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Tiny newfound 'Unicorn' is closest known black hole to Earth

Mike Wall
Space.com
Thu, 22 Apr 2021 07:21 UTC
Artist's illustration of the tiny black hole candidate known as
© Ohio State illustration by Lauren Fanfer)
Artist's illustration of the tiny black hole candidate known as "The Unicorn" tugging on its companion, a red giant star.
Astronomers have apparently found the closest known black hole to Earth, a weirdly tiny object dubbed "The Unicorn" that lurks just 1,500 light-years from us.

The nickname has a double meaning. Not only does the black hole candidate reside in the constellation Monoceros ("the unicorn"), its incredibly low mass — about three times that of the sun — makes it nearly one of a kind.

"Because the system is so unique and so weird, you know, it definitely warranted the nickname of 'The Unicorn,'" discovery team leader Tharindu Jayasinghe, an astronomy Ph.D. student at The Ohio State University, said in a new video the school made to explain the find.

"The Unicorn" has a companion — a bloated red giant star that's nearing the end of its life. (Our sun will swell up as a red giant in about five billion years.) That companion has been observed by a variety of instruments over the years, including the All Sky Automated Survey and NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
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Nebula

Chernobyl's liquidators didn't pass on radiation damage to their children

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Fri, 23 Apr 2021 19:11 UTC
Chernobyl
© Shutterstock
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
Radiation exposure from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — the world's deadliest nuclear accident — raised the risk of certain mutations linked to thyroid cancer, but it didn't cause new mutations in DNA that parents who cleaned up after the nuclear accident passed along to their children, two new studies find.

The new research is a step forward in understanding the mechanisms that drive human thyroid cancer, said Stephen Chanock, the director of the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the senior author on both research papers. It's also reassuring for those exposed to radiation in events such as the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster and who plan to start families, Chanock told Live Science.

"People who had very high-dose radiation didn't have more mutations in the next generation," he said. "That's telling us that if there's any effect it's very, very subtle and very rare."

Comment: Our understanding of the impact of radiation, as well as nature's resilience, and abilities of adaptation, is changing:

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Rocket

Russian military reportedly creates 'dead zones' for enemy drones and cruise missiles

Ilya Tsukanov
Sputnik
Thu, 22 Apr 2021 11:02 UTC
Field 21-M
© Russian Defense Ministry
Russian Field 21-M (Polye-21M) electronic warfare system
The significance of cruise missiles and drone warfare has become all too apparent in the 21st century, with the United States and its allies in the Middle East regularly using state of the art weapons to launch attacks across Africa, the Middle East and West Asia over the past two decades, mostly against nations without developed air defences.

The Russian military is training to create 'dead zones' completely inaccessible to enemy drones, cruise missiles and other precision weapons, Russian media reports, citing military sources. Sources indicate that the dead zone concept has already been worked out and adopted, and that Electronic Warfare Troops units in several military districts have been practising the concept's employment through drills. Large-scale exercises at the national level are expected to begin next year.

The military reportedly expects to use the 'dead zone' concept to create 'practically impenetrable defences' against enemy drones, cruise missiles and other precision fires, and to defend not only army facilities, but social and industrial infrastructure as well.
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Snakes in Suits

Two weeks to slow global warming: Scientists suggest humanity may be able to avoid climate catastrophes with quick, controversial interventions


RT
Fri, 23 Apr 2021 18:11 UTC
glacier
© Erik Mclean from Pexels
According to the latest research, global warming points of no return for invaluable environmental assets like glaciers and rainforests may have "grace periods" during which humanity can prevent irrevocable loss.

The majority of the climate change debate has focused on the preventative measure of capping temperature rises to below two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

Now, however, the latest research led by Paul Ritchie and Peter Cox from the School of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at Exeter University has explored whether, through extraordinary effort, humanity may row back against the impending climate catastrophe.

These tipping points are the cataclysmic events which would lead to widespread destruction of vast swathes of Earth through flooding, ocean level rise or deforestation among others.
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Meteor

NASA to participate in tabletop exercise simulating asteroid impact


Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA
Wed, 21 Apr 2021 06:41 UTC
Asteroid crater from space station
© NASA, International Space Station Expedition 59
This image was captured by the International Space Station Expedition 59 crew as they orbited 400 kilometers above Quebec, Canada. Right of center, the ring-shaped lake is a modern reservoir within the eroded remnant of an ancient 100 kilometer diameter impact crater, which is over 200 million years old.
JPL's Center for Near Earth Object Studies will lead the hypothetical impact scenario to see how international agencies respond to an actual impact prediction.

