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Category: space – Page 61

Rubin Observatory to detect millions of new solar system objects in vivid detail, simulations suggest

A group of astronomers from across the globe, including a team from the University of Washington and led by Queen’s University Belfast, have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects will be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later in 2025.

The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory is set to revolutionize our knowledge of the solar system’s “small bodies”—asteroids, comets and other .

The Rubin Observatory, under construction on the Cerro Pachón ridge in northern Chile, features the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope with a unique three-mirror design capable of surveying the entire visible sky every few nights.

Scientists discover creature ‘beyond imagination’ in 99 million-year-old amber

We know dinosaurs were around 99 million years ago, but now new research has identified a kind of parasitic wasp that was flying around back then (and which has a strange way of catching its prey).

The species now called Sirenobethylus charybdis had a bizarre mechanism that worked like a Venus flytrap which caught the prey, and then the wasps impregnated them with their eggs, researchers noted in the journal BMC Biology.

Astronomers thought the Milky Way was doomed to crash into Andromeda. Now they’re not so sure

For years, astronomers have predicted a dramatic fate for our galaxy: a head-on collision with Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor. This merger—expected in about 5 billion years—has become a staple of astronomy documentaries, textbooks and popular science writing.

But in our new study published in Nature Astronomy, led by Till Sawala from the University of Helsinki, we find the Milky Way’s future might not be as certain previously assumed.

By carefully accounting for uncertainties in existing measurements, and including the gravitational influence of other nearby galaxies, we found there is only about a 50% chance the Milky Way and Andromeda will merge in the next 10 billion years.

Probing hyperon potential to resolve a longstanding puzzle in neutron stars

A research team led by Prof. Yong Gaochan from the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed a novel experimental method to probe the hyperon potential, offering new insights into resolving the longstanding “hyperon puzzle” in neutron stars. These findings were published in Physics Letters B and Physical Review C.

According to conventional theories, the extreme densities within neutron stars lead to the production of hyperons containing strange quarks (e.g., Λ particles). These hyperons significantly soften the equation of state (EoS) and reduce the maximum mass of neutron stars. However, have discovered neutron stars with masses approaching or even exceeding twice that of the sun, contradicting theoretical predictions.

Hyperon potential refers to the interaction potential between a hyperon and a nucleon. Aiming to resolve the “neutron star hyperon puzzle,” the study of hyperon potential has emerged as a frontier topic in the interdisciplinary field of nuclear and astrophysics. Currently, it is believed that if hyperon potentials exhibit stronger repulsion at high densities, they could counteract the softening effect of the EoS, thereby allowing massive to exist.

Webb telescope detects water vapor on a planet outside the solar system smaller than Neptune

Many of these smaller worlds are shrouded in haze, but this one seems to have clear skies and to be unusually hot.

TOI-421 B sits several times closer to its star than earth does to the sun. The planet’s atmosphere reaches around 1,340°F, which is intense even by exoplanet standards.

Astronomers using the Webb Telescope used a method known as transmission spectroscopy to spot water in the planet’s upper layers.

Goodbye to our Solar System as we know it: Astronomers confirm there is a new planet orbiting the Sun beyond Pluto

The universe is a complete unknown to humans. We are not yet able to control and understand the system in which Earth is located, as evidenced by the possible discovery made by a group of astronomers from the University of Taiwan, who suggest that they may have found clues to the existence of a ninth planet.

The Solar System is currently known to be made up of eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, apart from Pluto, which has long been considered a dwarf planet. But one more could join this select group, according to an infrared study carried out between 1986 and 2006.

The work was based on data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) and the Japanese satellite AKARI, which detected an object moving between 46.5 billion and 65.1 billion miles from the Sun, meaning it would take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete an orbit.

Gas location drives star formation in distant galaxies

In the intriguing realm of star-forming galaxies, the key factor isn’t the total amount of gas but rather its strategic distribution within the galaxy.

Researchers at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) made the discovery about galaxies by studying the gas distribution that helps create stars.

Using CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, researchers explored the gas distribution in about 1,000 galaxies as part of the WALLABY survey.

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