A Fast Radio Burst Took 8 Billion Years to Reach Us

By Brian Koberlein - October 24, 2023 02:45 PM UTC | Cosmology
A newly discovered fast radio burst (FRB) absolutely smashed the record for the most distant ever discovered. The burst was found in June 2022 at Australia's ASKAP radio telescope after it had spent 8 billion years crossing the Universe. The FRB released the equivalent of 30 years of solar radiation in milliseconds. The burst could also help astronomers weigh the Universe, measuring how much gas it had to pass through on its long journey to reach Earth.
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JWST Looks at the Debris Disc Around a White Dwarf

By Brian Koberlein - October 22, 2023 04:00 PM UTC | Stars
White dwarfs are the ultimate fate of stars like our Sun, and one of the most exciting examples is located 95 light-years from Earth. In 2018, astronomers saw it suddenly flare up, suggesting that an exoasteroid was disrupted, leading to observations of dust and debris around the star. Astronomers think the star is surrounded by the remnants of its planetary system, crushed into a debris disk. Now, JWST has made its first observations of this intriguing star.
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In 1952, A Group of Three "Stars" Vanished. Astronomers Still Can't Find Them

By Brian Koberlein - October 21, 2023 11:59 AM UTC | Stars
In 1952, the Palomar Observatory imaged a close grouping of three point-like light sources, measuring 15th magnitude in brightness. It took another image an hour later, and the three objects had vanished. Follow-up observations scanned the area down to 21st magnitude and they were still missing. Now astronomers have used the 10.4-m Gran Terescopio Canarias, which should have seen anything brighter than 25.5 mag. Still nothing. What were they, and where did they go?
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Can We Find the Heaviest Elements in Asteroids?

By Brian Koberlein - October 17, 2023 11:32 AM UTC | Planetary Science
Uranium is the heaviest element found in large amounts on Earth, with an atomic number of 92. Although heavier elements were formed in supernovae and particle accelerators, they decay into lighter elements. Physicists have long hoped for an island of stability where heavier elements could be stable, but they've failed to find them on Earth, where they would sink to the core. A physicist team thinks these heavier elements could be found in dense asteroids.
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A Monster Solar Storm Struck Earth 14,300 Years Ago

By Brian Koberlein - October 16, 2023 02:51 PM UTC | Solar Astronomy
Because of our dependence on technology, a powerful solar storm would be a catastrophe, shutting down the electrical grid and deactivating satellites. Researchers studying tree rings have found what they think is the most powerful solar storm ever to hit our planet - 14,300 years ago. So far, scientists have found nine extreme solar storms, called Miyake Events, in the last 15,000 years, but this newly identified one is twice as powerful as anything found.
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Are Pulsars the Key to Finding Dark Matter?

By Brian Koberlein - October 13, 2023 01:00 PM UTC | Physics
The search for dark matter continues, with astronomers developing new hypotheses to search for this invisible gravitational influence on the Universe. One proposed dark matter particle candidate is the axion, which physicists have searched for since the 1970s. One characteristic of axions is that they should convert into light in a strong electromagnetic field. According to a new paper, they should create a faint glow around pulsars, generating intense magnetic fields.
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