During the week of April 26, members of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) will participate in a "tabletop exercise" to simulate an asteroid impact scenario. The exercise depicting this fictional event is being led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), allowing NASA's PDCO and other U.S. agencies and space science institutions, along with international space agencies and partners, to use the fictitious scenario to investigate how near-Earth object (NEO) observers, space agency officials, emergency managers, decision makers, and citizens might respond and work together to an actual impact prediction and simulate the evolving information that becomes available in the event an asteroid impact threat is discovered.

The fictitious impact scenario will occur during the 7th IAA Planetary Defense Conference, hosted by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), and will evolve over the five days of the conference, starting Monday, April 26. At several points in the conference program, leaders of the exercise will brief participants on the latest status of the fictitious scenario and solicit feedback for next steps based on the simulated data that is "discovered" each day. These type of exercises are specifically identified as part of the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan developed over a three-year period and published by the White House in June 2018.

Comment: Meanwhile a record number of asteroids were observed flying past Earth in 2020 - Despite lockdowns interrupting surveys.

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Arrow Up

Largest flare from sun's nearest neighbor breaks records

Daniel Strain
University of Colorado Boulder
Wed, 21 Apr 2021 19:00 UTC
Proxima Centauri
© NRAO/S. Dagnello
Artist's conception of a violent flare erupting from the star Proxima Centauri.
Scientists have spotted the largest flare ever recorded from the sun's nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri.

The research, which appears today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, was led by CU Boulder and could help to shape the hunt for life beyond Earth's solar system.

CU Boulder astrophysicist Meredith MacGregor explained that Proxima Centauri is a small but mighty star. It sits just four light-years or more than 20 trillion miles from our own sun and hosts at least two planets, one of which may look something like Earth. It's also a "red dwarf," the name for a class of stars that are unusually petite and dim.

Proxima Centauri has roughly one-eighth the mass of our own sun. But don't let that fool you.

In their new study, MacGregor and her colleagues observed Proxima Centauri for 40 hours using nine telescopes on the ground and in space. In the process, they got a surprise: Proxima Centauri ejected a flare, or a burst of radiation that begins near the surface of a star, that ranks as one of the most violent seen anywhere in the galaxy.

"The star went from normal to 14,000 times brighter when seen in ultraviolet wavelengths over the span of a few seconds," said MacGregor, an assistant professor at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA) and Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) at CU Boulder.

The team's findings hint at new physics that could change the way scientists think about stellar flares. They also don't bode well for any squishy organism brave enough to live near the volatile star.

"If there was life on the planet nearest to Proxima Centauri, it would have to look very different than anything on Earth," MacGregor said. "A human being on this planet would have a bad time."
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Nuke

Study says nuclear fallout showing up in U.S. honey decades after bomb tests

Nikk Ogasa
Science Magazine
Tue, 20 Apr 2021 18:36 UTC
Nuclear Fallout in Honey
© ARX0NT/ISTOCK
Flowering plants can transfer radiocesium from soils to honey bees, who can then concentrate the contaminant in honey.

Fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and '60s is showing up in U.S. honey, according to a new study. Although the levels of radioactivity aren't dangerous, they may have been much higher in the 1970s and '80s, researchers say.

"It's really quite incredible," says Daniel Richter, a soil scientist at Duke University not involved with the work. The study, he says, shows that the fallout "is still out there and disguising itself as a major nutrient."

In the wake of World War II, the United States, the former Soviet Union, and other countries detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads in aboveground tests. The bombs ejected radiocesium — a radioactive form of the element cesium — into the upper atmosphere, and winds dispersed it around the world before it fell out of the skies in microscopic particles. The spread wasn't uniform, however. For example, far more fallout dusted the U.S. east coast, thanks to regional wind and rainfall patterns.

Radiocesium is soluble in water, and plants can mistake it for potassium, a vital nutrient that shares similar chemical properties. To see whether plants continue to take up this nuclear contaminant, James Kaste, a geologist at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, gave his undergraduate students an assignment: Bring back local foods from their spring break destinations to test for radiocesium.

