Astronomy

A conversation with Anthropic’s chatbot raises questions about how AI talks about awareness.

New research suggests that primordial black holes could have played an important role in the formation of the universe's first stars, but did they help or hinder?

The New Scientist Book Club has just finished reading Adam Roberts's novel Lake of Darkness. Some of us loved it – but some of us weren't so sure about this far-future set slice of hard science fiction

The New Scientist Book Club has just finished reading Adam Roberts's novel Lake of Darkness. Some of us loved it – but some of us weren't so sure about this far-future set slice of hard science fiction

Alex Foster, the author of the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, Circular Motion, on imagining a world that is spinning ever faster

Alex Foster, the author of the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, Circular Motion, on imagining a world that is spinning ever faster

In this passage from the opening of Circular Motion, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, our protagonist boards a vessel which can circle the world in a matter of hours – with dangerous consequences for the Earth’s rotation

In this passage from the opening of Circular Motion, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, our protagonist boards a vessel which can circle the world in a matter of hours – with dangerous consequences for the Earth’s rotation

Data from ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission can be used to estimate how much carbon is stored in forests – and a study has improved our understanding of how reliable this proxy is and how long-term datasets from SMOS can help us to monitor this valuable resource.

The waxing gibbous Moon of August haunts the low south. Venus and Jupiter are drawing toward a spectacular conjunction in early dawn.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, August 1 – 10 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Globular star cluster

Image: Webb takes a fresh look at a classic deep field

Image: A supernova-rich spiral

When people were randomised to receive either a placebo or Ozempic, they became biologically younger with the latter drug

When people were randomised to receive either a placebo or Ozempic, they became biologically younger with the latter drug

After an 8.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, early tsunami warning systems kicked in and helped millions of people safely evacuate

After an 8.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, early tsunami warning systems kicked in and helped millions of people safely evacuate

A new version of the famous double-slit experiment showed that it's impossible to measure light as both a wave and a particle at the same time, thanks to quantum physics' uncertainty principle.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a pill-sized device for treating rheumatoid arthritis, marking the first time the therapy has been approved for an autoimmune condition