Lifeboat Foundation

Using the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, an international team of astronomers has observed a very-high energy gamma-ray source designated TeV J2032+4130. Results of the observational campaign, presented July 3 on the preprint server arXiv, provide crucial information regarding the nature of this source.

Sources emitting gamma radiation with photon energies between 100 GeV and 100 TeV are called very-high energy (VHE) gamma-ray sources, while those with photon energies above 0.1 PeV are known as ultra-high energy (UHE) gamma-ray sources. The nature of these sources is still not well understood; therefore, astronomers are constantly searching for new objects of this type to characterize them, which could shed more light on their properties in general.

TeV J2032+4130 was identified in 2005 by the High Energy Gamma Ray Astronomy (HEGRA) experiment as the first VHE gamma-ray source in the TeV range with no lower-energy counterpart. Previous observations of TeV J2032+4130 have revealed that it consists of two sources, namely HAWC J2030+409 and HAWC J2031+415, which is coincident with a pulsar wind nebula (PWN).

“We think these objects came from the inner and/or outer main asteroid belt, and the implication of that is that this is another mechanism for getting some ice into the inner solar system,” said Aster Taylor.

What are dark comets and how are they responsible for delivering water to the Earth? This is what a recent study published in Icarus hopes to address as a team of international researchers investigated the origins of dark comets and their evolution throughout the history of the solar system, including how much water they could have potentially brought to Earth in the past. This study holds the potential to help astronomers better understand dark comets and the formation and evolution of planetary bodies throughout the solar system.

Dark comets are often described as being a combination of asteroids and classified based on their unique behaviors, specifically their ability to accelerate without the aid of gravitational means, which researchers have previously hypothesized to be invisible gas jets emanating like traditional comets. Additionally, their physical characteristics consist of dark surfaces that could be hiding an icy subsurface, whereas traditional comets exhibit icy characteristics directly on their surface.

Continue reading “Dark Comets and the Potential Delivery of Water to Earth” »

Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, the Apollo 11 astronaut who became the second person to set foot on the moon during a mission that captivated the world in the summer of 1969, will be a featured speaker at the San Diego Air and Space Museum on July 20.

Aldrin, 94, is scheduled to participate in a question-and-answer session during a gala that will be held on the 55th anniversary of the moon landing, which was broadcast to an estimated 650 million people on Earth.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong left the lunar module Eagle first and famously said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he touched the surface.

Scientists have for the first time observed how atoms in magnesium oxide morph and melt under ultra-harsh conditions, providing new insights into this key mineral within Earth’s mantle that is known to influence planet formation.

High-energy laser experiments — which subjected tiny crystals of the mineral to the type of heat and pressure found deep inside a rocky planet’s mantle — suggest the compound could be the earliest mineral to solidify out of magma oceans in forming “super-Earth” exoplanets.

“Magnesium oxide could be the most important solid controlling the thermodynamics of young super-Earths,” said June Wicks, an assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University who led the research. “If it has this very high melting temperature, it would be the first solid to crystallize when a hot, rocky planet starts to cool down and its interior separates into a core and a mantle.”

So I serve a hundred years in one day…’- Joe Haldeman, 2011.

Robot Preachers Found To Undermine Religious Commitment ‘Tell me your torments,’ the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion. — Philip K. Dick, 1969.

Continue reading “Cognify — A Prison Of The Mind We’ve Seen Before In SF” »

“Of all currently known temperate exoplanets, LHS 1,140 b could well be our best bet to one day indirectly confirm liquid water on the surface of an alien world beyond our Solar System,” said Charles Cadieux.

The search for Earth’s twin just got a little closer as astronomers recently presented findings regarding a potential icy or watery “super-Earth” called LHS 1,140 b, which is located approximately 49 light-years from Earth and whose radius is approximately 1.7 times our planet, along with orbiting within its star’s habitable zone. What makes this finding unique is LHS 1,140 b was previously hypothesized to be a mini-Neptune and astronomers speculate could be completely covered in either ice or water.

The findings were recently accepted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and hold the potential to help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanets, and specifically Earth-sized exoplanets within their star’s habitable zone.

Continue reading “LHS 1140 b: From Mini-Neptune to Potential Water World” »

For decades now, scientists have argued about how the universe is shaped, in the sense of complex parameters that govern the rules of space and time. Is it a simple open expanse, like a bigger version of the spaces we’re used to? Does it wrap around on itself like a donut? Or something even stranger?

Now, new research published in the journal Physical Review Letters, in the inaugural paper from a new consortium of cosmologists known as the COMPACT Collaboration, found that the “topology” of the universe — the shape of its geometry, basically — is likely anything but simple.

The researchers looked at the universe’s cosmic microwave background, which is basically the inherent “glow” of space, dating back to ancient radiation at the dawn of time.

Using the CARMENES spectrograph, astronomers have found evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of a hot Saturn exoplanet designated HD 149,026 b, dubbed Smertrios. The finding, reported in a research paper published on the preprint server arXiv, could be key to a better understanding of the structure and formation scenario of this alien world.

Smertrios is a metal-rich hot Saturn orbiting HD 149026—a yellow subgiant star of spectral type G0 IV, at a distance of some 248.5 light years. The planet has a radius of about 0.81 Jupiter radii and is approximately three times less massive than Jupiter. Previous observations have found that Smertrios orbits its host every 2.876 days, about 0.043 AU from it. The planet’s equilibrium temperature is estimated to be 1,693 K.

The team of astronomers led by Sayyed A. Rafi of the University of Tokyo in Japan employed CARMENES at the Calar-Alto Observatory to conduct high-resolution cross-correlation spectroscopy of Smertrios. Their main aim was to get more insights into the composition of this exoplanet’s atmosphere.

A crystal is an arrangement of atoms that repeats itself in space, in regular intervals: At every point, the crystal looks exactly the same. In 2012, Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek raised the question: Could there also be a time crystal—an object that repeats itself not in space but in time? And could it be possible that a periodic rhythm emerges, even though no specific rhythm is imposed on the system and the interaction between the particles is completely independent of time?

For years, Frank Wilczek’s idea has caused much controversy. Some considered time crystals to be impossible in principle, while others tried to find loopholes and realize time crystals under certain special conditions.

Now, a particularly spectacular kind of time crystal has successfully been created at Tsinghua University in China, with the support from TU Wien in Austria.