Supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy may have a friend – The Conversation US

Do supermassive black holes have friends? The nature of galaxy formation suggests that the answer is yes, and in fact, pairs of supermassive black holes should be common in the universe.

I am an astrophysicist and am interested in a wide range of theoretical problems in astrophysics, from the formation of the very first galaxies to the gravitational interactions of black holes, stars and even planets. Black holes are intriguing systems, and supermassive black holes and the dense stellar environments that surround them represent one of the most extreme places in our universe.

The supermassive black hole that lurks at the center of our galaxy, called Sgr A*, has a mass of about 4 million times that of our Sun. A black hole is a place in space where gravity is so strong that neither particles or light can escape from it. Surrounding Sgr A* is a dense cluster of stars. Precise measurements of the orbits of these stars allowed astronomers to confirm the existence of this supermassive black hole and to measure its mass. For more than 20 years, scientists have been monitoring the orbits of these stars around the supermassive black hole. Based on what weve seen, my colleagues and I show that if there is a friend there, it might be a second black hole nearby that is at least 100,000 times the mass of the Sun.

Almost every galaxy, including our Milky Way, has a supermassive black hole at its heart, with masses of millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun. Astronomers are still studying why the heart of galaxies often hosts a supermassive black hole. One popular idea connects to the possibility that supermassive holes have friends.

To understand this idea, we need to go back to when the universe was about 100 million years old, to the era of the very first galaxies. They were much smaller than todays galaxies, about 10,000 or more times less massive than the Milky Way. Within these early galaxies the very first stars that died created black holes, of about tens to thousand the mass of the Sun. These black holes sank to the center of gravity, the heart of their host galaxy. Since galaxies evolve by merging and colliding with one another, collisions between galaxies will result in supermassive black hole pairs the key part of this story. The black holes then collide and grow in size as well. A black hole that is more than a million times the mass of our son is considered supermassive.

If indeed the supermassive black hole has a friend revolving around it in close orbit, the center of the galaxy is locked in a complex dance. The partners gravitational tugs will also exert its own pull on the nearby stars disturbing their orbits. The two supermassive black holes are orbiting each other, and at the same time, each is exerting its own pull on the stars around it.

The gravitational forces from the black holes pull on these stars and make them change their orbit; in other words, after one revolution around the supermassive black hole pair, a star will not go exactly back to the point at which it began.

Using our understanding of the gravitational interaction between the possible supermassive black hole pair and the surrounding stars, astronomers can predict what will happen to stars. Astrophysicists like my colleagues and me can compare our predictions to observations, and then can determine the possible orbits of stars and figure out whether the supermassive black hole has a companion that is exerting gravitational influence.

Using a well-studied star, called S0-2, which orbits the supermassive black hole that lies at the center of the galaxy every 16 years, we can already rule out the idea that there is a second supermassive black hole with mass above 100,000 times the mass of the Sun and farther than about 200 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth. If there was such a companion, then I and my colleagues would have detected its effects on the orbit of SO-2.

But that doesnt mean that a smaller companion black hole cannot still hide there. Such an object may not alter the orbit of SO-2 in a way we can easily measure.

Supermassive black holes have gotten a lot of attention lately. In particular, the recent image of such a giant at the center of the galaxy M87 opened a new window to understanding the physics behind black holes.

The proximity of the Milky Ways galactic center a mere 24,000 light-years away provides a unique laboratory for addressing issues in the fundamental physics of supermassive black holes. For example, astrophysicists like myself would like to understand their impact on the central regions of galaxies and their role in galaxy formation and evolution. The detection of a pair of supermassive black holes in the galactic center would indicate that the Milky Way merged with another, possibly small, galaxy at some time in the past.

Thats not all that monitoring the surrounding stars can tell us. Measurements of the star S0-2 allowed scientists to carry out a unique test of Einsteins general theory of relativity. In May 2018, S0-2 zoomed past the supermassive black hole at a distance of only about 130 times the Earths distance from the Sun. According to Einsteins theory, the wavelength of light emitted by the star should stretch as it climbs from the deep gravitational well of the supermassive black hole.

The stretching wavelength that Einstein predicted which makes the star appear redder was detected and proves that the theory of general relativity accurately describes the physics in this extreme gravitational zone. I am eagerly awaiting the second closest approach of S0-2, which will occur in about 16 years, because astrophysicists like myself will be able to test more of Einsteins predictions about general relativity, including the change of the orientation of the stars elongated orbit. But if the supermassive black hole has a partner, this could alter the expected result.

Finally, if there are two massive black holes orbiting each other at the galactic center, as my team suggests is possible, they will emit gravitational waves. Since 2015, the LIGO-Virgo observatories have been detecting gravitational wave radiation from merging stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars. These groundbreaking detections have opened a new way for scientists to sense the universe.

Any waves emitted by our hypothetical black hole pair will be at low frequencies, too low for the LIGO-Virgo detectors to sense. But a planned space-based detector known as LISA may be able to detect these waves which will help astrophysicists figure out whether our galactic center black hole is alone or has a partner.

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Supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy may have a friend - The Conversation US

NICER delivers best-ever pulsar measurements and first surface map – Space Daily

Astrophysicists are redrawing the textbook image of pulsars, the dense, whirling remains of exploded stars, thanks to NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), an X-ray telescope aboard the International Space Station. Using NICER data, scientists have obtained the first precise and dependable measurements of both a pulsar's size and its mass, as well as the first-ever map of hot spots on its surface.

The pulsar in question, J0030+0451 (J0030 for short), lies in an isolated region of space 1,100 light-years away in the constellation Pisces. While measuring the pulsar's heft and proportions, NICER revealed that the shapes and locations of million-degree "hot spots" on the pulsar's surface are much stranger than generally thought.

"From its perch on the space station, NICER is revolutionizing our understanding of pulsars," said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Pulsars were discovered more than 50 years ago as beacons of stars that have collapsed into dense cores, behaving unlike anything we see on Earth. With NICER we can probe the nature of these dense remnants in ways that seemed impossible until now."

When a massive star dies, it runs out of fuel, collapses under its own weight and explodes as a supernova. These stellar deaths can leave behind neutron stars, which pack more mass than our Sun into a sphere roughly as wide as the island of Manhattan is long. Pulsars, which are one class of neutron star, spin up to hundreds of times each second and sweep beams of energy toward us with every rotation. J0030 revolves 205 times per second.

For decades, scientists have been trying to figure out exactly how pulsars work. In the simplest model, a pulsar has a powerful magnetic field shaped much like a household bar magnet. The field is so strong it rips particles from the pulsar's surface and accelerates them. Some particles follow the magnetic field and strike the opposite side, heating the surface and creating hot spots at the magnetic poles.

The whole pulsar glows faintly in X-rays, but the hot spots are brighter. As the object spins, these spots sweep in and out of view like the beams of a lighthouse, producing extremely regular variations in the object's X-ray brightness. But the new NICER studies of J0030 show pulsars aren't so simple.

Using NICER observations from July 2017 to December 2018, two groups of scientists mapped J0030's hot spots using independent methods and converged on similar results for its mass and size. A team led by Thomas Riley, a doctoral student in computational astrophysics, and his supervisor Anna Watts, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam, determined the pulsar is around 1.3 times the Sun's mass and 15.8 miles (25.4 kilometers) across.

Cole Miller, an astronomy professor at the University of Maryland (UMD) who led the second team, found J0030 is about 1.4 times the Sun's mass and slightly larger, about 16.2 miles (26 kilometers) wide.

"When we first started working on J0030, our understanding of how to simulate pulsars was incomplete, and it still is," Riley said. "But thanks to NICER's detailed data, open-source tools, high-performance computers and great teamwork, we now have a framework for developing more realistic models of these objects."

A pulsar is so dense its gravity warps nearby space-time - the "fabric" of the universe as described by Einstein's general theory of relativity - in much the same way as a bowling ball on a trampoline stretches the surface. Space-time is so distorted that light from the side of the pulsar facing away from us is "bent" and redirected into our view. This makes the star look bigger than it is.

The effect also means the hot spots may never completely disappear as they rotate to the far side of the star. NICER measures the arrival of each X-ray from a pulsar to better than a hundred nanoseconds, a precision about 20 times greater than previously available, so scientists can take advantage of this effect for the first time.

"NICER's unparalleled X-ray measurements allowed us to make the most precise and reliable calculations of a pulsar's size to date, with an uncertainty of less than 10%," Miller said. "The whole NICER team has made an important contribution to fundamental physics that is impossible to probe in terrestrial laboratories."

