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Category: cosmology – Page 67

Scientists Are Getting Closer to Finding Evidence of the Fifth Force

One proposed way of examining if such a force could exist is by closely monitoring asteroid trajectories, and few near-Earth asteroids are as well observed as Bennu. A new study by an international team of scientists analyzes Bennu to try and placing constraints on a possible fifth fundamental force in the search of ultralight dark matter.

Bennu, one of the most dangerous near-Earth objects, has been meticulously tracked by optical and radar astrometric data since it was discovered in 1999. As the destination for the OSIRIS-REx asteroid retrieval mission, additional X-band radiometric and optical navigation tracking data added even more trajectory precision. The idea is that any deviation in the expected trajectory of the asteroid could be the result of an unknown fifth force at work. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Communications Physics.

Supernovas, Mars, and solar sails!

Weekend posting was delayed by our trip to accept an honor from Caltech… but here it is! Almost entirely about space and science!! Stuff I promise you hadn’t heard before.

We just returned from Pasadena, where Caltech — my alma mater — installed me as Distinguished Alumnus. An honor that I sincerely never expected, given the many brilliant minds I knew when I was there. Reflecting on that is humbling — even ‘imposter syndroming’ — though people kindly urged me to think otherwise.

In today’s delayed posting, I’ll be mostly taking a pause from politics… though the topic of my previous blog — about the likelihood of blackmail poisoning top levels of the U.S. republic — remains horrifically plausible…

…especially now that prominent members of one party are openly admitting that their party is suborned in this way, by foreign powers.

JoshEngels/SAE-Dark-Matter: Code for our paper “Decomposing The Dark Matter of Sparse Autoencoders”

Decomposing the dark matter of sparse autoencoders.

Joshua Engels, Logan Riggs, Max Tegmark MIT 2024 https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.

On mapping concepts in artificial neural networks with sparse autoencoders: we find that map errors exhibit…

Code for our paper ‘Decomposing The Dark Matter of Sparse Autoencoders’ — JoshEngels/SAE-Dark-Matter.

ESA: First piece of great cosmic map features 100 mn celestial objects

The universe’s structure spans a vast network 500 times the size of the moon.

According to ESA, “This first piece of the map already contains around 100 million sources: stars in our Milky Way and galaxies beyond. Some 14 million of these galaxies could be used to study the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the Universe.”

Also, “This is just 1% of the map, and yet it is full of a variety of sources that will help scientists discover new ways to describe the Universe,” Valeria Pettorino, Euclid Project Scientist at ESA, added.

Euclid began its operation in February, and the mosaic is a result of 260 observations recorded between the last week of March and the second week of April 2024.

Light From Behind A Black Hole Observed For The First Time, Confirming Einstein’s Theory

All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike – and yet it is the most precious thing we have. – Albert Einstein (1879−1955)

Astronomers have observed light bending around a black hole, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. By studying X-rays from a black hole in the Zwicky 1 galaxy, scientists detected unexpected “light echoes” coming from behind the black hole, proving that the black hole’s gravity was curving space-time and allowing light to bend around it.

Although this effect was predicted over a century ago, it’s the first time astronomers have witnessed it. The researchers now aim to investigate how black hole coronas produce intense X-ray flares and continue studying space-time distortion.

Most Detailed X-ray Map Of The Universe Reveals Over 900,000 Stars, Galaxies, And Black Holes

The eROSITA survey detected more than 170 million X-ray photons in just 6 months.

Astronomers have created the largest and most detailed X-ray map of the universe, revealing more than 900,000 deep-space objects. This map was produced using data from the eROSITA All-Sky Survey, an ambitious mission that scanned the sky between December 2019 and June 2020, detecting more than 170 million X-ray photons. These findings, including over 700,000 supermassive black holes, galaxy clusters, and other exotic objects, mark a significant leap forward in X-ray astronomy.

The eROSITA Mission The eROSITA X-ray telescope, managed by the Max Planck Society, aimed to capture a complete X-ray survey of the sky. Over six months, the survey gathered an unprecedented amount of data, identifying nearly 900,000 distinct celestial objects. This figure exceeds the number of sources detected by NASA’s Chandra and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray telescopes over the past 25 years combined.