Category Astronomy/Space

An international research team led by Professor Long Xiao from the School of Earth Sciences of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) has discovered the presence of marine sedimentary rocks on the surface of Mars for the first time by comprehensively analyzing the scientific data obtained by the multispectral camera (MSCam) carried by the Zhurong rover...

In the latest issue of the journal Nature, astronomers from Stockholm University reveal the origin of a thermonuclear supernova explosion. Strong emission lines of helium and the first detection of such a supernova in radio waves show that the exploding white dwarf star had a helium-rich companion.

Supernovae of Type Ia are important for astronomers since they are used to measure the expansion of the Universe. However, the origin of these explosions has remained an open question...

Researchers have observed the X-ray emission of the most luminous quasar seen in the last 9 billion years of cosmic history, known as SMSS J114447.77-430859.3, or J1144 for short. The new perspective sheds light on the inner workings of quasars and how they interact with their environment. The research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Hosted by a galaxy 9.6 billion light years away from the Earth, between the constellations of Centaurus and Hydra, J1144 is extremely powerful, shining 100,000 billion times brighter than the Sun...

The theory of relativity works well when you want to explain cosmic-scale phenomena—such as the gravitational waves created when black holes collide. Quantum theory works well when describing particle-scale phenomena—such as the behavior of individual electrons in an atom. But combining the two in a completely satisfactory way has yet to be achieved. The search for a “quantum theory of gravity” is considered one of the significant unsolved tasks of science.

This is partly because the mathematics in this field is highly complicated...