Science & TechnologyS


Satellite

JWST unveils breathtaking images of 19 Milky Way-like spiral galaxies

Margaret Davis
Science Times
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:19 UTC
19 galaxies jwst webb telescope
© NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Lee (STScI), T. Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team, E. Wheatley (STScI)A mosaic image showing all 19 of the spiral galaxies recently viewed by the James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has unveiled detailed images of 19 Milky Way-like spiral galaxies, showcasing stars, gas, and dust with unprecedented precision. Described as extraordinary and mind-blowing by scientist Janice Lee, these images reveal the galaxies at the smallest scales ever observed beyond our own.

The stunning detail has captivated even seasoned researchers who have studied these galaxies for decades, marking a significant advancement in astronomical observation capabilities.

JWST Unveils Unprecedented Views of the Universe

JWST was launched on Christmas Day in 2021 and continues to stand out for its unparalleled ability to capture highly detailed images of distant objects in the universe.

Equipped with near- and mid-infrared cameras, the telescope can perceive light in the infrared spectrum, invisible to the human eye. This capability enables scientists to visualize dust clouds and objects concealed within them, including those too faint for traditional telescopes.
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Microscope 2

'Sewage system' for the brain might be hiding right behind our nose, discovery reveals

Carly Cassella
Science Alert
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 12:00 UTC
nasopharyngeal lymphatic plexus
© Yoon et al., Nature, 2024The nasopharyngeal lymphatic plexus.
Scientists have discovered a 'secret passageway' in mice that connects the brain to the body's lymphatic system.

The network of vessels appears to form an overlooked brain drainage system that plays a crucial role in maintaining the health and function of the central nervous system.

If the findings extend to humans, it could fundamentally change how scientists understand the circulation of fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord.

Comment: See also:

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Hearts

French bulldog puppy spontaneously regrows jaw

Melanie Greaver Cordova, Cornell University
Phys.org
Thu, 01 Feb 2024 12:00 UTC
French bulldog
© Cornell UniversityTyson, a 3-month-old French bulldog, had his jaw regrow after losing a majority of his lower left mandible due to cancer.
Tyson, a 3-month-old French bulldog, had his jaw regrow after losing a majority of his lower left mandible due to cancer. Credit: Cornell University

A puppy's jaw spontaneously regrew after Cornell veterinarians removed a majority of his lower left mandible due to cancer. Although this phenomenon has been documented in children, this is the first reported case of its kind for dogs of any age or breed.

Tyson, a 3-month-old French bulldog, was originally scheduled to see Cornell's Dentistry and Oral Surgery Service for cleft palate surgery in the spring of 2023 when his primary veterinarian noted a cancerous tumor on his jaw.

"Tyson's tumor was an oral papillary squamous cell carcinoma, which is a malignant cancer in dogs," said dentistry and oral surgery resident Alexandra Wright, DVM '18, who led Tyson's care team. "Oral squamous cell carcinoma is the second-most common malignant oral tumor in dogs, and this papillary subtype has previously been reported in young dogs."

Comment: Interestingly, this follows a report from earlier this month that a shark's fin regenerated, over the period of about a year, after being damaged by humans.

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Galaxy

New snapshot of 1st black hole to be photographed appears to confirm relativity

Kiley Price
Live Science
Thu, 25 Jan 2024 21:16 UTC
2 photos black hole M87
© EHT CollaborationThe Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration has released new images of M87* from observations taken in April 2018, one year after the first observations in April 2017.
The new black hole image offers further confirmation for Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.

In 2019, a team of scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration were the first to capture a close-up of a black hole.

Now, five years later, the team has released a new image of the black hole at the center of the galaxy Virgo A, dubbed Messier 87 (M87*).

Just like the first, these pictures show a dark shadow at the center of a bright golden ring. But the brightness peak of the ring has shifted by about 30 degrees compared to the first shot, while the dark heart of the cosmic behemoth is unchanged.

These properties confirm Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, according to a study published on Jan. 18 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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Telescope

'City killer' asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth for centuries this Friday (Feb. 2)

Harry Baker
Livescience
Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00 UTC
stadium-size space rock
© ShutterstockA football stadium-size space rock will make its closest approach to Earth for centuries on Feb. 2.
A "potentially hazardous" football stadium-size asteroid will zip safely past Earth on Friday (Feb. 2), and, in doing so, will reach its closest point to our planet for more than 100 years. It will also be at least several centuries before the space rock ever gets this close to us again.

The massive asteroid, named 2008 OS7, is around 890 feet (271 meters) across and will pass by Earth at a distance of around 1.77 million miles (2.85 million kilometers), according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For context, that is more than seven times further away than the moon orbits Earth.

You can watch the asteroid flyby for yourself thanks to a live stream from The Virtual Telescope Project, which will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET on Feb. 2.

As it passes by Earth, the asteroid will be traveling at a speed of around 41,000 mph (66,000 km/h), according to JPL.
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Telescope

Astronomers make unprecedented discovery in search for water in space

Ashley Strickland
CNN
Fri, 26 Jan 2024 11:13 UTC
planet
© NASA/ESA/Leah Hustak (STScI)/Ralf Crawford (STScI)An artist's illustration depicts exoplanet GJ 9827d (foreground, right) — the smallest exoplanet where atmospheric water vapor has been detected — as it orbits a host star. Two inner planets (bottom left) in the system are also shown.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have detected water molecules in the atmosphere of a small, blazing-hot exoplanet 97 light-years from Earth.

The planet, named GJ 9827d, is about twice Earth's diameter, and it's the smallest exoplanet found to have water vapor in its atmosphere, according to a new study.