Our view from Earth looks onto J0030's northern hemisphere. When the teams mapped the shapes and locations of J0030's spots, they expected to find one there based on the textbook image of pulsars, but didn't. Instead, the researchers identified up to three hot "spots," all in the southern hemisphere.

Riley and his colleagues ran rounds of simulations using overlapping circles of different sizes and temperatures to recreate the X-ray signals. Performing their analysis on the Dutch national supercomputer Cartesius took less than a month - but would have required around 10 years on a modern desktop computer. Their solution identifies two hot spots, one small and circular and the other long and crescent-shaped.

Miller's group performed similar simulations, but with ovals of different sizes and temperatures, on UMD's Deepthought2 supercomputer. They found two possible and equally likely spot configurations. One has two ovals that closely match the pattern found by Riley's team. The second solution adds a third, cooler spot slightly askew of the pulsar's south rotational pole.

Previous theoretical predictions suggested that hot spot locations and shapes could vary, but the J0030 studies are the first to map these surface features. Scientists are still trying to determine why J0030's spots are arranged and shaped as they are, but for now it's clear that pulsar magnetic fields are more complicated than the traditional two-pole model.

NICER's main science goal is to precisely determine the masses and sizes of several pulsars. With this information scientists will finally be able to decipher the state of matter in the cores of neutron stars, matter crushed by tremendous pressures and densities that cannot be replicated on Earth.

"It's remarkable, and also very reassuring, that the two teams achieved such similar sizes, masses and hot spot patterns for J0030 using different modeling approaches," said Zaven Arzoumanian, NICER science lead at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It tells us NICER is on the right path to help us answer an enduring question in astrophysics: What form does matter take in the ultra-dense cores of neutron stars?"

NICER is an Astrophysics Mission of Opportunity within NASA's Explorers program, which provides frequent flight opportunities for world-class scientific investigations from space utilizing innovative, streamlined and efficient management approaches within the heliophysics and astrophysics science areas. NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate supports the SEXTANT component of the mission, demonstrating pulsar-based spacecraft navigation.

A series of papers analyzing NICER's observations of J0030 appears in a focus issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is now available online.

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Related LinksNeutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER)Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It

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Mysterious blinking lights in the night sky could be ALIENS, new study claims – The Sun

MYSTERIOUS flashing lights visible among the stars may be signs of alien activity, scientists claim.

Around 100 of the blinking red glow have been spotted by astronomers over the past 70 years and scientists still have no explanation for them.

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In a new scientific paper, experts claim these lights could be evidence of an undiscovered space event ... or ET.

There's a chance they're signs of alien structures or "interstellar communication lasers", researchers wrote in the Astronomical Journal.

However, this is an outside bet, and the most likely source is "natural, if somewhat extreme astrophysical sources."

The team based in Sweden examined publicly accessible images, such as old military records, dating back to the 1950s.

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They compared these historical observations to modern sky surveys to find signs of blinking lights, such as stars that have disappeared from the Milky Way.

"Finding an actually vanishing star or a star that appears out of nowhere! would be a precious discovery,"said project leader Beatriz Villarroel, of Stockholm University.

"It certainly would include new astrophysics beyond the one we know of today."

Stars typically die in one of two ways: Either slowly transitioning into white dwarfs or rapidly exploding as supernovae.

In total, 100 objects were found that fit neither of these categories. Instead, they disappeared from the night sky and appeared again later.

Researchers said they had no direct evidence the lights were caused by aliens.

Fermi Paradox what is it?

Here's what you need to know...

However, they're almost out of ideas and warned an extraterrestrial origin could not be ruled out.

The only natural explanation for the lights would be a "failed supernova".

This is a theoretical prediction foe what happens when a very massive star collapses into a black hole.

It's thought such events don't give off an explosion, though they're extremely rare.

Whatever scientists find, the discovery of the source would likely change the face of astrophysics forever.

"The implications of finding such objects extend from traditional astrophysics fields to the more exotic searches for evidence of technologically advanced civilisations," experts wrote.

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In other news, trillions of tiny alien probes may be flying in space but are too small for Nasa to spot, according to one recent paper.

A former Nasa scientist claimed in October that the space agency found alien life on Mars in the 1970s.

Andhere's why some people still think the Moon landings were faked 50 years later and the man who started the hoax theory.

Do you think aliens exist? Let us know in the comments!

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Mysterious blinking lights in the night sky could be ALIENS, new study claims - The Sun

First Map of a Pulsar’s Surface Reveals ‘Hotspots’ in Unexpected Places – Space.com

Scientists have created the first "hotspot" map of the surface of a strange star, thanks to a telescope on the International Space Station.

The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) got a view of a pulsar, a fast-rotating remnant of an exploded star. With these observations, scientists found that this pulsar, called J0030+0451 (or J0030 for short), has even weirder hotspots than they'd imagined.

Pulsars are the leftovers from huge stars that collapsed under their own gravity during supernova explosions. A pulsar's magnetic field is typically shaped like the curves generated from a household bar magnet, scientists suggest.

Related: NICER Telescope Spots Brightest X-Ray Burst Ever Observed

Additionally, pulsars have hotspots that glow in X-rays at their magnetic poles. That's because a pulsar's magnetism is so strong it can actually tear particles away from its own surface. A few of those particles follow the magnetic field lines and then slam into the other side of the object at its pole.

Yet, observations of J0030 show no hotspots at all in the pulsar's northern hemisphere the only area of the pulsar we can see from Earth. Researchers ran simulations and found that up to three hotspots may appear in its southern hemisphere, but we can't say for sure which interpretation is correct.

One team attempted to re-create the X-ray signals "using overlapping circles of different sizes and temperatures," NASA said in a statement, and then running the results through a supercomputer. With this method, the team found two hotspots: a small, circular one and a larger, crescent-shaped long one. This work was led by Thomas Riley, a doctoral student in computational astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam.

Another team did the same thing, but used ovals of different temperatures and sizes and a different supercomputer. Their simulation came up with two equally possible solutions. The first solution suggested that there are two ovals in the same locations found by the first team. Alternatively, there could also be a fainter, cooler spot that is a little away from the pulsar's south rotational pole, lingering amid the two ovals. This team was led by Cole Miller, an astronomy professor at the University of Maryland.

"Previous theoretical predictions suggested that hot spot locations and shapes could vary, but the J0030 studies are the first to map these surface features," NASA added. "Scientists are still trying to determine why J0030's spots are arranged and shaped as they are, but for now it's clear that pulsar magnetic fields are more complicated than the traditional two-pole model."

Through independent measurements of J0030, these teams also arrived at similar results for the pulsar's mass and size: Riley's team determined that the pulsar is roughly 1.3 times the mass of the sun and 15.8 miles (25.4 kilometers) in diameter, while Miller's team estimated that J0030 is 1.4 times the mass of the sun and about 16.2 miles (26 km) in diameter.

Several papers about NICER's observations of J0030 were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, including the ones led by Riley and Miller.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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‘The size, the grandeur, the peacefulness of being in the dark’: what it’s like to study space at Siding Spring Observatory – The Conversation AU

How did our galaxy form? How do galaxies evolve over time? Where did the Suns lost siblings end up?

Three hours north-east of Parkes lies a remote astronomical research facility, unpolluted by city lights, where researchers are collecting vast amounts of data in an effort to unlock some of the biggest questions about our Universe.

Siding Spring Observatory, or SSO, is one of Australias top sites for astronomical research. Youve probably heard of the Parkes telescope, made famous by the movie The Dish, but SSO is also a key character in Australias space research story.

In this episode, astrophysics student and Conversation intern Cameron Furlong goes to SSO to check out the huge Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT), the largest optical telescope in Australia.

Read more: Darkness is disappearing and that's bad news for astronomy

And we hear about Huntsman, a new specialised telescope that uses off-the-shelf Canon camera lenses a bit like those you see sports photographers using at the cricket or the footy to study very faint regions of space around other galaxies.

Listen in to hear more about some of the most fascinating space research underway in Australia and how, despite gruelling hours and endless paperwork, astronomers retain their sense of wonder for the night sky.

For me, it means remembering how small I am in this enormous Universe. I think its very easy to forget, when you go about your daily life, said Richard McDermid, an ARC Future Fellow and astronomer at Macquarie University.

Its nice to get back into it to a dark place and having a clear sky. And then you get to remember all the interesting and fascinating things, the size, the grandeur and the peacefulness of being in the dark.

Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click here to listen to Trust Me, Im An Expert on Pocket Casts).

