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A radio telescope observed complex activity in a magnetar 8,000 light-years from Earth:

A CSIRO team discovered a dormant star waking up with “unusual radio pulses” after being silent for years.

Most magnetars are known to emit polarized light, which oscillates in a certain direction. This magnetar generates light with circular polarization, creating a rapid spiral pattern as it travels across space.

Continue reading “Magnetic star flashes ‘never seen before’ signals baffling scientists” »

A newly developed AI method can calculate a fundamental problem in quantum chemistry: Schrödinger’s Equation. The technique could calculate the ground state of the Schrödinger equation in quantum chemistry.

Predicting molecules’ chemical and physical properties by relying on their atoms’ arrangement in space is the main goal of quantum chemistry. This can be achieved by solving the Schrödinger equation, but in practice, this is extremely difficult.

Using observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) a study led from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has confirmed that the asteroid 2023 FW14, discovered last year, is accompanying the red planet in its journey round the sun, ahead of Mars and in the same orbit.

With this new member, the group of Trojans that accompany Mars has increased in number to 17. But it shows differences in its orbit and chemical composition which may indicate that it is a captured asteroid, of a primitive type. The results are published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

A team from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has observed and described for the first time the object 2023 FW14, a Trojan asteroid that shares its orbit with Mars. After Jupiter, the red planet has the largest number of known Trojans, totaling 17 with this new identification.

A solar occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth and blocks the bright light of the Sun’s surface from view. The shadow of the Moon will fall in a small path on Earth’s surface, called the zone of totality.

With 5,000 tiny robots in a mountaintop telescope, researchers can look 11 billion years into the past. The light from far-flung objects in space is just now reaching the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), enabling us to map our cosmos as it was in its youth and trace its growth to what we see today.

Did Mars once contain life, or even the building block for life? This is what NASA’s Perseverance (Percy) rover has been trying to determine ever since it landed in Jezero Crater, which has shown an overwhelming amount of evidence to have once been site to a massive lakebed. Now, NASA recently announced that Percy has collected its 24th rock sample on March 11th, nicknamed “Comet Geyser”, with this sample being unlike the first 23 in that evidence suggests it was submerged in standing water for an indeterminant amount of time when Mars had liquid water billions of years ago.

Mosaic image of the drill holes where NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover extracted the “Comet Geyser” rock sample. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

“To put it simply, this is the kind of rock we had hoped to find when we decided to investigate Jezero Crater,” said Dr. Ken Farley, who is a project scientist for Perseverance and a professor of geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. “Nearly all the minerals in the rock we just sampled were made in water; on Earth, water-deposited minerals are often good at trapping and preserving ancient organic material and biosignatures. The rock can even tell us about Mars climate conditions that were present when it was formed.”

The Messier 82 Galaxy (commonly known as M82) is a starburst galaxy located approximately 12 million light-years from Earth, with starburst meaning it is experiencing an unusually high rate of star formation, with approximately 10 times the number of stars being formed compared to our own Milky Way Galaxy. While M82 has a long history of being studied, specifically by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal uses data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to conduct more in-depth observations of M82 and its starburst characteristics.

Images of Messier 82 obtained by NASA’s Hubble in 2006 (left) versus recent images obtained by NASA’s JWST (right). (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Bolatto (University of Maryland))

“M82 has garnered a variety of observations over the years because it can be considered as the prototypical starburst galaxy,” said Dr. Alberto Bolatto, who is a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland and lead author of the study. “Both NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have observed this target. With Webb’s size and resolution, we can look at this star-forming galaxy and see all of this beautiful, new detail.”

NASA has given three space companies the chance to design the next-generation moon buggy — but only one design will go to space. Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab are developing rugged vehicles intended for astronauts to drive around on the lunar surface, from which NASA may choose as early as next year.

The three teams will now enter into a 12-month “feasibility phase” that will culminate in a preliminary design review. At that point, there will be a subsequent competitive request for proposals, where the trio of companies will compete for a demonstration task order, NASA officials explained during a press conference on Wednesday.

At that point, a final awardee will be selected. The chosen company will be responsible not only for designing the lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) but also for launching and landing it on the moon prior to the Artemis V mission, which is currently slated for no earlier than 2029.

Machine learning revolutionizes secure quantum communication, pushing its boundaries to unprecedented frontiers.