Author(s): Rachel Berkowitz

Cell–cell alignment and a background of stationary cells together shape the emergence of cellular clusters in a primary tumor.

[Physics 17, s141] Published Tue Dec 03, 2024

Most people associate the discovery that faraway galaxies are receding from us — and thus, that the universe is expanding — with Edwin Hubble, thanks to his landmark 1929 paper. It was one of the most fundamental discoveries in the history of science. But Hubble did not discover the expansion. In the 1910s, a LowellContinue reading "Is it time to rename the Hubble constant?"

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Vega, located in the constellation Lyra, is the fifth-brightest star in the night sky. It is known to be surrounded a disk of particle debris that’s almost 100 billion miles (160 billion kilometers) in diameter. The star and its orbiting disk have been photographed countless times by several observatories and satellites, although it was onlyContinue reading "What is Vega’s smooth-surface secret?"

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Hao Liu, taken in Nanjing, China The name Tsuchinshan was on world’s lips this year when Comet C/2023 A3 — otherwise known as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS — burst into naked-eye view. The name refers to Tuschinshan Observatory (or Purple Mountain Observatory), whose facility in Xuyi was the first to discover the comet. In this image, theContinue reading "Tsuchinshan, take a bow"

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Why do we not see effects of dark matter in our solar system and other nearby star systems? Curran RodeAmmannsville, Texas Dark matter refers to material that does not absorb, reflect, or emit any electromagnetic radiation. Astronomers have ascertained the existence of dark matter through the gravitational influence it exerts over visible matter. In fact,Continue reading "Does dark matter affect our solar system?"

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The story of the inner early Solar System goes something like this: Billions of years ago, there were three rocky worlds with oceans of liquid water. Perhaps all three could have been primed for life. But as Mars lost its atmosphere and Venus’ atmosphere experienced a runaway greenhouse effect, only Earth could support life byContinue reading "Venus may never have had oceans"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe the Moon passing by Saturn on the evening of December 7. Both objects at the time will be in the constellation Aquarius the Water-bearer. The Moon will be 43 percent illuminated, or nearly at its First Quarter phase. The Ringed Planet will lie 4 degrees toContinue reading "The Moon passes Saturn: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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Author(s): Philip Ball

A new method for controlling the interactions between ultracold atoms and light could advance efforts to simulate complex quantum systems using atom clouds.

[Physics 17, 170] Published Mon Dec 02, 2024

Author(s): Ryan Wilkinson

A new analysis challenges the claim that a gamma-ray signal observed from a direction near the Milky Way’s center is produced by a dwarf galaxy.

[Physics 17, s147] Published Mon Dec 02, 2024

It may be cold this month, but now is a great time to get outside and explore Jupiter’s beauty and might. The fifth planet will not only reach opposition on Dec. 7, it will also be at perigee (closest to Earth) on Dec. 6, putting on its biggest and brightest show of the year. KnownContinue reading "Watch Jupiter’s moons in action this month"

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Universal manual Penguin Random HouseNew York, NY The beauty and science of space combine in the book Smithsonian Atlas of Space. This 400-page hardback, created by NASA’s Chief Historian Roger D. Launius, features illustrations, maps, and images detailing humanity’s understanding of the universe from ancient times to modern day. It also includes profiles of someContinue reading "Festive astronomy products for everyone on your list"

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Jupiter reaches its best apparition in a decade for northern observers and offers a wealth of detail. Joining in late evening is brilliant Mars, now a month from opposition. Saturn is visible in the early evening, along with Venus soon after sunset. Uranus and Neptune remain visible with binoculars, and Mercury makes a fine morningContinue reading "December 2024: What’s in the sky this month? Jupiter reaches its best Northern Hemisphere opposition in a decade"

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Behyar Bakhshandeh from Carlsbad, California Resembling an outstretched hand, the Helping Hand in Cassiopeia consists of the dark nebulae LDN 1355/7/8, which overlie a region of reflection nebulosity cataloged as LBN 643. This imager took 9 hours of exposure on a 4.2-inch scope in LRGB filters.

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If you have a telescope, or access to one, now’s the time to point it at Jupiter. The largest planet in our solar system reaches opposition December 7. That means it’s directly opposite the Sun from our viewpoint here on Earth. It rises at sunset, sets at sunrise, and is visible all night.  During theContinue reading "See Jupiter at its best"

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Chattanooga, Tennessee, is a favorite city of mine. Not only is it an incredibly beautiful place, with Moccasin Bend in the Tennessee River tucked near the downtown area, but breathtaking views of the whole region await from the towering plateaus of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, arranged neatly around the city’s perimeter. Moreover, for aContinue reading "Firecrown opens revolutionary Space Store in Chattanooga"

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Friday, November 29Pegasus the Winged Horse might be the most well-known horse-themed star pattern in the sky, but he is not alone. Once you find Pegasus, slowly sinking in the west this evening after sunset, next locate Enif, the star that typically is drawn marking Pegasus’ nose or mouth. Just below (west of) this starContinue reading "The Sky This Week from November 29 to December 6: The Moon meets Venus"

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Through the ages, humans have tried to preserve their knowledge and treasures in various repositories, and some of those storehouses have been massive in scale. The library of Ashurbanipal, assembled 700 years before the life of Jesus of Nazareth, is the oldest known collection of human knowledge. Ashurbanipal located his collection of 30,000 cuneiform tabletsContinue reading "How the Moon can save Earth"

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Team ShaRA; data acquired via Chilescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile The latest collaborative processing effort from Team ShaRA targets the Small Magellanic Cloud, working with 13.7 hours of data captured with a cooled CCD camera and 200mm f/2 Nikon lens operated by the Chilescope service. Numerous star-forming emission nebulae are visible, as are details inContinue reading "No small task"

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Author(s): Charles Day

Researchers used machine learning to optimize the process by which a tiny cage is opened to release a molecule.