Water is essential for life as we know it, but the planet is unlikely to host any type of life due to searing temperatures that would turn a water-rich atmosphere into scorching steam.

The astronomers have yet to uncover the true nature of this unusual world's atmosphere, but the revelation paves the way for further investigation as they seek to understand the origins of planets beyond our solar system.

The findings appeared in a report published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Study coauthor Laura Kreidberg, managing director of the atmospheric physics of exoplanets department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, in a statement said:
"Water on a planet this small is a landmark discovery. It pushes closer than ever to characterizing truly Earth-like worlds."
Yet the planet reaches temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius), making it a steamy, inhospitable world that's as hot as Venus.
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Arrow Down

Carbon dioxide causes much less warming than is commonly believed, new paper finds

Chris Morrison
The Daily Sceptic
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 07:00 UTC
3bears
© Unknown"It's cool man!"
Further holes have been blown in the 'settled' scientific view that humans are responsible for all or most of the changes in the climate by burning hydrocarbons. Three scientists, including Atmospheric Professor Yi Huang of McGill University, have reduced by nearly 40% the basic amount of warming caused by a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide - a figure commonly used to promote the global warming scare. In addition they cast doubt on the ability of CO2 to heat the atmosphere beyond the levels already passed in the pre-industrial age.
"Transmissivity in the CO2 band centre is unchanged by increased CO2 as the absorption is already saturated."
If correct, of course, this work destroys the 'settled' climate science that back the collectivist Net Zero project. The findings are likely to be ignored by the mainstream media. Indeed, on past form some activist journalists and scientists may seek to get the paper retracted. For the time being, it is published by the American Meteorological Society in its Journal of Climate.

Another sensational finding is that higher levels of CO2 seem to actually cool Antarctica. They write:
"The [doubled CO2] forcing in polar regions is strongly hemispheric asymmetric and is negative in the Antarctic."
None of this will be a surprise to regular readers since it would appear to be confirmed by observations that the region has shown "nearly non-existent warming" over the last 70 years. The recent "mind-blowing'" scare over low levels of winter sea ice has been debunked by evidence from early weather satellites showing similar levels in 1966.
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Microscope 1

'Obelisks': Entirely new class of life has been found in the human digestive system

Tessa Koumoundouros
Science Alert
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00 UTC
fecalsample
© Science Photo Library/CanvaSEM of Human Gut Microbiome Fecal Sample
Peering into the jungle of microbes that live within us, researchers have stumbled across what seem to be an entire new class of virus-like objects.

"It's insane," says University of North Carolina cell biologist Mark Peifer, who was not involved in the study, told Elizabeth Pennisi at Science Magazine. "The more we look, the more crazy things we see."

These mysterious bits of genetic material have no detectable sequences or even structural similarities known to any other biological agents.

So Stanford University biologist Ivan Zheludev and colleagues argue their strange discovery may not be viruses at all, but instead an entirely new group of entities that may help bridge the ancient gap between the simplest genetic molecules and more complex viruses.

"Obelisks comprise a class of diverse RNAs that have colonized, and gone unnoticed in, human, and global microbiomes," the researchers write in a preprint paper.

Named after the highly-symmetrical, rod-like structures formed by its twisted lengths of RNA, the Obelisks' genetic sequences are only around 1,000 characters (nucleotides) in size. In fact, this brevity is likely one of the reasons we've failed to notice them previously.
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Telescope

Flashback Asteroid watch: NASA monitors trajectories of 5 asteroids nearing Earth

Mrigakshi Dixit
Interesting Engineering
Tue, 23 Jan 2024 04:23 UTC
earthasteroid
© buradaki/Stock
NASA's Asteroid Watch dashboard has detected five asteroids approaching Earth closely this month.

The dashboard supplies vital information for each encounter, including the closest approach date, approximate object diameter, relative size, and distance from Earth. The dashboard focuses on the next five Earth approaches, all within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers or 19.5 times the distance to the moon).

"An object larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object," the NASA dashboard mentions.

Asteroids making a close approach

On Tuesday, January 23, two asteroids are set for close approaches. The first, named 2024 BA1, approximately the size of a house, will come closest to Earth at a distance of 3,270,000 kilometers.

Simultaneously, another asteroid, 2021 BL3, measuring the size of an airplane, will pass by from a distance of 6,600,000 kilometers.

The NASA dashboard also lists three more asteroids expected to make close Earth approaches later in January.
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Einstein

Special Relativity and the Lorentz Equations: errors in Einstein's 1905 paper


Society for Interdisciplinary Studies
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 16:22 UTC
Equations
© physicsforums.com
The paper in the title has just been published in Physics Essays 37, January 2024, Alasdair Beal .. ISSN 0836-1398 [print] and 2371-2236 [online].

Special Relativity and the Lorentz Equations: Errors in Einstein's 1905 paper. In 1905 Einstein presented his Special Theory of Relativity and claimed to prove that the Lorentz Transformation equations and time dilation of moving clocks can be deduced from it. In a new paper in Physis Essays 37.1, March 2024, Beal has identified errors in Einstein's calculations which invalidate his conclusions.

Despite the mystique around Einstein and relativity there is no complicated physics in this paper and the mathematical errors identified are at the level of simple algebra. Whilst many authors have discussed the implications of Einstein's theory, which are complex, they have not identified the simple errors in his calculations which are fatal to his analysis.

You can view the paper and also download a PDF copy at Beal's web site, https://anbeal.co.uk/relativity.html ...
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