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Category: space – Page 344

Time Appears to Have Run 5 Times Slower in The Early Universe

Because of a peculiar effect velocity has on the appearance of the passage of time, our observations make it seem like time ran slower when the Universe was just a baby.

At least, that’s how it appears to us, at a light travel time of nearly 13 billion years away. This is called time dilation, and astrophysicist Geraint Lewis of the University of Sydney in Australia and statistician Brendon Brewer of the University of Auckland have seen it in the early Universe for the first time by studying the fluctuations of bright galaxies called quasar galaxies during the Cosmic Dawn.

Because of accelerating expansion of the Universe, they have found, we see those fluctuations unfold at a rate five times slower than if they were occurring nearby.

Progressive vs Degenerative Research Programmes wrapper

Hot off the Press! Interview on Progressive vs Degenerative Research Programmes with Leslie Allan!

Progressive research programs, like daring astronauts, catapult us into the vast unknown, making bold, untested predictions that stretch the fabric of our comprehension. Degenerative programs, in contrast, linger in well-trodden territories, shoring up existing knowledge with complex embellishments rather than breaking new ground. Yet, like celestial bodies in the cosmic ballet, each performs an essential role in the dance of discovery, together tracing the contours of the ever-expanding sphere of human understanding.

Leslie Allan is a philosopher & humanist — here are some of his papers: https://latrobe.academia.edu/LeslieAllan.

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Many thanks for tuning in!

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Here’s What NASA Pays to Be Locked in a Mars Simulator for a Year

Four individuals have agreed to be sequestered inside a 1,700-square-foot simulated Mars habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to study what it would be like to live on the Red Planet and how humans can learn to cope in that extreme environment.

During their 378-day stay, which officially kicked off earlier this week, they’ll have a surprisingly busy schedule, including a strict exercise regimen as well as a lengthy list of duties, from performing simulated spacewalks to growing crops.

In other words, it’s a demanding job that’s bound to be tough on the crew of four.

Cosmological models are built on a simple, century-old idea, but new observations demand a radical rethink

Our ideas about the universe are based on a century-old simplification known as the cosmological principle. It suggests that when averaged on large scales, the Cosmos is homogeneous and matter is distributed evenly throughout.

This allows a mathematical description of space-time that simplifies the application of Einstein’s general theory of relativity to the universe as a whole.

Our are based on this assumption. But as new telescopes, both on Earth and in space, deliver ever more precise images, and astronomers discover massive objects such as the giant arc of quasars, this foundation is increasingly challenged.

Photonic-crystal exciton-polaritons in monolayer semiconductors

2018 Finally after a decade an infinite space hard exists with infinite data speeds.

Semiconductor microcavities can host polaritons formed by strong exciton-photon coupling, yet they may be plagued by scalability issues. Here, the authors demonstrate a sub-wavelength-thick, one-dimensional photonic crystal platform for strong coupling with atomically thin van der Waals crystals.

Astronomers find first direct evidence of gravitational wave background

It is much louder than previously believed possible and its discovery will alter our understanding of the universe.

Scientists have heard the “chorus” of gravitational waves emanating throughout the universe for the very first time, and it’s louder than they expected, a press statement reveals.

The new discovery was made by scientists using the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav).

Decoding Nuclear Matter: A Two-Dimensional Solution Unveils Neutron Star Secrets

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have used two-dimensional condensed matter physics to understand the quark interactions in neutron stars, simplifying the study of these densest cosmic entities. This work helps to describe low-energy excitations in dense nuclear matter and could unveil new phenomena in extreme densities, propelling advancements in the study of neutron stars and comparisons with heavy-ion collisions.

Understanding the behavior of nuclear matter—including the quarks and gluons that make up the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei—is extremely complicated. This is particularly true in our world, which is three dimensional. Mathematical techniques from condensed matter physics that consider interactions in just one spatial dimension (plus time) greatly simplify the challenge. Using this two-dimensional approach, scientists solved the complex equations that describe how low-energy excitations ripple through a system of dense nuclear matter. This work indicates that the center of neutron stars, where such dense nuclear matter exists in nature, may be described by an unexpected form.

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