Category: Astronomy
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Dichotomies…
In a study published in Nature Astronomy, researchers from the United States and Japan unveiled the possible origins of our cosmic neighborhood’s “Great Divide”. A well-known schism which resulted to have on the one side the “terrestrial” planets, such as Earth and Mars and on the other side the more distant planets such as Jupiter…
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Cosmic-scale magnetic fields. Scientific models’ dirty little secrets…
While researchers have believed for some time that magnetic fields of femto-Gauss strength extend to the largest scales in the universe — to scales larger than the largest clusters of galaxies — it is an unresolved mystery how such magnetic fields can have been created in the early universe. One logical possibility is that the…
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Chaos. Numbers. Simulations.
Digital computers use numbers based on flawed representations of real numbers, which may lead to inaccuracies when simulating the motion of molecules, weather systems and fluids, find scientists. The study, published today in Advanced Theory and Simulations, shows that digital computers cannot reliably reproduce the behaviour of ‘chaotic systems’ which are widespread. This fundamental limitation…
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Hard to exist?
Astronomers have discovered the most massive neutron star to date, a rapidly spinning pulsar approximately 4,600 light-years from Earth. This record-breaking object is teetering on the edge of existence, approaching the theoretical maximum mass possible for a neutron star. (1) Should it be there? According to what we knew, perhaps no. But then again, we…
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Citizens’ science… Nothing to do with science…
Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have helped to overturn almost a century of galaxy classification, in a new study using data from the longstanding Galaxy Zoo project. The new investigation uses classifications of over 6000 galaxies to reveal that ‘well known’ correlations between different features are not found in this large and complete sample. (1)…
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