Scientists have detected cosmic waves that sound like birds chirping in an unexpected place.
These bursts of plasma, called chorus waves, ripple at the same frequency as human hearing. When converted to audio signals, their sharp notes mimic high-pitched bird calls.
Researchers have captured such sounds in space before, but now they have sensed the chirping waves from much farther away: over 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) from Earth, where they’ve never been measured before.
How does a star’s activity influence exoplanet data obtained by scientists? This is what a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series hopes to address as a team of researchers at University College London (UCL) investigated how stellar activity, specifically star spots, could be “contaminating” exoplanet data, specifically exoplanet atmospheric data. This study has the potential to help astronomers develop more efficient methods for studying exoplanets and their atmospheres, specifically with the number of confirmed exoplanets increasing regularly.
For the study, the researchers used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to analyze data from 20 gas giant exoplanets ranging in size between Neptune-like and hot-Jupiter that transited their respective parent stars. To obtain a more complete dataset, the team observed the exoplanets from optical to near-infrared wavelengths. In the end, they discovered a broad range of “stellar contamination”, meaning stellar activity was influencing the exoplanet data, specifically regarding the atmospheric compositions and temperatures. For example, the results indicated that the number of specific molecules had errors as high as 6 orders of magnitude while temperatures had errors as high as 145 percent.
“Hotter, brighter regions (faculae) emit more light and so, for instance, if a planet passes in front of the hottest part of the star, this might lead researchers to over-estimate how large the planet is, as it will seem to block out more of the star’s light, or they might infer the planet is hotter than it is or has a denser atmosphere. The reverse is true if the planet passes in front of a cold starspot, making the planet appear ‘smaller’,” said Alexandra (Alex) Thompson, who is a PhD student in UCL’s Department of Physics & Astronomy and a co-author on the study.
SPACE (KXAN) — A star flying through the night sky may be the fastest-moving solar system in our galaxy. Possibly a planet a little larger than Neptune orbiting a small star, the system could be moving at least 1.2 million miles per hour, according to NASA.
First discovered in 2011, the system was included in a research project led by Sean Terry with the University of Maryland, College Park, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Terry’s paper on the star was published in February in The Astronomical Journal.
“We think this is a so-called super-Neptune world orbiting a low-mass star at a distance that would lie between the orbits of Venus and Earth if it were in our solar system,” Terry said in a press release from NASA.
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Human brain organoids (“mini-brains”) are being grown in labs around the world. They’re being fed neurotransmitters, competing with AI to solve non-linear equations, and going to space to study the effects of microgravity. This video reviews three preprints, preliminary reports of new scientific studies. (My AI voice caught a cold this week.)
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Preprints:
- Brain Organoid Computing for Artificial Intelligence (Cai et al.) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.28.530502v1.full.
- Modulation of neuronal activity in cortical organoids with bioelectronic delivery of ions and neurotransmitters (Park et al.) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.10.544416v1.full.
Star formation begins in the molecular cloud where each dense core is initially in a balance between self-gravity, which tends to compress the object, and both gas pressure and magnetic pressure, which tend to inflate it.
Since the mass of the Milky Way galaxy is about 1011 M⊙ and its age is about 1010 years, we can calculate that at present, new stars are forming in the molecular cloud of the Milky Way at a rate of about three M⊙ per year.
Another question is how bacteria form these tubes, and under what conditions. The tubes are not much longer than an individual cell, and Prochlorococcus, in particular, is thought to spread out in the water column. Muñoz-Marín and her team are curious about the concentrations of bacteria required for a network to form. “How often would it be possible for these independent cells to get close enough to each other in order to develop these nanotubes?” García-Fernandez asked. The current study shows that nanotubes do form among wild-caught cells, but the precise requirements are unclear.
Looking back at what people thought about bacterial communication when he began to study marine cyanobacteria 25 years ago, García-Fernandez is conscious that the field has undergone a sea change. Scientists once thought they saw myriad individuals floating alongside each other in immense space, competing with neighboring species in a race for resources. “The fact that there can be physical communication between different kind of organisms—I think that changes many, many previous ideas on how the cells work in the ocean,” he said. It’s a far more interconnected world than anyone realized.
The simulation hypothesis suggests that our entire universe and reality could just be hyper-enhanced reality illusions.
He believes recent developments in the field of information physics ‘appear to support this possibility’ in that the physical world is made up of bits of information.
Vopson goes even further by claiming that information might have physical weight and could be a key part of the universe.
The Last Evolution, SF Audiobook, Science Fiction by John W. Campbell Jr.
I am the last of my type existing today in all the Solar System. I, too, am the last existing who, in memory, sees the struggle for this System, and in memory I am.
The Last Evolution by John W. Campbell, Jr.
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Chapter One of the Science Fiction classic that inspired the movie THE THING. Narration by Oscar nominated and Emmy winning Special Makeup Effects Artist.