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The science of Star Wars – and how it has changed movies forever – News – The University of Sydney

The end of the Skywalker saga

This weeks release The Rise of Skywalker will mark the end of a nine-movie saga stretching back decades, which with an estimated combined box office revenue of more than$US9billion ($13 billion) is the second highest-grossing film franchise of all time.

This generations Star Wars franchise completes this summer with the much anticipated The Rise of Skywalker. In the wake of 2017s The Last Jedi, critics and fans will fast be trying to take stock of the legacy of the Star Wars phenomenon, said film studies expert Dr Bruce Isaacs, who has researched Hollywoods dominance of the movie industry.

While Star Wars is fantasy, its impossible to watch it without a scientific eye, said astrophysicist, cosmologist and sci-fi fan Professor Geraint Lewis.

The results? Some science is good, some is bad and much is downright awful. Sounds in space, magical forces and dogfighting battles, Star Wars has everything to make a physicist groan.

Astrophysicist and asteroseismologist Professor Tim Bedding has also looked into the science and science fiction of Star Wars, and says there is at least one thing the series got right.

Thanks to NASA's Kepler space telescope, we know that circumbinary planets planets like Tatooine that orbit two stars instead of one are a real thing. The Kepler mission has found several. So, while most of Star Wars is pure fantasy not based in science, that was actually a good prediction, he said.

Among the moviegoers flocking to cinemas to watchThe Rise of Skywalkerthis week are likely to be members of the practising Jedi population in Australia.

According toProfessor of Religious Studies Carole Cusack, Jediism as a new religious phenomenon debuted with the 'Jedi Census' e-mail campaign in 2001.

In Anglophone countries including, but not limited to, Australia, New Zealand and the UK scores of thousands of people put 'Jedi' as their religion in the 2001 Census, despite government threats of legal recriminations, Professor Cusack said.

Jediism is now nearly 20 years old and has evolved as a complex and viable ethical faith, with real-world temples and orders supplementing online communities.

Studying Jediism offers insights into the 21st century spiritual quest, contemporary masculinities, and the value of elective communities. The Jedis of today have moved some way from the Star Wars films that originally inspired them, but retain important connections to the fictional world created by George Lucas.

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The science of Star Wars - and how it has changed movies forever - News - The University of Sydney

The 4 women on Nature’s ‘People who mattered in Science in 2019’ list – Women’s Agenda

Each year, Nature Magazine profiles 10 people who made a significant impact in the field of science.

This year, four women made it onto the list, including Macquarie University bioethicist Dr Wendy Rogers. Also on the list was Times Person of the Year, Greta Thunberg, American-Canadian astrophysicist Dr Victoria Kaspi and Argentinian ecologist Dr Sandra Daz.

Below we share a little more on each of the four women who made the list.

Dr Wendy Rogers, bioethicist, Macquarie University, SydneyDr Rogers is a bioethicist who has been researching the particularly challenging subject of forced organ donation in China, which the Chinese government once denied. Dr Rogers work involves examining research publications by Chinese transplant doctors with a team at Macquarie, with conclusions that prove donors have in fact, not given consent. Rogers draws on both her medical and philosophical training to expose sketchy data from Chinas organ donation programme. She was recently named Australias Research Field Leader for bioethics by The Australian.

Greta Thunberg, Activist, SwedenNature describes Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg as a climate action catalyst who is channeling a generations rage to shift policy and save the world for global climate disaster. Journalist Quirin Schiermeier notes that, Scientists have spent decades warning about climate change, but they couldnt galvanize global attention the way that Thunberg did this year. The Swedish 16-year-old has outshone them and many are cheering her along. Thunbergs spoken at the UN and been named 2019s Times Person of the Year.

Dr Victoria Kaspi, astrophysicist, McGill University, MontrealTo be a woman in the field of astrophysics is to have moved within the halls of male power. The field is largely and famously dominated by men; in fact, Nature reported last year that astronomy was losing women at three times the rate of men. Thats just one of the reasons why the work that Dr Kaspi has accomplished is earth-shatteringly impressive. For the past 25 years, the Canadian-American has used many of the worlds top telescopes to make fundamental astronomy. Two years ago, she was part of a team in Canada that built the worlds best detecter of fast radio bursts (FRBs) which are essentially mysterious flashes of radio energy that frequently pop off across the sky. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME for short) has since spotted hundreds of bursts, many more than any other telescopes around the world. In 2016, she won Canadas highest science prize, the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering.

Dr Sandra Daz, ecologist, National University of Crdoba, ArgentinaWhat does a researcher who studies biodiversity do, exactly? Change the world! This year, Argentinian ecologist Diaz undertook the most exhaustive study ever of the worlds biodiversity, and finished with a 1,500 page document; expressing that that nations will fail to meet most global targets in biodiversity and sustainable development unless they make massive changes. The research also concluded that that one million species are heading for extinction because of human activities. Diazs history in conservation science has lead her to becoming an influential figure in policy-making not just in her home-country, but also, across the world. Last week, Diaz told Dissent Magazine; Biodiversity and natures contributions to people are our common heritage and humanitys most important life-supporting safety net, but our safety net is stretched almost to breaking point. The delicate ecological balance that has formed the basis for human civilization for the last 10,000 years is all but history.

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The 4 women on Nature's 'People who mattered in Science in 2019' list - Women's Agenda

Planetary Mass Objects Discovered in Other Galaxies – Universe Today

A team of researchers at the University of Oklahoma have discovered planetary mass bodies outside of the Milky Way. They were discovered in one gravitationally-lensed galaxy, and in one gravitationally-lensed galaxy cluster using a technique called quasar micro-lensing. According to the researchers, the planetary mass objects are either planets or primordial black holes.

These detections are the second and third of this type. The first occurred in 2018 involving some of the same researchers. There is currently no way to directly detect objects like these, and no way to differentiate between planets and small black holes.

The detection of planet-mass objects, either free-floating planets or primordial black holes, are extremely valuable for modeling of star/planet formation or early universe, said lead author Dai in a press release. Even without decomposing the two populations, our limit on the primordial black hole population are already a few orders of magnitude below previous limits in this mass range.

The new paper outlining these findings is titled Confirmation of Planet-mass Objects in Extragalactic Systems. The authors are Saloni Bhatiani, Xinyu Dai, and Eduardo Guerras. The paper is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Weve learned a lot about the variety and relative abundance of planets in our own Milky Way galaxy in the last few years. But what about other galaxies? Theyre difficult to probe at that level of detail, which means weve had very little evidence about extra-galactic planets, only assumptions. But a new technique based on quasar micro-lensing is giving us more evidence.

The technique relies on the light from distant bright Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) or quasars. Using that light, the researchers were able to study the spectrum in the light signatures of the planetary bodies. This allowed them to constrain the fraction of these planet-mass objects with respect to the galactic halo. The objects are about 0.01 % of the total mass of their host galaxies. Their masses range from from Jupiter to Moon mass and provide the most stringent constraints at this mass range.

The two systems are Q J0158-4325 and SDSS J1004+4112.

These objects are gravitationally unbound, and according to the researchers theyre one of two things: rogue free-floating planets that were ejected or scattered during the formation of stars and planets; or primordial black holes. As the researchers say in their paper, Our analysis suggests that unbound planet-mass objects are universal in galaxies, and we surmise the objects to be either free-floating planets or primordial black holes.

We can consistently extract signals from planet mass objects in distant galaxies. This opens a new window in astrophysics.

This study shows that planetary-mass objects are likely universal in galaxies. It also provides the first-ever constraints on mass for the intracluster region of a galaxy cluster. For primordial black holes, these limits are several orders of magnitude below previous limits. As they say in their paper, The planet to stellar scale astronomical dark matter is also known as massive compact halo objects (MACHOs.) It was previously constrained to be less than 10% of the total mass of the Milky Way. But this work brings that down to about 0.01 % of the total mass of their host galaxies.

We are very excited about the detections in two new systems, said Ph.D. student Saloni Bhatiani, who was one of the researchers. We can consistently extract signals from planet mass objects in distant galaxies. This opens a new window in astrophysics.

As the paper says, The number density of FFPs (free-floating planets) not only depends on the detailed ejection processes, but also on the planet formation models. Primordial black holes are thought to be formed during the inflation epoch from quantum fluctuations. Therefore, these planet-mass objects can either serve as a probe of star/planet formation and scattering process, or of fundamental physics in the very early universe in the inflation era.

So this work is striking because it confirms the existence of planetary-mass objects when the Universe was half the age it is now.