[Physics 17, 169] Published Wed Nov 27, 2024

Author(s): Rachel Berkowitz

Forces imposed by laser light can manipulate the shape of a membrane’s vibrational modes.

[Physics 17, s148] Published Wed Nov 27, 2024

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station may be far from family and friends this Thanksgiving, but will still enjoy a festive meal. The SpaceX CRS-31 supply mission that docked Nov. 5 carried some 2,119 pounds (961 kilograms) of crew supplies. Among those supplies are holiday treats for the eight astronauts currently manning the station, whichContinue reading "How astronauts celebrate Thanksgiving in space"

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows off its infrared capabilities once again in new imaging of the well-known Sombrero Galaxy, otherwise known as Messier 104. By resolving the thickly textured dust clouds in the outer disk and toning down the brilliant central star glow, JWST shows a whole new side of the famous galaxy.Continue reading "The Sombrero Galaxy doffs its cap to the power of JWST"

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Author(s): Charles Day

Observations confirm a theoretical model explaining how—in Earth’s magnetosphere—large-scale magnetic waves heat up the magnetosphere’s plasma by transferring their energy to smaller-scale acoustic waves.

[Physics 17, 168] Published Tue Nov 26, 2024

NASA has picked SpaceX and Blue Origin to deliver a lunar rover and habitat to the moon within the next decade. The space agency last week announced it will assign two lunar cargo demonstration missions—one to each partner—under the companies’ contracts to build human landing systems (HLS) for the Artemis moon mission program. SpaceX and Blue Origin are working under multibillion-dollar dealsContinue reading "NASA picks SpaceX, Blue Origin to fly lunar rover and habitat to the Moon"

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For decades, astronomers have puzzled over how the supermassive black holes residing in the center of galaxies form. Now, researchers may have found the biggest clue yet to how these monstrous objects — weighing millions of solar masses — came to exist.  An international team used the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) high sensitivity toContinue reading "This black hole is gulping material 40 times faster than the theoretical limit"

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Author(s): David Ehrenstein

Erbium and similar elements provide a wide range of electronic “handles” for manipulating atoms in many-body quantum experiments.

[Physics 17, s151] Published Tue Nov 26, 2024

Michael Sussman/Warren Keller The Fish Head Nebula (IC 1795) lies at the corner of the Heart Nebula (Sharpless 2–190) in Cassiopeia, forming a large stellar nursery laced with dark dust lanes. The imagers collected 27.6 hours of data in SHO filters with a 5-inch scope.

The post On the plate appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

In 1986 and 1989, Voyager 2 made the final two stops on its grand tour of the outer solar system when it swept by Uranus and Neptune, respectively. Now, nearly 40 years later, the archive of data the craft collected is still returning unexpected results.  In a paper published today in PNAS, astronomer Burkhard MilitzerContinue reading "Uranus and Neptune have weird magnetic fields — this might be why"

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China’s lunar exploration program continues to rack up impressive scientific results. Their methodical progression of lunar orbiters, landers, and sample return missions display a consistent national effort to explore and understand the Moon in the 21st century. Unlike the early American and Russian lunar probes at the dawn of the Space Age that often endedContinue reading "Chang’e 6 shakes up our knowledge of the Moon’s farside"

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Author(s): Carmelo Evoli

A new analysis of more than a decade’s worth of observations extends the spectrum of cosmic-ray electrons to unprecedented high energies.

[Physics 17, 165] Published Mon Nov 25, 2024

With the Moon’s terminator moving almost 10 mph (16 km/h) across its equator, how long would it take for an observer using binoculars to notice a change in lunar features? Gary GarcharSan Jose, California The lunar terminator, the sunset/sunrise line that sweeps across the Moon’s surface as the Moon orbits Earth, travels at a rateContinue reading "How long would it take for an observer using binoculars to notice the Moon’s terminator moving?"

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In the 1960s, celebrated radio astronomer Frank Drake proposed his eponymous equation, which attempted to wrangle with the probability of finding extraterrestrial life — at least, the kind that we could identify through radio broadcasts — somewhere out there in the universe. One of the key parameters of that formulation is the rate of starContinue reading "Dark energy sheds light on life in the cosmos"

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David Gluchowski, taken from Brooklyn, New York The Lion Nebula (Sharpless 2–132) is a faint emission nebula lit by young hot stars; their winds and radiation are expanding outward, forming shock waves that comprise many of the lion’s features. This shot also accentuates the play of light and shadow around the lion’s “head”. The imagerContinue reading "The Lion’s markings"

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Scientists seeking the secrets of the universe would like to make a model that shows how all of nature’s forces and particles fit together. It would be nice to do it with Legos. But perhaps a better bet would be connecting everything with strings. Not literal strings, of course — but tiny loops or snippetsContinue reading "String theory is not dead yet"

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Author(s): Sachin Rawat

A new recipe for making hydrogels delivers a material that is both flexible and semiconducting—desired properties for interfaces in implantable medical devices.

[Physics 17, 167] Published Fri Nov 22, 2024

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is well-known for discovering young, bright galaxies in the very early universe. How such regions, bursting with stars, formed so quickly and survived is enticing researchers to rethink cosmic evolution.    A recent study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters uses JWST data to probeContinue reading "JWST spots more light than expected in the early universe"

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