Copernical Team
Finding quasars: Rare extragalactic objects are now easier to spot
Astrophysicists from the University of Bath have developed a new method for pinpointing the whereabouts of extremely rare extragalactic objects. They hope their technique for finding 'changing-look quasars' will take scientists one step closer to unravelling one of greatest mysteries of the universe - how supermassive black holes grow. Quasars are believed to be responsible for regulating the gr First images of Ganymede as Juno sailed by
The first two images from NASA Juno's June 7, 2021, flyby of Jupiter's giant moon Ganymede have been received on Earth. The photos - one from the Jupiter orbiter's JunoCam imager and the other from its Stellar Reference Unit star camera - show the surface in remarkable detail, including craters, clearly distinct dark and bright terrain, and long structural features possibly linked to tectonic fa Earth's meteorite impacts over past 500 million years tracked
For the first time, a unique study conducted at Lund University in Sweden has tracked the meteorite flux to Earth over the past 500 million years. Contrary to current theories, researchers have determined that major collisions in the asteroid belt have not generally affected the number of impacts with Earth to any great extent.
Researchers have been studying geological series since the 19t SpaceX Cargo Dragon truck docks at Space Station
While the International Space Station was traveling more than 250 miles over the South Pacific ocean, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft autonomously docked to the space-facing side of the orbiting laboratory's Harmony module at 5:09 a.m. EDT, Saturday, June 5. NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur were monitoring docking operations for Dragon.
This 22nd contracted resupply miss Dust: An Out-of-This World Problem
Dust is a nuisance on Earth. Thankfully, we can simply pull out a vacuum or grab a rag to rid ourselves of the concoction of dust mites, fibers, soil, pollen, and other tiny bits.
Beyond Earth's atmosphere, dust is insidious. On the Moon, it's made of crushed rock and is damaging to everything from lunar landers to spacesuits and human lungs if inhaled. As NASA readies to return to the Moo Rosetta stone eruption on the sun could help explain solar explosions
In a dramatic, multi-staged eruption, the sun has revealed new clues that could help scientists solve the long-standing mystery of what causes the sun's powerful and unpredictable eruptions. Uncovering this fundamental physics could help scientists better predict the eruptions that cause dangerous space weather conditions at Earth.
This explosion contained components of three different types of solar eruptions that usually occur separately—making it the first time such an event has been reported. Having all three eruption types together in one event provides scientists with something of a solar Rosetta Stone, allowing them to translate what they know about each type of solar eruption to understand other types and uncover an underlying mechanism that could explain all types of solar eruptions.
"This event is a missing link, where we can see all of these aspects of different types of eruptions in one neat little package," said Emily Mason, lead author on the new study and solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It drives home the point that these eruptions are caused by the same mechanism, just at different scales.
Scientists identify a rare magnetic propeller in a binary star system
Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have identified the first eclipsing magnetic propeller in a cataclysmic variable star system, according to research forthcoming in the Astrophysical Journal.
The star system, referred to as J0240, is only the second of its kind on record. It was identified in 2020 as an unusual cataclysmic variable—a binary system consisting of a white dwarf star and a mass-donating red star. Normally, the compact white dwarf star collects the donated gas and grows in mass. In J0240, however, the fast-spinning, magnetic white dwarf rejects the donor's gas and propels it out of the binary system.
"It takes a rapidly spinning dwarf with a strong magnetic field in order to create a propeller," said Peter Garnavich, professor of astrophysics and cosmology physics and chair of the Department of Physics at Notre Dame, and lead author of the study that presented evidence of the propeller system.
New X-ray map reveals growing supermassive black holes in next-gen survey fields
UFOs: How to calculate the odds that an alien spaceship has been spotted
The US military has released previously classified photos and films related to unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings, which mostly show something blurry moving strangely. Still, I hear that a friend of a friend has gone from thinking there's a 1% chance that UFOs are aliens to now believing it is 50%. Is he rational?
People are constantly seeing things in the sky they don't understand. The vast majority are airplanes, satellites, weather balloons, clouds, rocket launches, auroras, optical reflections and so on. But for some sightings, there's no known explanation. The problem is that people jump to the conclusion "unknown = aliens". And when you think about it, this is fairly odd. Why not angels?
Anyway, I like to do maths instead. The Bayes formula (below), a mainstay of statistics, gives the probability (Pr) of something, given some evidence.
Cosmic cartographers map nearby Universe revealing the diversity of star-forming galaxies