The data that supports this work came from NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory. The observational evidence for these planet-mass objects was derived from the microlensing signals that appear as shifts in the X-ray emission line of the quasar. These observational measurements were matched against microlensing simulations that were computed at the OU Supercomputing Center for Education and Research.

Primordial black holes formed in the early universe. Theyre largely hypothetical, and if they do exist, they formed in the first second after the Big Bang. At that time, the universe was lumpy rather than homogenous, and astronomers think that some dense, hot regions couldve collapsed into black holes.

For some time, scientists, including the late Stephen Hawking, thought that dark matter could be primordial black holes. But that theory appears to have been put to bed in a 2019 paper.

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NASA Just Watched a Mass of Cyclones on Jupiter Evolve Into a Mesmerising Hexagon – ScienceAlert

Jupiter is a turbulent place. Its colossal red cycloneis, of course, the planet's most famous storm. But when NASA's Juno probe arrived in 2016, it found something even more wildly tempestuous - the gas giant's polar regions.

At the north pole, nine storms raged;a large central one bang on the pole, and eight smaller ones arrayed around it. At the south pole, there was a similar, but slightly different arrangement with six storms, five arrayed in an almost perfect pentagon around a central cyclone. These cyclones are all similarly sized - almost as wide as the United States.

(And at each pole, all cyclones are spinning in the same direction - counterclockwise in the north, and clockwise in the south. That's pretty neat.)

Not much was known about these storms. Were they permanent or semi-permanent features, like the Great Red Spot, or would they soon be wiped away? We know now, after several years of Juno flybys, that the storms are pretty persistent.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM)

But, on the most recent flyby - the 22nd of the Juno probe's data-collecting missions, when it swoops in just 3,500 kilometres (2,175 miles) above Jupiter's cloud tops - it imaged something new with its optical and infrared instruments.

The storms at the south pole had formed not a pentagon, but a hexagon. There was a newcomer.

"Data from Juno's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument indicate we went from a pentagon of cyclones surrounding one at the centre to a hexagonal arrangement," said astrophysicist Alessandro Mura of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy in a NASA announcement.

"This new addition is smaller in stature than its six more established cyclonic brothers: It's about the size of Texas. Maybe JIRAM data from future flybys will show the cyclone growing to the same size as its neighbours."

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM)

It seems like it's settling in nicely. Although these weird configurations of storms appear nowhere else in the Solar System (Saturn has its own polar storm weirdness, with one giant, hexagonal storm at its north pole, and a polar vortex at the south), studying them can help us to better understand the atmospheric dynamics of gas giants.

"These cyclones are new weather phenomena that have not been seen or predicted before," said planetary scientist Cheng Li of the University of California, Berkeley.Jupiter's south pole in December 2017. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstdt)

"Nature is revealing new physics regarding fluid motions and how giant planet atmospheres work. We are beginning to grasp it through observations and computer simulations.

"Future Juno flybys will help us further refine our understanding by revealing how the cyclones evolve over time."

Incidentally, does anyone else have a weird craving for pizza?

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NASA Just Watched a Mass of Cyclones on Jupiter Evolve Into a Mesmerising Hexagon - ScienceAlert

NASA’s Mission to ‘Touch the Sun’ Begins to Unravel Mysteries of Solar Wind – WTTW News

NASAs Parker Solar Probe has now traveled closer to the sun than any other spacecraft.

Named for pioneering University of Chicago astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who first proposed the existence of the solar wind in 1958, the probe is making a series of passes through the suns corona to help unravel the mysteries of our closest star.

The probe has an elliptical orbit and has already completed three of 24 planned passes, moving closer each time before a final, fiery descent into the sun in 2025.

On its closest approach before that final death plunge the probe will pass within 4 million miles of the suns surface and reach speeds of up to 430,000 mph.

The Parker Solar Probe is the hottest mission ever. Its going to get closer to the sun than any other mission before it, said Angela Olinto, Dean of the Physical Sciences Division in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago.

Olinto was with Parker when the probe was launched from Cape Canaveral in August 2018. She said that when Parker first proposed the idea of a solar wind many of his peers thought he was crazy.

This was not something that people believed existed in the 1950s. The idea that that thing that we see every day has a wind that comes all the way from the sun to us and all the way to the edge of the solar system was completely radical, she said.

In the 1950s, Parker was a physicist rather than an astronomer, Olinto said. But it was his pioneering work that ultimately created the field of study we now call astrophysics.

By applying simple hydrodynamics and magnetic field dynamics it was complex at the time but today any physics undergraduate can do it he found a solution which would have this flow of particles, this wind, that would be filling the space between the sun and all the planets, she said. When he wrote that down the referees of his paper didnt believe it and thought he was crazy.

They told him that the space between the sun and us was empty. He argued that there was nothing wrong with his calculations and that according to physics it should not be empty.

Fortunately for Parker, the advent of the space age soon proved the truth of his theory when the solar wind was detected by spacecraft.

Among the new discoveries revealed in four papers published by NASA in the journal Nature, the probe has observed magnetic switchbacks in which magnetic fields completely reverse course and instead of flowing out from the sun point back toward it.

Those switches are new, nobody had seen them before, Olinto said. We also have (observed) more turbulence in the solar wind and that is something that we could never have seen from far away.

A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASAs Parker Solar Probe on a mission to touch the Sun, on Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018 from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. (Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls)

Parker, the first living person to have a NASA mission named after them, still lives in Hyde Park and is excitedly reviewing the probes findings so far.

Hes incredibly engaged at looking at the results, Olinto said. He is 92 but he is much more excited about the measurements than the fact that the probe is named after him.

In a statement, Parker said: It was humbling to see the probes launch and watch it disappear into the night sky. But now that data is finally coming in and being analyzed, things are getting really exciting.

Weve already seen evidence for some very surprising phenomena in the data which you should always expect when you travel into regions where spacecraft have never been before, Parker said. That is part of the excitement of these missions, and Im looking forward to what comes next.

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NASA's Mission to 'Touch the Sun' Begins to Unravel Mysteries of Solar Wind - WTTW News

Why i recently learn Astrophysics at Tufts and When you Too – ADOTAS

Why i recently learn Astrophysics at Tufts and When you Too

Greetings! Im Jed, Im a great senior on Tufts university. Over my four years here weve attempted to be involved with numerous communities that are online actions essaywriterforyou.com which range from Males Rugby towards Freeform Airwaves, but its for many years been my informative community which includes defined our experience. Actually an Astrophysics major. All of the method through my valuable time at Tufts Ive done research for remote galaxies and analyzed the within of megastars, even while groing through to understand exactly just what it indicates to become a university of physics and astronomy.

Some physics degree is likely to provide you with a much much deeper and much more significant understanding of the planet you meet. Besides balms in technology and know-how that is technological decreasing the specific observable community to regular laws and regulations is compelling for many reasons. Firstly, there clearly was beauty that is serious terms the terminology of arithmetic guides physics. At a look, the old saying beauty might sound away from spot into the research of physics. But when i find physics evocative in much the manner that is same the will be able to work of Monet or Picasso compel belief. After the solution of rational thought due to concision wrapping that is rapid working hours, times or maybe several years of do the trick to a simple statement is awe-inspiring and stunning.

Tufts University website hosts A physics that is diverse and team. Via high energy that will high redshift, faculty, graduate student and preliminary research spans a range that is wide. Ab muscles Physics along with Astronomy Dept allows you to definitely completely focus your examine by playing research along with reaching the general public at its head. Do you enjoy the building that is basic related to matter: easy particles? Appearance versus Professor Gallagher and Professor Beauchemin for subjects about experimental high power physics. You could have an interest in undoubtedly perhaps perhaps perhaps not the smallest the world provides, however the most critical. If so, sign in with research teams focused on galactic together with extragalactic progress lead by just teachers Sajina and Marchesini (youll encounter me personally generally there as well)! For the past few years ive been accomplishing research in just extragalactic astrophysics, specially that concentrate on several of the most numerous celebrity vegetation to perhaps occur. Elaborate amazing is the fact that we are able to in reality point out confirmed epoch in the history utilizing the world at any time galaxies happen to even be creating more movie stars in comparison with at any various other period. Regretably because of things such as for example extraordinary distances and also envelopes about mud and gas, really working with these galaxies is fairly a task. For those reasons a lot of us utilize a mixture off empirical facts and statistically rigorous computer simulations to look for the fundamental evolutionary characteristics of those intriguing and another of a sort galactic wide range. Before visiting Tufts, we thought breaking within the industry related to scientific studies are daunting. However the process is manufactured remarkable and easy at Tufts due to our house users and buddies and peers in Physics and Astronomy.

