Astronomy
A youthful brain and immune system may be key to a long life
See interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS zoom through solar system in new telescope imagery (video)
Closing the loop: new Space Rider drop test
1500 deaths in the recent European heatwave were due to climate change
1500 deaths in the recent European heatwave were due to climate change
Old Hubble Space Telescope Photos Unlock the Secret of a Rogue Planet
Astronomers have made a breakthrough by using 25 year old Hubble images to investigate a potential "rogue planet" drifting through space without a host star. When a brief gravitational microlensing event occurred in 2023, researchers discovered Hubble had photographed the same location in 1997, creating an unprecedented quarter century baseline. Finding no stellar companion in the archival data strengthened evidence for a rogue planet with mass between Earth and Saturn, demonstrating the scientific value of space telescope archives for studying these elusive worlds wandering the Galaxy alone.
Machine Learning is Surprisingly Good at Simulating the Universe
Some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world are designed to simulate complex astrophysical processes, like what's happening inside a giant star as it's going supernova. But researchers have developed a new machine learning algorithm that was able to accurately simulate galaxy evolution with fewer computer resources and dramatically more quickly than a supercomputer, which could take years to fully process.
If Dark Energy is Decreasing, is the Big Crunch Back on the Menu?
Astronomers once wondered if the Universe might one day collapse in on itself in a Big Crunch, but the discovery of dark energy suggested that the expansion of the Universe would accelerate, removing that possibility. New data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument suggests that dark energy might be changing in strength over time, maybe even going negative. If that result holds, are we due for a Big Crunch? And how long would it take?