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    Category Astronomy/Space

    AI finds the First Stars were Not Alone

    March 28, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A schematic illustration of the first star’s supernovae and observed spectra of extremely metal-poor stars. Ejecta from the supernovae enrich pristine hydrogen and helium gas with heavy elements in the universe (cyan, green, and purple objects surrounded by clouds of ejected material). If the first stars are born as a multiple stellar system rather than as an isolated single stars, elements ejected by the supernovae are mixed together and incorporated into the next generation of stars. The characteristic chemical abundances in such a mechanism are preserved in the atmosphere of the long-lived low-mass stars observed in our Milky Way Galaxy...
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    Artificial Intelligence discovers Secret Equation for ‘Weighing’ Galaxy Clusters

    March 28, 2023, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Astrophysicists at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Flatiron Institute and their colleagues have leveraged artificial intelligence to uncover a better way to estimate the mass of colossal clusters of galaxies. The AI discovered that by just adding a simple term to an existing equation, scientists can produce far better mass estimates than they previously had.

    The improved estimates will enable scientists to calculate the fundamental properties of the universe more accurately, the astrophysicists reported March 17, 2023, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    “It’s such a simple thing; that’s the beauty of this,” says study co-author Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro, a research scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) in...

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    Small Stars may Host Bigger Planets than previously thought

    March 23, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist’s impression of sunrise on planet NGTS-1b, a gas giant previously discovered orbiting a low-mass star. Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick

    Stars with less than half the mass of our sun are able to host giant Jupiter-style planets, in conflict with the most widely accepted theory of how such planets form, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) and University of Warwick researchers.

    Gas giants, like other planets, form from disks of material surrounding young stars. According to core accretion theory, they first form a core of rock, ice and other heavy solids, attracting an outer layer of gas once this core is sufficiently massive (about 15 to 20 times that of Earth).

    However, low-mass stars have low-mass disks that, models predict, would not provide enough material to form a gas giant in this way, or at least not quickly enough before the disk breaks up.

    In the study, accepted for publica...

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    Scientists find a Common Thread Linking Subatomic Color Glass Condensate and Massive Black Holes

    March 22, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Black holes with dimensions of billions of kilometers (left, as imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope) share features with a dense state of subatomic gluons created in collisions of atomic nuclei (right).
    Black holes with dimensions of billions of kilometers (left, as imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope) share features with a dense state of subatomic gluons created in collisions of atomic nuclei (right).
    Images courtesy of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (left) and Brookhaven National Laboratory (right).

    Physicists show that black holes and dense state of gluons–the ‘glue’ particles that hold nuclear matter together–share common features. Atomic nuclei accelerated close to the speed of light become dense walls of gluons known as color glass condensate (CGC). Recent analysis shows that CGC shares features with black holes, enormous conglomerates of gravitons that exert gravitational force across the universe...

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