At Stanford, to go far lower into your Physics education shall be to befriend your organizations professors as well as peers. We now have a close, attached and community that is collaborative between undergraduates, graduates, post-doctoral fellows and school alike. Fridays Physics Colloquium brings the whole division along for caffeine and sugars before invitee lecturers from around the united states of america contained in fascinating as well as revolutionary day research that is modern. We selected Tufts prepared for the community, and turn that in to the rugby you will need to offer or perhaps within the extensive research essential, this community has often defined this experience.

So what does which means that being an introvert that is domestic?

To know this analysis, id like to just take one step back into junior high, a period of time whenever I may have shuddered using this extremely thought. If mentioned my big fat dread, i might individually have stated solitude.

Ive been the common social butterfly, ungratefully referred to as chatterbox that is exact. Around university, me personally the adult that is paradoxical, whom appears ahead to Fro-Yo arguements and naps along with her bloated Dumbo held tightly towards her breasts, but enjoys a hunting, stormy debate concerning every thing when you look at the class. While the other associated with the the signs of being fully a thoroughly lost also confused freshman has been brimmed over with numerous, overwhelming things.

By which have you been through?

Just how many various languages do you link?

Could you wear pajamas into the IR program?

Now I will be simply completely grateful perhaps not a heart ever described the concern about our big fear that is fat. Guess what happens mine nevertheless was? Lonesomeness.

It is unsurprising me once and for all to appreciate the actual comforts involving solitude that it needed. Within my efforts to final constantly connected, We started to grab associates and chats. However the much more I droped in to the group, remained away belated and even surrounded average person with friends, the dark a troubling feeling required root on me personally. We knew that i obtained increasingly lacking a tremendously friend that is exceptional. Us. And if i simply considered Myself to be all on your own, ended up being just how we desire any less lonely?

Inconsistent realizations led to deliberate self- introspection. The excess we taken notice associated with countless jargon linked with ideas interior my crown, the not as afraid when i expanded for confronting plenty of worries. Realistically talking, worries of creating probably the most of my own supplier did correlate that is nt necessary loneliness and on occasion even unhappiness. Freezing wasnt able to accept the belief that they are busy driving my notebook, or navigating new roads alone in a perfectly content frame of mind using my favorite publication in hand, considering that not all who also wander tend to be lost that I was fully capable of taking advantage of a meal not having the pretense.

Those realizations caused me for you yourself to work out notably better control across my lifestyle that is interpersonal with to be honest driven to personal overall well- being. This in more detail forever increase long, substantive conversations and religiously assist the chaos erupting inside our popular space. Yet I am likewise effective at savoring auto that is silent with all the current radio blasting within the history. I enjoy people that are hearing need to state. My buddies declare Im good listener, in addition to a part- period lunatic considering that theyve seen me personally soundlessly dancing to my personal favorite songs at the radio section. (within our protection, it had been simply a moderate swaying u wasnt on anyones approach. )

Given that self- more self latin women dating assessment is still a really topic that is hot my mind, allow ask a fresh rhetorical subject and capture my training of idea. Have always been we beautiful?

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Why i recently learn Astrophysics at Tufts and When you Too - ADOTAS

100 mysterious blinking lights in the night sky could be evidence of alien life… or something weird, say boffins – The Register

A hundred red objects blinking in and out of existence across Earths skies over the past 70 years have left scientists giddy: they believe this could be evidence of previously unseen astronomical phenomena or and hold tight, now alien civilizations.

The objects were scrutinized by the Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project, led by Stockholm University in Sweden, which is on the lookout for the Milky Ways weirdest events.

Astrophysicists, faced with poring over 600 million objects, whittled down their search to just 100 by focusing on observations of objects in space that simply just disappear, or ones that have rapidly fluctuating brightness levels that vary over a 70-year time period. They hunted for the outliers by comparing data logged in the US Naval Observatory Catalogue (USNO) from the 1950s to the more modern Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) recorded in 2016.

The strangest objects flare up and dim across several orders of magnitude beyond whats traditionally seen in other types of highly variable objects, like eclipsing binary systems or active galactic nuclei outbursts. And a few seem to have vanished, leaving the researchers puzzled.

Dying stars end their lives slowly, taking millions or billions of years to transition to different evolutionary stages. Rapid changes over 70 years suggest stranger phenomenon not yet fully understood, according to a paper published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.

The implications of finding such objects extend from traditional astrophysics fields to the more exotic searches for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations, the studys abstract reads.

VASCO researchers hope to find evidence of things like R Coronae Borealis stars, a rare type of carbon-rich supergiant with brightnesses that can fade up to nine magnitudes over irregular time intervals. Or perhaps, the transient events are failed supernovae.

Failed supernovae are thought to occur when a gigantic stars directly collapse into a black hole without any sort of visible outburst. They have been theoretically predicted, but not yet confirmed.

There might even be wackier explanations for those randomly blinking hundred objects. Current searches for extraterrestrial intelligence have considered interstellar optical laser communication in the infrared range as a potential clue for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.

"Finding an actually vanishing star - or a star that appears out of nowhere! - would be a precious discovery and certainly would include new astrophysics beyond the one we know of today", said Beatriz Villarroel, VASCO project leader and a researcher at Stockholm University and Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias, Spain.

Villarroel reckons that the weird objects in the data are natural, if somewhat extreme astrophysical sources rather than aliens. Researchers are hoping to publish the images they have collected for the VASCO project as part of a wider citizen science project.

We hope to get help from the community to look through the images as a part of a citizen science project, said Lars Mattsson, co-author of the paper and a researcher at Stockholm University. We are looking at ways to do that right now and that will be something we will be able to talk more about at a later date."

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100 mysterious blinking lights in the night sky could be evidence of alien life... or something weird, say boffins - The Register

Supersize me: Physicists awarded $3.3M for XL-Calibur telescope | The Source – Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom

In 2018, X-Calibur measured the polarization of the high-energy X-ray emissions from a neutron star. NASA has committed more than $3 million to a new instrument dubbed XL-Calibur that builds on successes from the previous campaign. (Photo: Washington University)

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis will develop and deploy a new telescope designed to measure the linear polarization of X-rays arriving from distant neutron stars, black holes and other exotic celestial objects. The instrument will be flown on a minimum of two scientific balloon launches as early as summer 2021. The NASA-funded effort builds on promising results from a previous balloon-borne mission known as X-Calibur and is dubbed XL-Calibur.

The new XL-Calibur will feature a more powerful mirror that will allow us to collect three times more signal, said Henric Krawczynski, the Wayman Crow Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences, and the principal investigator for the research effort. Combining the more powerful mirror with improved focal pane instrumentation, we expect a sensitivity improvement by a factor of at least one order of magnitude.

Linear polarization is the preferred plane in which the electric field of the X-rays oscillates. It encodes information about the geometries of distant objects (for example, the spin of a rotating black hole), the magnetic fields that surround them and the physical mechanisms that accelerate particles to extremely high energies and prompt them to emit the X-rays.

Krawczynski led the team that developed the successful predecessor, the X-Calibur hard X-ray polarimetry telescope, which flew in December 2018 from McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

Dangling in the stratosphere beneath an enormous balloon at a float altitude of 125,000 feet above sea level, the instrument collects data that can provide new insights into how neutron stars and black holes in a binary orbit grow by gobbling up stellar matter. A paper reporting the results from the 2018 flight is currently under review.

Washington University will lead the science and manage the new XL-Calibur experiment. The researchers will also develop, build and test the upgraded scattering polarimeter device that is central to the mission. NASA is supporting this effort with a grant exceeding $3 million; additional funding is provided by Japanese and Swedish funding agencies.

X-Calibur, a predecessor instrument, was designed to measure the polarization of X-rays emitted from sources in space using a custom array of rotating Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CZT) detectors. (Video: Washington University)

The XL-Calibur system will incorporate several innovations to reduce background noise, including thinner detectors and improved shielding.

The experiment includes a 12-meter-long telescope made of carbon fiber tubes, aluminum joints and honeycomb end panels by contrast, X-Calibur was only 8 meters long. Scientists at Osaka University and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science at Japans space agency (JAXA) will modify a mirror originally intended for the Hitomi satellite so that it can be used for XL-Calibur.

The new instrument could fly as early as 2021 from Esrange Space Center (Sweden) or McMurdo (Antarctica), Krawczynski said. Researchers plan to use it to observe neutron stars, like GX 301-2, and black holes, like Cyg X-1.

