Active solar region observed for record 94 days

In May 2024, the strongest solar storm in twenty years raged. An international team led by ETH Zurich observed it. Their findings are now helping to improve space weather forecasts.

Go to Source

Worms as particle sweepers: How simple movement, not intelligence, drives environmental order

When observing small worms under a microscope, one might observe something very surprising: the worms appear to make a sweeping motion to clean their own environment. Physicists at the University of Amsterdam, Georgia Tech and Sorbonne Université/CNRS have now discovered the reason for this unexpected behavior.

Go to Source

Astronomers reveal hidden lives of the early universe’s ultramassive galaxies

An international team of astronomers has uncovered multiple evolutionary paths for the universe’s most massive galaxies. Observations of ultramassive galaxies, each containing more than 100 billion stars, show that less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang, some had already stopped forming stars and lost their dust, while others continued forming stars hidden behind […]

Metal–metal bonded molecule achieves stable spin qubit state, opening path toward quantum computing materials

Researchers at Kumamoto University, in collaboration with colleagues in South Korea and Taiwan, have discovered that a unique cobalt-based molecule with metal–metal bonds can function as a spin quantum bit (spin qubit)—a fundamental unit for future quantum computers. The findings provide a new design strategy for molecular materials used in quantum information technologies.

Go to […]

XRISM gives sharpest-ever glimpse at growth of a rapidly-spinning black hole

Astronomers have obtained the sharpest-ever X-ray spectrum of an iconic active galaxy, providing the most accurate, precise view ever obtained of the extreme relativistic effects imprinted onto the spacetime around a supermassive black hole.

Go to Source

Ultramassive black holes and their galaxies: A matter of scale

Nearly every galaxy has a supermassive black hole in its core. Whether the black hole forms first and then the galaxy around it—or the other way around—is still a matter of some debate, but we know the evolution of both are deeply connected. We can use that relationship to study the black holes.

Go to […]

A neighboring vista of stellar birth

This ESA/Hubble picture highlights another view of a distant stellar birthplace. Captured in a parallel field to a recently released image, this scene reveals a neighboring region of the N159 star-forming complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud, approximately 160,000 light-years away.

Go to Source

The ambitious plan to spot habitable moons around giant planets

So far, humanity has yet to find its first “exomoon”—a moon orbiting a planet outside of the solar system. But that hasn’t been for lack of trying. According to a new paper by Thomas Winterhalder of the European Southern Observatory and his co-authors, which is available on the arXiv preprint server, the reason isn’t because […]

BWC: Man charges St. Louis officers with knife in airport before fatal OIS

One St. Louis County Police Department officer deployed a TASER at the man as he began to run, which was ineffective; he was shot as he ran toward another officer

Go to Source

Earliest, hottest galaxy cluster gas on record challenges cosmological models

An international team of astronomers led by Canadian researchers has found something the universe wasn’t supposed to have: a galaxy cluster blazing with hot gas just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, far earlier and hotter than theory predicts.

Go to Source

Why astronomy needs a giant in the Canary Islands

Size matters when it comes to telescopes. The bigger they are, the farther they can see. Prioritizing constructing large ones is therefore high on the priority list for many observational organizations. But doing so comes at a cost, and not just in terms of money. Finding a suitable site can be a challenge, and that […]

Fault-tolerant quantum computing: Novel protocol efficiently reduces resource cost

Quantum computers, systems that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could soon outperform classical computers on some complex computational problems. These computers rely on qubits, units of quantum information that share states with each other via a quantum mechanical effect known as entanglement.

Go to Source

Judge dismisses proposed consent decree agreement with Louisville PD

A U.S. district judge wrote that “the responsibility to lead the [LMPD] in compliance with federal law must remain with the city’s elected representatives and the people they serve.”

Go to Source

Solar flares and stellar flares hit differently

The sun is not only our closest stellar neighbor, it’s also the star we understand the most. As we’ve observed it over the centuries, we’ve learned that the sun is not an immortal constant. It goes through active and quiet cycles, it has become warmer over geologic time scales, and it occasionally batters Earth with […]

Making sense of quantum gravity in five dimensions

Quantum theory and Einstein’s theory of general relativity are two of the greatest successes in modern physics. Each works extremely well in its own domain: Quantum theory explains how atoms and particles behave, while general relativity describes gravity and the structure of spacetime. However, despite many decades of effort, scientists still do not have a […]