In the context of minimal phenomenal experience (MPE), the prevailing assumption is that subjectivity is entirely absent in pure awareness. This conclusion is based on the dissolution of specific properties of subjectivity, such as the first-person perspective and self-localization in space. However, while these properties are integral to subjectivity, their absence does not negate the existence of subjectivity itself. Some individuals report experiencing a bare witness or a sense of presence that might be a default property of consciousness, with other properties(FPP) being content-induced.

Similarly, MPE is often considered timeless due to the lack of change(zero content). We propose that the very persistence of awareness—being aware of itself as the only content—could serve as a rudimentary marker for the passage of time. Imagine an opera singer holding a note: while there’s no pitch change, the experience of the sustained note creates persistence of same experience and duration. Likewise, the persistence of awareness in MPE might provide a minimal sense of time.

Follow-up research on a 2023 image of the Sagittarius C stellar nursery in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, has revealed ejections from still-forming protostars and insights into the impact of strong magnetic fields on interstellar gas and the life cycle of stars.

“A big question in the Central Molecular Zone of our galaxy has been, if there is so much dense gas and cosmic dust here, and we know that stars form in such clouds, why are so few stars born here?” said astrophysicist John Bally of the University of Colorado Boulder, one of the principal investigators. “Now, for the first time, we are seeing directly that strong magnetic fields may play an important role in suppressing star formation, even at small scales.”

Detailed study of stars in this crowded, dusty region has been limited, but Webb’s advanced near-infrared instruments have allowed astronomers to see through the clouds to study young stars like never before.

Everyone knows about ice, liquid and vapor—but, depending on the conditions, water can actually form more than a dozen different structures. Scientists have now added a new phase to the list: superionic ice.

This type of ice forms at extremely high temperatures and pressures, such as those deep inside planets like Neptune and Uranus. Previously, superionic ice had only been glimpsed in a brief instant as scientists sent a shockwave through a droplet of water, but in a new study published in Nature Physics, scientists found a way to reliably create, sustain, and examine the ice.

“It was a surprise—everyone thought this phase wouldn’t appear until you are at much higher pressures than where we first find it,” said study co-author Vitali Prakapenka, a University of Chicago research professor and beamline scientist at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. “But we were able to very accurately map the properties of this new ice, which constitutes a new phase of matter, thanks to several powerful tools.”

A stunning discovery on Mars has revealed the longest organic molecules ever found on the planet—carbon chains that could resemble building blocks of life as we know it. Preserved for billions of years in ancient Martian clay, these molecules were uncovered by NASA’s Curiosity rover and could poi

Who knew that magnetic fields could be so useful?

Astronomers are able to use magnetic fields to map our environment within the Milky Way using a technique called Faraday rotation.

It works like this. There’s a bunch of dust – literal dust grains – floating within the galaxy.

Who knew that magnetic fields could be so useful?

“Since the most distant extent of the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall is hard to verify, the most interesting finding is that the closest parts of it lie closer to us than had previously been identified,” Jon Hakkila of the University of Alabama in Huntsville told Space.com.

The Milky Way, our home galaxy, is part of a different supercluster called Laniakea, which, at 500 million light-years wide, is dwarfed by the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall. In fact, the team says the true extent of the latter structure is currently undetermined.

“Our gamma-ray burst sample is not large enough to place better upper limits on the maximum size of the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall than we already have,” Hakkila said. “But it probably extends farther than the 10 billion light-years we had previously identified. It is larger than the size of most anything to which it might be compared.”

Polar planet 2M1510 (AB) b was found around a pair of brown dwarfs, orbiting at an angle perpendicular to the brown dwarfs’ orbital plane.