We do astrophysics on balloon flights. They are a great way of testing new instrumentation and new observational techniques on a moderate budget of a few million dollars before implementing a $125 to $250 million space-borne mission, Krawczynski said.

Krawczynskis research work is focused on X-ray observations of stellar mass and supermassive black holes, blazars and gravitationally lensed quasars. His team also develops room temperature and cryogenic X-ray and gamma-ray detectors. Krawczynski is part of Washington Universitys McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and the Center for Quantum Sensors.

The XL-Calibur project team includes: the University of New Hampshire; Wallops Space Flight Facility; Goddard Space Flight Center; Osaka University; JAXA; Hiroshima University; RIKEN (a National Research and Development Institute in Japan); the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm; and industry partners including Guarino Engineering and G. de Geronimo.

The balloon flights from Esrange (Sweden) and McMurdo (Antarctica) will be supported by NASA and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. The United States Antarctic Program is managed by the National Science Foundation.

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Supersize me: Physicists awarded $3.3M for XL-Calibur telescope | The Source - Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom

What Are The Physics Stories That Define The 2000s And 2010s? – Forbes

At the tail end of November, I talked for a bit about the notional decades of physics in the twentieth century, the topics that define particular eras that only roughly approximate calendrical decades. These notional decades parallel what we seen in pop culture: the Beatles define The 1960s in the popular imagination despite not really taking off until the calendrical decade was halfway done.

When I did that post, I stopped with the 1990s, despite the fact that weve had two more calendrical decades since then. I did that because I wanted to leave room to write a post wrapping up the decade thats ending in a few weeks, but the nature of these notional decades means that they spill over a bit. So, you get a two-for-one here: one post, about the physics topics that define two decades. Actually, its more of a three-for-one, because Ill throw out two possibilities for what will come to be seen as The Physics of the 2010s, though in the end I favor one of these.

So, to jump right in, my first definition:

A view of the magnet core of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon ... [+] Solenoid) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, which is scheduled to be switched on in November, in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, March 22, 2007. Some 2,000 scientists from 155 institutes in 36 countries are working together to build the CMS particle detector. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini)

The 2000s Were the Decade of the Large Hadron Collider.

In very Beatlesesque fashion, the LHC didnt actually turn on until the decade was mostly over, but unlike a pop-cultural phenomenon that can explode out of Liverpudlian obscurity, big physics projects have a long lead time (and a large up-front price tag), so everybody knew this was coming. And this knowledge shaped every discussion about physics for years before the machine actually turned on.

I started blogging in 2002, and by the time I moved to ScienceBlogs in 2006 I was already thoroughly sick of hearing about how awesome the LHC was going to be. And that doesnt even count the many stories about possible disasters Could the LHC Make a Black Hole That Will Destroy the Earth? which culminated in John Olivers 2009 visit to the accelerator for The Daily Show (story about the clip here, video here).

The excitement about the discoveries sure to be made by the LHC had big effects on lots of other experiments, adding an air of desperation to the last runs at Fermilab, as the folks there raced to see if they could detect the Higgs boson before the LHC even turned on. It also penetrated to other subfields I remember listening to talks about searches for an electronic dipole moment of the electron circa 2001 where the speakers guessed they had maybe ten years to do the experiment before the LHC was sure to find whatever beyond-the-Standard-Model particle would turn out to be responsible for the symmetry violation they were hoping to measure.

FILE - In this March 30 2010 file picture s cientist of the European Organization for Nuclear ... [+] Research, CERN, react in the SMS experiment control room at their headquarter outside Geneva, Switzerland. The world's largest and most powerful atom smasher goes into a 2-year hibernation in March 2013 , aiming to reach maximum energy levels that may lead to more stunning discoveries after hunting down the so-called "God particle. But physicists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym CERN, won't exactly be idle as the US $10 billion proton collider goes on hiatus for maintenance and retooling _ in preparation for unlocking more mysteries. There are still reams more data to sift through since the July discovery of a new subatomic particle called a Higgs boson and promises a new realm of understanding in subatomic science. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

The initial turn-on of the LHC in September 2008 was huge news, as was the failure of an electrical connection that shut the whole machine down very shortly thereafter. When it turned on again a bit more than a year later, in November 2009, it was also big news (though slightly more measured), and by 2012 had achieved one of its stated goals, the discovery of the Higgs boson. There were numerous books written anticipating the discovery and about the actual discovery, and eventually the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics to a subset of the theorists who had a claim on inventing the idea. (As always, the politics of the Nobel are a mess, but that was just more fodder for articles about particle physics...)

So I think its unquestionable that the 2000s were the Decade of the Large Hadron Collider, in the notional decade sense of the 2000s as a period starting in 2005-ish and ending in 2013.

What, then, would that mean for The Physics of the 2010s? I will note up front that this is, to some degree, a fools errand, as you really ought to allow a bit of time to pass before you can truly assess what counts as The physics of a notional decade. Were in an era of instant content generation, though, so we dont have that luxury. In which case, I have two possibilities to offer:

Room with concrete floor and smoke with dark wall background

Possibility 1: The 2010s Were the Decade of Nothing

This is actually a very natural follow-on to the LHC, because in many ways the most notable thing about the Large Hadron Collider is not that it succeeded in detecting the Higgs, but that it hasnt detected anything else. Despite numerous confident predictions that the LHC was going to usher in an era of beyond-the-Standard-Model discoveries, it just hasnt. There dont seem to be any new particles with masses in the energy range where people were expecting new discoveries; it also hasnt obviously made any micro black holes or anything else exotic.

To be fair, the LHC isnt alone in this. Numerous experiments have come online looking for dark matter particles (WIMPs and axions and other such things), and found nothing. Those electric dipole moment searches I mentioned above havent turned up new physics, either. There have been some claims made about detections of weird new phenomena in astrophysical observations, but the splashiest of these was definitively disproven, and others remain controversial.

This has led to endless articles about a Crisis in [Theoretical Particle] Physics. This is in some sense a continuation of a process thats been going on far longer there was the String Theory Backlash back in the mid-2000s but it feels a little different this time. In the past, defenders of particular theories had the LHC and other scheduled experiments to point to, offering hope of a definitive discovery to come. In the present moment, its not clear what the next experiment would even be, let alone whether theres the political will to get a next generation of Big Physics Stuff built.

So, in that bleak atmosphere, its tempting to call the 2010s the Decade of Nothing, in honor of all the new physics that hasnt been discovered. Thats awfully depressing and cynical, though, so Id like to offer a more uplifting possibility:

FILE - In this file photo dated Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016, Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave ... [+] Observatory (LIGO) Co-Founder Kip Thorne speaks during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, USA, to announce that scientists have finally detected gravitational waves. The Nobel Physics Prize 2017 is announced Monday Oct. 3, 2017, awarded to 3 scientists including Kip Thorne, for discoveries in gravitational waves. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, FILE)

Possibility 2: The 2010s Were the Decade of Black Holes

This is really a two-fer in its own right, because it combines two splashy big experiments: the 2015 observation of gravitational waves from two colliding black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), and the release just this April of an image of the supermassive black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy by the Event Horizon Telescope. The LIGO folks already won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Ill be a little surprised if some of the EHT folks dont get a trip to Stockholm sometime in the next several years.

Those two discoveries plus follow-on work fro LIGO and Virgo, and the steady accumulation of observations from people whove been tracking the stars orbiting the black hole Sag A* at the center of the Milky Way have really moved black hole physics into a new era. Of course, the 2010s is also the era of We Cant Have Nice Things, so theres some lingering controversy about the interpretation of LIGOs signals, but on the whole I think these have been the early years of an exciting new era for astrophysics. It also doesnt hurt that black hole physics had a bit of a pop-cultural moment, with Interstellar in 2014.

So, those are the two main possibilities I see for what future physicists will say was The Physics of the 2010s: either black holes, or the failure to find new physics. Given that part of the point of these end-of-decade lists is secretly to look to the future, though, I would tend to give the nod to black holes, as a positive and exciting development that opens up rather than closes off hope for exciting future developments.

IN SPACE - APRIL 10: In this handout photo provided by the National Science Foundation, the Event ... [+] Horizon Telescope captures a black hole at the center of galaxy M87, outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon, in an image released on April 10, 2019. A network of eight radio observatories on six mountains and four continents, the EHT observed a black hole in Messier 87, a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo, on and off for 10 days in April of 2017 to make the image. (Photo by National Science Foundation via Getty Images)

Again, this is a bit of a fools errand, as its difficult to say what will really dominate the perception of physicists of, say, 2050, looking back with a bit more perspective. There might be some development that seems relatively minor now that will come to dominate the future in a way that makes LIGO seem quaint. Theres really no way to say for sure.

