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May 20, 2024
Webb Captures Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail
Posted by Natalie Chan in categories: materials, space travel
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show a part of the iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing its complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution.
Webb’s new images show part of the sky in the constellation Orion (The Hunter), in the western side of the Orion B molecular cloud. Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33, which resides roughly 1,300 light-years away.
The nebula formed from a collapsing interstellar cloud of material, and glows because it is illuminated by a nearby hot star. The gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead have already dissipated, but the jutting pillar is made of thick clumps of material that is harder to erode. Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead has about 5 million years left before it too disintegrates. Webb’s new view focuses on the illuminated edge of the top of the nebula’s distinctive dust and gas structure.
May 20, 2024
Dr Roland Roesch — Director, Innovation and Technology Centre, International Renewable Energy Agency
Posted by Ira S. Pastor in categories: business, climatology, economics, engineering, finance, policy, sustainability
Innovation For A Sustainable Global Energy Transformation — Dr. Roland Roesch, Ph.D. — Director, Innovation and Technology Centre, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
Dr. Roland Roesch, Ph.D. is Director, Innovation and Technology Centre (IITC), of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA — https://www.irena.org/) where he oversees the Agency’s work on advising member countries in the area of technology status and roadmaps, energy planning, cost and markets and innovation policy frameworks.
May 20, 2024
Barry Kemp, Egyptologist who dispelled myths about the ‘Christ-like’ pharaoh Akhenaten — obituary
Posted by Steve Nichols in category: futurism
Professor Barry Kemp, who has died the day after his 84th birthday, was an eminent Egyptologist who directed the excavations at the site in Middle Egypt known as Amarna.
‘The danger of being an absolute ruler is that no one dares tell you that what you have just decreed is not a good idea’
May 20, 2024
Physicists create optical component for 6G
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: biotech/medical, internet
A joint team of physicists from Skoltech, MIPT, and ITMO developed an optical component that helps manage the properties of a terahertz beam and split it into several channels. The new device can be used as a modulator and generator of terahertz vortex beams in medicine, 6G communications, and microscopy. The paper appears in the journal Advanced Optical Materials.
May 20, 2024
If we consider the spacetime of the universe to be four-dimensional, does the Big Bang lie in its center?
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: cosmology, physics
Apologies for the (hopefully now somewhat less) clickbait-y title. Now, of course, I know that the Big Bang did not happen at any point connected to a single point in our current $3$-dimensional observable universe by a one-dimensional causal curve. I also know that at any point in the universe, all other points seem to be moving away from that point. However, according to our current understanding of physics, the universe is (at least) $4$-dimensional. Just like how in the classical “balloon” analogy for an expanding universe, the points do in fact all move away from a common point on the interior of the balloon, all spacetime points do move away from the Big Bang, or at least some kind of cosmological horizon which surrounds it — this is how I understand going forward in time, at least. Does it make sense to think of this as a sort of “center” for the full, $4$-dimensional spacetime? Or are there further subtleties to this situation?
May 20, 2024
Dozens of stars show signs of hosting advanced alien civilisations
Posted by Joseph Barney in categories: energy, space
I don’t subscribe but if you do, you’ll get more but the short summary kinda gives a general idea. Astronomers spotted 60 stars with potential Dyson sphered around them but it isn’t 100% verifiable. It could be a simpler explanation they say.
Sufficiently advanced aliens would be able to capture vast quantities of energy from their star using a massive structure called a Dyson sphere. Such a device would give off an infrared heat signature — and astronomers have just spotted 60 stars that seem to match.
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May 19, 2024
Quantifying Qudits: New Measurements Provide a Glimpse of the Quantum Future
Posted by Cecile G. Tamura in categories: computing, quantum physics
Watch out qubits!
Scientists successfully measure high-dimensional qudits, cousins to quantum computing qubits.
May 19, 2024
Our brains trick us into thinking consciousness can reside outside the body, new Northeastern research proves
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: neuroscience
Iris Berent argues that the debate stems from the delusional biases in the way humans think about the separation of body and mind.