t interfere with the view. Eungkyu Lee, Tengfei Luo, and colleagues set out to design a “transparent radiative cooler” (TRC) that could do just that.

In 1911, physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes used liquid helium—whose production method he invented—to cool mercury to a few kelvins, discovering that its electrical resistance dropped to nil. Although mercury was later found to be a “conventional” superconductor, no microscopic theory so far managed to fully explain the metal’s behavior and to predict its critical temperature TC. Now, 111 years after Kamerlingh Onnes’ discovery, theorists have done just that. Their first-principles calculations accurately predict mercury’s TC but also pinpoint theoretical caveats that could inform searches for room-temperature superconductors [1].

Mercury is an exception among conventional superconductors, most of which can be successfully described with state-of-the-art density-functional-theory methods. To tackle mercury’s unique challenges, Gianni Profeta of the University of L’Aquila, Italy, and colleagues scrutinized all physical properties relevant for conventional superconductivity, which is mediated by the coupling of electrons to phonons. In particular, the researchers accounted for previously neglected relativistic effects that alter phonon frequencies, they improved the description of electron-correlation effects that modify electronic bands, and they showed that mercury’s d-electrons provide an anomalous screening effect that promotes superconductivity by reducing Coulomb repulsion between superconducting electrons. With these improvements, their calculations delivered a TC prediction for mercury only 2.5% lower than the experimental value.

The new understanding of the oldest superconductor will find a place in textbooks but may also offer valuable lessons for superconductivity research, says Profeta. A promising material-by-design approach involves “high-throughput” computations that screen millions of theoretical material combinations to suggest those that could be conventional superconductors close to ambient conditions. “If we don’t include subtle effects similar to those relevant for mercury, these computations may overlook many interesting materials or err in their critical temperature predictions by hundreds of kelvins,” he says.

Let’s hangout and recap some of our most watched What If scenarios.

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What If is a mini-documentary web series that takes you on an epic journey through hypothetical worlds and possibilities. Join us on an imaginary adventure through time, space and chance while we (hopefully) boil down complex subjects in a fun and entertaining way.

Does the Earth make a sound? Yes! and it’s very eerie!
The European Space Agency (ESA) recently released 5 minutes of haunting, crackling audio. Revealing what Earth’s magnetic field sounds like. Called the Magnetosphere, it is generated deep within the Earth’s interior, at its core. It extends out into space, creating a strong protective shield against things such as charged particles zipping out of the Sun, called the solar wind. And Without this powerful magnetic field, Earth would likely be a barren, cold, dry world. The audio clip you are about to experience might sound like the stuff of nightmares, but sit back, relax and listen to the strange creaking, crackling and rumbling of our planet’s protective shield. This is the sound of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Find out more about this audio clip — https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureE…etic_field.

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