I do, however, have a couple of guesses as to some dark-horse candidates for such a discovery. I tend to think, though, that these are things that might be heralding the start of a new decade, though, rather than things that will define the decade just ending. It wouldnt be appropriate to do that much looking to the future, though, so stay tuned for a future post...

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What Are The Physics Stories That Define The 2000s And 2010s? - Forbes

International Collaboration, Cross-Disciplinary Workforce Development and Education Needed for US to Maintain Leadership in Atomic, Molecular, and…

December 11, 2019

WASHINGTON - The federal government should foster collaboration and decrease obstacles that can keep foreign atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physicists from working in the United States, if the nation is to maintain its position as leader in these fields, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. As AMO science increasingly overlaps with different science disciplines, federal agencies and academia should enable cross-disciplinary workforce and educational cooperation among scientists, according to Manipulating Quantum Systems: An Assessment of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics in the United States.

AMO science studies atoms, molecules, and light at the quantum level. It combines curiosity-driven research with practical applications, connecting scientific discovery and rapidly evolving technological advances, innovation, and commercialization. AMO science played a pivotal role in, for example, the discovery of gravitational waves, and currently, AMO science is vital in fostering a number of emerging scientific areas, such as quantum information, novel approaches to the control and use of light, precise probes of natures fundamental principles, and new technologies for biology and medicine.

The U.S. research community has enjoyed global leadership in AMO science, thanks to sustained, strong support from the federal government and the unique AMO culture that fosters collaboration and open research, said Jun Ye, a NIST Fellow and professor of physics at the University of Colorado and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report. Over the past decade, however, the U.S. global leadership position has begun to erode, as funding has not kept up with growth in the field, and other countries have increased investments in this field.

International collaboration has been, and will continue to be, an essential avenue for progress in AMO science, the report says. While the committee recognized the potential security concerns in open, international collaboration, it recommended that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and other federal agencies work with the U.S. Department of State to introduce mechanisms to remove excessive visa application delays for international students, collaborators, and speakers at conferences and workshops. OSTP should also standardize mechanisms for joint funding of cooperative projects and introduce agreements for funding agencies in different countries to accept each others grant administration regulations.

Components of AMO sciences overlap with other physics disciplines, such as quantum information science, high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics, and can expand into different scientific fields. This interdisciplinary aspect of AMO physics necessitates collaboration with scientists and engineers from other disciplines. It is imperative, the committee stated, that academia encourage and enable cross-disciplinary hiring of scientists with backgrounds in fields such as computer science, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and engineering to work in AMO sciences. Likewise, federal entities such as the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Department of Defense should foster collaboration and coordinate research activities that span across AMO sciences and other fields. The National Quantum Initiative (NQI), a program coordinated by OSTP that supports the collaboration between federal entities and the private sector and academia, will be vital to furthering investment and engagement on important AMO topics.

As with other science disciplines, AMO science continues to have difficulty attracting women and underrepresented minorities and has not kept up with demographic shifts in the U.S., the report states. The committee endorsed previous National Academies studies that aim to address this issue, with recommendations such as academia prioritizing inclusive teaching and mentorship practices.

The U.S. is at risk of losing its global leadership in AMO science as other countries are investing heavily in this vibrant field. The U.S. can keep pace with this growth internationally through strategic investments in vital areas of AMO science, and through collaborating across both disciplinary and international lines, said Nergis Mavalvala, Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and committee co-chair. The participation of women and underrepresented minorities in AMO science is far below the demographic composition of the U.S. Not tapping this talent pool to its full potential is a continuously lost opportunity.

The AMO science enterprise requires increased federal funding in order to see continued progress with regard to quantum sciences, astronomical research and experiments, and ultrafast X-ray light source facilities, among other areas. While strong support for individual investigators is key to maintaining the health of AMO science, it is also increasingly important to have coordinated efforts to fund mid-scale to large collaborations, the report says.

The study carried out by the Committee on Decadal Assessment and Outlook Report on Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Science was sponsored by the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln. For more information, visithttp://nationalacademies.org.

Contacts:Dana Korsen, Media Relations ManagerAndrew Robinson, Media Associate Office of News and Public Information202-334-2138; e-mailnews@nas.edu

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International Collaboration, Cross-Disciplinary Workforce Development and Education Needed for US to Maintain Leadership in Atomic, Molecular, and...

Red lights in the Milky Way could be evidence of alien civilisations – Metro.co.uk

Mysterious transients that flare up and disappear could be produced by extraterrestrials or natural process we dont yet understand (Picture: Getty)

Mysterious red lights have been spotted way out in the Milky Way and theres a chance some may have been produced by alien civilisations.

A team of astronomers has been poring over sightings of vanishing and appearing sources of light seen since the 1950s.

These bizarre disappearing lights often resemble stars which spark brightly and are then snuffed out of existence.

But they could also be communication lasers used by extraterrestrial societies.

Researchers analysed 150,000 observations and found 100 weird red lights which have now disappeared.

Finding an actually vanishing star or a star that appears out of nowhere! would be a precious discovery and certainly would include new astrophysics beyond the one we know of today, said Beatriz Villarroel of Stockholm University and the Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias, Spain.

When a star dies, it can face several fates.

Sometimes it becomes a white dwarf, whilst others explode in a supernova or collapse to form a black hole.

But there are other more exotic possibilties about what happens to stars at the end of their lives.

Its possible a black hole can form without a huge explosion, whilst a vanishing star could also be caused by a rare event called a failed supernova.

Its thought the red deep space mystery lights are caused by one of these impossible phenomena.

Of course, theres always the possibility that aliens are involved.

The stargazers are now looking for evidence of red interstellar communication lasers used to beam messages between star systems or Dyson spheres theoretical giant megastructures build around stars to harvest their energy

During the study, the team found 100 red transients which flared up to become several thousand times bright in a short space of time.

Martin Lpez Corredoira of the Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias, Spain, said:But we are clear that none of these events has shown any direct signs of being extraterrestrial intelligence.

We believe that they are natural, if somewhat extreme, astrophysical sources.

The researchers are now hoping to arrange a citizen science project to analyse 150,000 other weird sightings captured in astronomical photographs.

We hope to get help from the community to look through the images as a part of a citizen science project. We are looking at ways to do that right now and that will be something we will be able to talk more about at a later date, said Lars Mattsson of Stockholm University.

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Red lights in the Milky Way could be evidence of alien civilisations - Metro.co.uk

Mystery of the Origins of Cosmic Rays Solved – UC San Diego Health

For more than 100 years, scientists have speculated on the origins of cosmic rays with some agreement, but without certainty. Since cosmic rays are neither cosmic nor rays, this uncertainty makes sense. Though known to be primarily fast ionized atoms, scientists have long held that any real theory about cosmic rays origins required clarity on their composition.

Self-Portrait of Cosmic Rays Acceleration in their own HE Gamma Ray. Emission from supernovae in the Cygnus Superbubble Capture by the Fermi Mission. Image courtesy of Richard Lingenfelter, UC San Diego

Thats where UC San Diegos Richard Lingenfelter comes in. The research physicist emeritus at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (CASS), in a paperjust released in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, confirms the source of the universes most energetic particles known. Synthesizing new measurements and scientific insights, the physicist shows that the sources and sites of cosmic ray acceleration and the process of their generation rest in supernovaeextremely bright, super-powerful explosions of stars.

Lingenfelter asserts that the unique elemental composition of cosmic rays can result from just two basic processes: 1) the bulk turbulent mixing of products of these supernovae with their swept-up surrounding interstellar medium and 2) their injection as fully stripped ions into the accelerating supernova shocks by collisions of their mixed dust grains mostly running into hydrogen and helium atoms in the gas.

According to the CASS researcher, the combination of these supernova shocks, the blastwave pushing ahead the surrounding medium and the reverse shock that it generates pushing back against the expanding supernova ejecta, accelerate the cosmic rays to the highest known energiesto nearly the speed of light. This exponential energy comes from supernovae explosions that blast out particles in an ultra-hot gas that rushes through space and expands. As its reach grows, the gas cools, its particles stop colliding and it condenses into solid matter.