One student returned with honey from Raleigh, North Carolina. To Kaste's surprise, it contained cesium levels 100 times higher than the rest of the collected foods. He wondered whether eastern U.S. bees gathering nectar from plants and turning it into honey were concentrating radiocesium from the bomb tests.
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Chalkboard

Mystery solved: Scientists crack 'the Brazil-nut' puzzle, how do the largest nuts rise to the top?


PhysOrg
Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:05 UTC
Brazil nuts bowl
© Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Scientists have for the first time captured the complex dynamics of particle movement in granular materials, helping to explain why mixed nuts often see the larger Brazil nuts gather at the top. The findings could have vital impact on industries struggling with the phenomenon, such as pharmaceuticals and mining.

Many people will have the experience of dipping their hands into a bag of mixed nuts only to find the Brazil nuts at the top. This effect can also be readily observed with cereal boxes, with the larger items rising to the top. Colloquially, this phenomenon of particles segregating by their size is known as the 'Brazil-nut effect' and also has huge implications for industries where uneven mixing can critically degrade product quality.

Now, for the first time, scientists at The University of Manchester have used time-resolved 3D imaging to show how the Brazil nuts rise upwards through a pile of nuts. The work shows the importance of particle shape in the de-mixing process.
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Info

Fearsome tyrannosaurs may have hunted in packs study suggest


University of Arkansas
Tue, 20 Apr 2021 19:07 UTC
TRex Skull
© Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management
"Hollywood" specimen, same species as Teratophoneus, discovered approximately two miles north of the "Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry" on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The fearsome tyrannosaur dinosaurs that ruled the northern hemisphere during the Late Cretaceous period (66-100 million years ago) may not have been solitary predators as popularly envisioned, but social carnivores similar to wolves, according to a new study.

The finding, based on research at a unique fossil bone site inside Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument containing the remains of several dinosaurs of the same species, was made by a team of scientists including Celina Suarez, U of A associate professor of geosciences.

"This supports our hypothesis that these tyrannosaurs died in this site and were all fossilized together; they all died together, and this information is key to our interpretation that the animals were likely gregarious in their behavior," Suarez said.

The research team also included scientists from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Colby College of Maine and James Cook University in Australia. The study examines a unique fossil bone site inside Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument called the "Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry" that they say exceeded the expectations raised even from the site's lofty nickname.

"Localities [like Rainbows and Unicorns Quarry] that produce insights into the possible behavior of extinct animals are especially rare and difficult to interpret," said tyrannosaur expert Philip Currie in a press release from the Bureau of Land Management. "Traditional excavation techniques, supplemented by the analysis of rare earth elements, stable isotopes and charcoal concentrations convincingly show a synchronous death event at the Rainbows site of four or five tyrannosaurids. Undoubtedly, this group died together, which adds to a growing body of evidence that tyrannosaurids were capable of interacting as gregarious packs."
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Fireball 5

How to survive a killer asteroid

Cody Cassidy
Wired
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 07:00 UTC
asteroid image
© Elena Lacey/Wired
The impact that wiped out the dinosaurs would probably have killed you too — unless you were in the exact right place and had made the exact right plans.

LET'S SAY FOR a moment you want to camp alongside the dinosaurs. But not just any dinosaurs. You want to camp alongside the most famous. The most fearsome. So let's say you spin the dials on a time machine to 66.5 million years ago and you travel back to the late Cretaceous period.

There's the tyrannosaurus hunting the triceratops. There's the alamosaurus, one of the largest creatures to ever walk the earth. There's the tank-like ankylosaurus crushing opponents with its wrecking-ball tail. And just as you settle down on one particular evening, there's a brand-new star in the northern hemisphere sky.

The star won't flash, flare up, or blaze across the horizon. It will appear as stationary and as twinkly as all the others. But look again a few hours later and you might think this new star seems a little brighter. Look again the next night and it will be the brightest star in the sky. Then it will outshine the planets. Then the moon. Then the sun. Then it will streak through the atmosphere, strike the earth, and unleash 100 million times more energy than the largest thermonuclear device ever detonated. You'll want to pack up your tent before then. And maybe move to the other side of the planet.
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