An international team of scientists has demonstrated that the Australian Bogong moth uses star constellations and the Milky Way to navigate during its annual migration over hundreds of kilometers across the country. It is the first known invertebrate capable of using a stellar compass for long-distance travel, a behavior that until now had only been […]
Stars
Posted inScience
Astronomers tune in to a star’s music and make a surprising finding about its age
Astronomers at the W. M. Keck Telescope facility on Maunakea have have listened to the music of a nearby star, finding shocking irregularities in its size and age. In the finding, appearing in The Astrophysical Journal, we see indirectly into the internal processes of a star heretofore believed to be too tranquil to examine—proposing new […]
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A Magnetar of Unknown Origin, Capable of Destroying Atoms a Thousand Kilometers Away, Is Crossing the Milky Way
A rogue magnetar, named SGR 0501+4516, is crossing our galaxy without a clear trace of its birth, according to a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. This object, initially discovered in 2008 by NASA’s Swift observatory, is one of the 30 known magnetars in the Milky Way, but its behavior challenges conventional theories […]
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The Explosion of a Supernova Three Million Years Ago Altered Evolution in Africa
Located in a region isolated by mountains along the Great Rift Valley in East Africa, Lake Tanganyika stretches over 600 kilometers and is the deepest lake on the continent. Containing approximately 16% of the world’s available freshwater, this ecosystem has witnessed extraordinary biological events. According to a recent study from the University of California, Santa […]
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The Sun Took Between 10 and 20 Million Years to Form from Elements Produced in Ancient Red Giants
An international team of scientists has made a major breakthrough in understanding how and when the Sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago. This research, conducted at the GSI/FAIR center in Germany, provides new insights into the star formation process and helps us better understand the origins of our solar system. The findings have been […]
Posted inAncient Rome
How Emperor Hadrian Created a New Constellation in the Firmament
Those who enjoy the history of the Roman Empire are well acquainted with the story of Antinous, the young man of extraordinary beauty who deeply captivated Emperor Hadrian. Not only did Hadrian love him, but he also shared a very close and personal bond with him. This bond culminated in tragedy in the year 132 […]
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A Supermassive Black Hole Destroying Stars Solves the Mystery of Stellar Eruptions
A massive black hole has ripped apart a star, and now it’s using the remnants of that star to impact another nearby star or possibly a smaller black hole that was once safe from harm. This discovery, made through NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, helps astronomers connect two previously separate mysteries by offering […]
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A star passed so close to the Solar System billions of years ago that it originated the moons of the outer planets
Billions of years ago, a star may have passed incredibly close to our Solar System, triggering a series of cosmic events that led to the creation of the moons around the outer planets and the unusual orbits of distant celestial bodies. This new theory, backed by over 3,000 computer simulations, was proposed by a team […]
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First Euclid Images Reveal Billions of Orphan Stars Orbiting an Intriguing Point Between the Galaxies from Which they Were Ejected
The Euclid satellite’s first scientific images have unveiled over 1.5 trillion orphan stars scattered throughout the Perseus galaxy cluster. This discovery, led by astronomers from the University of Nottingham, sheds new light on the origins of these wandering celestial bodies. Located 240 million light-years from Earth, the Perseus cluster is one of the most massive […]
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Olbers’ Paradox: Why is the Night Sky Dark if There Are Billions of Stars?
Olbers’ Paradox, also known as the dark sky paradox, is an apparent contradiction about why the night sky is dark instead of being completely illuminated by the light of an infinite number of stars. It is believed that the first to raise the problem was Lord Kelvin, in an essay published in 1901, and that […]