The scientific details are more complex, as Lingenfelter outlines in his paper. For example, previous research has shown that this hot gas both expands at high speed and cools in its moving frame until it reaches about 20 degrees Kelvinor -423.67 Fahrenheit. Within just a few years, most of the heavy elements condense into crystals: diamonds, graphite and other dust that continue moving at the same high velocity.

These go along until they run into and push out interstellar media, which travel ahead of them, building up shockwaves with just a fraction of the original supernova energy, said Lingenfelter. The shocks and turbulence that occur amidst this expansion continually mix up more and more mass of the material with increasing supernova remnant age. Thus the measured ratio of the swept-up interstellar medium mass to that of supernova ejecta in the accelerated cosmic rays tells us exactly when most of that acceleration occurred.

Lingenfelter said that all takes place just as the reverse shock is expected to pass through its largest extent and peak strength, and the turbulent grain sputtering injection is also expected to peak. Thus, this mixing value further supports such a cosmic ray origin and ties it strongly to the broader model calculations of supernova remnant expansions.

Theres a real boost, said Lingenfelter. Elements from the sputtered grains are the most enriched, so the unique composition of cosmic rays is mainly from this enhancement. They are the heaviest and distort the composition of cosmic rays, which has contributed to the lack of scientific consensus around cosmic ray abundance and their rates of acceleration.

According to Lingenfelter, with the ever-improving measurements of the elemental composition of cosmic rays, scientists have collectively provided details to clearly reveal the sources, sites and timing of cosmic ray acceleration and the processes of their generation in long-suspected supernovae.

With all these new observations and insights, we can now define and test the conditions of cosmic ray acceleration and explore even more detailed models, he said.

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Mystery of the Origins of Cosmic Rays Solved - UC San Diego Health

Sundar Pichai Applauds Astrophysicist who Once Scored a Zero in her Physics Exam – News18

Sundar Pichai is attracting attention on Twitter for all the right reasons. The Google CEO recently retweeted an inspiring post shared by an astrophysics student. Sarafina Nance tweeted about her experience four years ago when she scored a zero in her quantum physics exam which made her want to change her major and 'quit physics'. However, she persisted, instead of quitting physics, and her hard work certainly paid off because she is currently enrolled in a top-tier Astrophysics PhD program and has published two papers.

Her motivational anecdote created quite the stir online and earned her appreciation from not just Pichai, but several other Twitter users as well, who shared their own stories as well.

Although the tweet was shared just a day ago, it is apparent from over 57,000 likes and close to 10,000 retweets that it has garnered till now, that Sarafina's story struck a chord with many people. Here's what some Twitter users had to say:

Get the best of News18 delivered to your inbox - subscribe to News18 Daybreak. Follow News18.com on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and on YouTube, and stay in the know with what's happening in the world around you in real time.

';$('#first-watch-box').html(response+titleHeading);}},error: function(xhr, ajaxOptions, thrownError) {console.log('Something went wrong..');}});} var playWatchVideos = false;$(window).scroll(function() {var ividFirstScroll = $('.alsowatch').offset().top - 100;var tagsScroll = $('.tag').offset().top;var topOffsetIvid = $(window).scrollTop();var topIviddistance = topOffsetIvid - ividFirstScroll;var finalScrollEnd = ividFirstScroll + 650;var holaPlayDivId = $('div.video-js').attr('id'); var holaPlayerObj = videojs(holaPlayDivId);if(topOffsetIvid>ividFirstScroll && topOffsetIvid

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Sundar Pichai Applauds Astrophysicist who Once Scored a Zero in her Physics Exam - News18

Hubble Studies Gamma-Ray Burst with the Highest Energy Ever Seen – Hubble Space Telescope at ESA

heic1921 Science Release

20 November 2019

New observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have investigated the nature of the gamma-ray burst GRB 190114C.

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the Universe. They emit most of their energy in gamma rays, light which is much more energetic than the visible light we can see with our eyes.

In January 2019, an extremely bright and long gamma-ray burst (GRB) was detected by a suite of telescopes, including NASAs Swift and Fermi telescopes, as well as by the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes. Known as GRB 190114C, some of the light detected from the object had the highest energy ever observed: 1Tera electron volt (TeV) about one trillion times as much energy per photon as visible light. Scientists have been trying to observe such very high energy emission from GRBs for a long time, so this detection is considered a milestone in high-energy astrophysics.

Previous observations revealed that to achieve this energy, material must be emitted from a collapsing star at 99.999% the speed of light. This material is then forced through the gas that surrounds the star, causing a shock that creates the gamma-ray burst itself. For the first time, scientists have observed extremely energetic gamma rays from this particular burst.

Several ground- and space-based observatories have set out to study GRB 190114C. European astronomers were provided observing time with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe the gamma-ray burst, to study its environment and find out how this extreme emission is produced[1].

Hubbles observations suggest that this particular burst was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away, explained one of the lead authors, Andrew Levan of the Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics & Particle Physics Department of Astrophysics at Radboud University in the Netherlands. This is really unusual, and suggests that might be why it produced this exceptionally powerful light.

Astronomers used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Teleescope, together with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large Milimeter/submilimeter Array to study the host galaxy of this GRB. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 was instrumental in studying whether the environmental properties of the host system, which is composed of a close pair of interacting galaxies, might have contributed to the production of these very-high-energy photons. The GRB occurred within the nuclear region of a massive galaxy, a location that is rather unique. This is indicative of a denser environment than that in which GRBs are typically observed and could have been crucial for the generation of the very-high-energy photons that were observed.

Scientists have been trying to observe very-high-energy emission from gamma-ray bursts for a long time, explained lead author Antonio de Ugarte Postigo of the Instituto de Astrofsica de Andaluca in Spain. This new observation is a vital step forward in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts, their immediate surroundings, and just how matter behaves when it is moving at 99.999% of the speed of light.

[1] The Hubble Space Telescope observations involved in this result were obtained from the Director's Discretionary Time programmes 15684 and 15708 (P.I.: Levan). The paper outlining these observations will appear in the journalNatureon 20 November 2019. An additional paper that details an analysis of the galaxy hosting the GRB will appear in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

The international team of astronomers in this study consists of A de Ugarte Postigo, C. C. Thne, S. Martin, J. Japelj, A. J. Levan, M. J. Michalowski, J. Selsing, D. A. Kann, S. Schulze, J. T. Palmerio, S. D. Vergani, N. R. Tanvir, K. Bensch, S. Covino, V. D'Elia, M. De Pasquale, A. S. Fruchter, J. P. U. Fynbo, D. Hartmann, K. E. Heintz, A. J. van der Horst, L. Izzo, P. Jakobsson, K. C. Y. Ng, D. A. Perley, A. Rossi, B. Sbarufatti, R. Salvaterra, R. Sanchez-Ramirez, D. Watson, and D. Xu.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser

Andrew LevanInstitute for Mathematics, Astrophysics & Particle PhysicsRadboud University, The NetherlandsTel: +44 7714250373Email: a.levan@astro.ru.nl

Bethany DownerESA/Hubble, Public Information OfficerGarching, GermanyEmail: bethany.downer@partner.eso.org

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Hubble Studies Gamma-Ray Burst with the Highest Energy Ever Seen - Hubble Space Telescope at ESA

How Einstein came to influence smartphones – The Hindu

Albert Einstein came up with his general theory of relativity in a November over 100 years ago.

His hypothesis has an application in our daily lives even now, says Bala Iyer, faculty member, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru, explaining the functioning of the global positioning system (GPS) in smartphones.

Mr. Iyer was here on Monday to open a six-day short-term course in gravitation and cosmology organised by the Teaching Learning Center under the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, and the department of physics, Providence Womens College, Kozhikode. He leads the activities of the Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations (IndIGO) Consortium and is a member of The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaborations.

How does the GPS in our smartphones work? The United States has put above us 24 satellites, each of which carries atomic clocks, which are synchronised. They run at well calibrated rates, Mr. Iyer said.

If you really want to know your location or time, you essentially compare a satellite above with a local clock which is there in your GPS. The satellite is moving, and the satellite and you are at different gravitational fields.

The GPS works because of the corrections it makes. If the corrections are not made, the GPS would fail, he added. Mr. Iyer said the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was trying to put together its own system of GPS because the American satellites might not be that accurate.

Mr. Iyer explained how Einstein came up with a radically new vision on space and time in which they too get affected by the kinematics, the branch of mechanics concerned with the motion of objects without reference to the forces which cause the motion.

The main focus of the short-term course is to address the need for a short but rapid training in general relativity, cosmology, and gravitation with emphasis on current research themes in astrophysics.

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How Einstein came to influence smartphones - The Hindu