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Category: space – Page 256

New research sheds light on early galaxy formation

Researchers have developed a new computer simulation of the early universe that closely aligns with observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Initial JWST observations hinted that something may be amiss in our understanding of early galaxy formation. The first galaxies studied by JWST appeared to be brighter and more massive than theoretical expectations.

The findings, published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics, by researchers at Maynooth University, Ireland, with collaborators from US-based Georgia Institute of Technology, show that observations made by JWST do not contradict theoretical expectations. The so-called “Renaissance simulations” used by the team are a series of highly sophisticated computer simulations of galaxy formation in the early universe.

How director Nathaniel Kahn brought the James Webb Space Telescope to IMAX with ‘Deep Sky’

“There is this kind of power the images have. It really isn’t from us. We’re creating the context in which you can appreciate them, but we’re not forcing it,” Kahn said.

In the background, award-winning actress Michelle Williams narrates what we see, which, Kahn admits, was a bit of a deviation from his usual filmmaking blueprint.

“Many of my films are done just through putting together interviews with people or encounters with people,” he said. Or in other words, there is no doctored narrative.

JWST captures immense, rare explosion

In March of this year, astronomers detected a brilliant burst of gamma rays more than a million times more luminous than our entire galaxy. It was the second brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever detected and lasted some 200 seconds.

A study published today in Nature reports that this object was a collision of neutron stars one million light-years distant. What’s more, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers were able to see that the blast also served as a cosmic chemical factory, forging some of the rarest chemicals found on Earth.

“The most robust evidence that the merger of two neutron stars caused this burst comes from its kilonova,” says lead author Andrew Levan of Radboud University in the Netherlands, referring to the optical and infrared light coming from the uber-sized explosion.

Scientists discover a 160-mile-thick layer of molten silicates on Mars

Scientists discovered a molten layer at the base of Mars’s mantle that affects its evolution and magnetic field.

A new study has revealed that Mars has a layer of molten silicates at the base of its mantle, above its metallic core. This finding challenges the previous estimates of the internal structure of the red planet, which were based on the first data from the InSight mission.

The InSight mission, which landed on Mars in 2018, deployed a seismometer to measure the seismic waves generated by quakes and meteorite impacts on the planet. By analyzing these waves, scientists could infer the size and density of Mars’s core, mantle, and crust in a series of papers published in 2021.

NIST reveals new superconducting camera technology with 400,000 pixels

Intricate details within the human brain, faint signals in outer space, say cheese!

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their collaborators revealed the creation of a superconducting camera in a statement.

Boasting an impressive 400,000 pixels, this innovative leap represents a four-hundred-fold increase in pixel count compared to any other device of its kind, revolutionizing the way scientists can capture faint light signals from the far reaches of space or explore intricate details within the human brain.

Ancient Landscape Not Seen For 14 Million Years Discovered Beneath Antarctic Ice

An ancient landscape that has remained hidden beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) for at least 14 million years has been revealed by a new satellite data and radar imaging study. According to the researchers, the preservation of this primordial scenery attests to the fact that the EAIS has remained relatively unchanged for eons, yet this stability could soon be threatened by an unprecedented rise in global temperatures.

The study authors used satellite data to identify undulations in the ice sheet’s surface that provided clues as to the nature of the terrain beneath. Using radio-echo sounding techniques, they were then able to image the landscape covered by the ice over an area of 32,000 square kilometers (12,355 square miles).

“The land underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is less well known than the surface of Mars,” explained study author Professor Stewart Jamieson in a statement. “And that’s a problem because that landscape controls the way that ice in Antarctica flows, and it controls the way it might respond to past, present and future climate change.”

Eureka: With GPT-4 overseeing training, robots can learn much faster

On Friday, researchers from Nvidia, UPenn, Caltech, and the University of Texas at Austin announced Eureka, an algorithm that uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model for designing training goals (called “reward functions”) to enhance robot dexterity. The work aims to bridge the gap between high-level reasoning and low-level motor control, allowing robots to learn complex tasks rapidly using massively parallel simulations that run through trials simultaneously. According to the team, Eureka outperforms human-written reward functions by a substantial margin.

“Leveraging state-of-the-art GPU-accelerated simulation in Nvidia Isaac Gym,” writes Nvidia on its demonstration page, “Eureka is able to quickly evaluate the quality of a large batch of reward candidates, enabling scalable search in the reward function space.

Watch NASA test its 8-rotor Titan moon drone Dragonfly

NASA engineers tested a half-scale version of the Dragonfly rotorcraft that will eventually explore the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is a massive success story, far exceeding its original mission goals.

Now, NASA is taking lessons from the first rotorcraft to fly on another planet and applying it to a larger machine exploring Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.