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Category: space – Page 497

Metaphor at the Edge of the Human

Billions of years in the future, The Time Traveler stands before a black ocean, under a bloated sun. The shore is scaled with lichen and flecked with snow. The crab things and giant insects that menaced him on his visit millions of years in its past are gone. Apart from the lapping of dark waves, everything is utterly still.

He thinks he sees something shifting in the waves nearby but dismisses it as an illusion; assuming it to be a rock. Still a churning weakness and fear deters him from leaving the saddle of the time machine. Perhaps this anxiety is just prompted by the ultimate desolation of this world.

Studying the unknown constellations, he feels a chill wind. The old sun is being eclipsed by the moon, or some other massive body – for it is possible that the Earth has shifted into a new orbit around its star.

India’s AstroSat witnessing the ‘live’ formation of dwarf galaxies

Dwarf galaxies are small galaxies composed of a few billion stars. They are challenging to detect due to their low luminosity, low mass, and small size. However, it remains elusive how these dwarf and giant galaxies assemble their stars and evolve into modern-day galaxies.

India’s first dedicated multi-wavelength space observatory, AstroSat, cracked this mystery. A team of scientists using AstroSat shows how the star-forming complexes in the outskirts of a dwarf galaxy migrate towards the central region and contribute to its growth in mass and luminosity.

The team includes astronomers from India, the USA, and France. Professor Kanak Saha at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, conceived this study. Mr. Anshuman Borgohain is the lead author of the paper.

KELT-9b is an ultra-hot Jupiter

KELT-9b is an ultra-hot Jupiter planet that orbits an A type star named KELT-9 about 650 light years away. The reason for this insane heat is the intimate proximity the gas giant has to its host star, which is itself among some of the hottest stars we know, reaching temperatures of roughly 9900ºC (17,852ºF).

Scientists Say Ghosts Could Be Signs of a Simulated Universe

Imagine for a second that the planet we live on, the solar system, our galaxy, and eventually the entire universe we see as infinite is no more than a simulation. What then?

According to a new theory by computer scientists, our universe may be simulated. So what we perceive as “ghosts” could be small pieces of evidence that suggest the universe we live in is simulated.

It’s called the simulation theory, and it proposes that we are no more than “avatars” in a universe that is entirely simulated.

Our galaxy‘s date with destruction

BILLIONS OF YEARS FROM NOW, the night sky will glow with stars, dust, and gas from two galaxies: the Milky Way, in which we live, and the encroaching Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Astronomy by Lynette Cook

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is colliding with its nearest large neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). The merger will change the structure of both galaxies billions of years from now, resulting in a new arrangement of stars known as Milkomeda (“milk-AHM-mee-da”). The merging will significantly change the night sky. But into what?

The Milky Way’s thin disk of stars and gas is currently visible as a nebulous band arching over the summer sky. As Andromeda travels across the Milky Way, a second lane of stars will join the one that is currently visible in the night sky. The stars will no longer be limited to two narrow lanes after the final merger, but will instead scatter throughout the entire sky.

Ancient Rocks Hold Clues to How Earth Avoided a Mars-Like Fate

New paleomagnetic research suggests Earth’s solid inner core formed 550 million years ago and restored our planet’s magnetic field.

Swirling liquid iron in the Earth’s outer core, located approximately 1,800 miles beneath our feet, generates our planet’s protective magnetic field, called the magnetosphere. Although this magnetic field is invisible, it is vital for life on Earth’s surface. That’s because the magnetosphere shields the planet from solar wind—streams of radiation from the sun.

However, about 565 million years ago, the magnetic field’s strength dropped to 10 percent of its strength today. Then, mysteriously, the magnetic field bounced back, regaining its strength just before the Cambrian explosion of multicellular life on Earth.

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