Will we have to throw out all of astrophysics?
Category: space – Page 734
An astrobiologist argues that lightning should also be prevalent on planets around other sunlike stars.
The new image reveals the twin galaxies AM 2026–424 — a pair of interacting galaxies that may foreshadow our Milky Way’s own frightening fate.
For more information: https://go.nasa.gov/2WkvPpV
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and M. Durbin (University of Washington).
#NASA #Hubble #space #science #astronomy #universe #telescope #cosmos #halloween #galaxy
Different measurements of the universe’s expansion yield different results. Are we getting something wrong, or do we need brand-new physics to figure it out?
A brand-new particle has possibly emerged and is altering the future destiny of our entire cosmos, a physicist says.
Researchers at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI) and Tohoku University in Japan have recently identified an anomaly in the electromagnetic duality of Maxwell Theory. This anomaly, outlined in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, could play an important role in the consistency of string theory.
The recent study is a collaboration between Yuji Tachikawa and Kazuya Yonekura, two string theorists, and Chang-Tse Hsieh, a condensed matter theorist. Although the study started off as an investigation into string theory, it also has implications for other areas of physics.
In current physics theory, classical electromagnetism is described by Maxwell’s equations, which were first introduced by physicist James Clerk Maxwell around 1865. Objects governed by these equations include electric and magnetic fields, electrically charged particles (e.g., electrons and protons), and magnetic monopoles (i.e. hypothetical particles carrying single magnetic poles).
‘Diamond rain’ on Saturn and Jupiter
Posted in climatology, space
Diamonds as big as jewels fall as “rain” on Saturn and Jupiter, seeded by giant lightning storms, according to new calculations by US scientists.
The three-body problem, one of the most notoriously complex calculations in physics, may have met its match in artificial intelligence: a new neural network promises to find solutions up to 100 million times faster than existing techniques.
First formulated by Sir Isaac Newton, the three-body problem involves calculating the movement of three gravitationally interacting bodies – such as the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun, for example – given their initial positions and velocities.
It might sound simple at first, but the ensuing chaotic movement has stumped mathematicians and physicists for hundreds of years, to the extent that all but the most dedicated humans have tried to avoid thinking about it as much as possible.
Our universe may be riddled with defects in space-time known as cosmic strings. Though we don’t have any evidence yet that they exist, they may still be out there, and I promise that you really don’t want to encounter one.