Category Astronomy/Space

Simulated Microgravity Affects Sleep and Physiological rhythms

Simulated effects of microgravity significantly affect rhythmicity and sleep in humans, a new study from the University of Surrey finds. Such disturbances could negatively affect the physiology and performance of astronauts in space.

Previous findings have shown that astronauts exposed to microgravity, simulated via 60 days of constant bed rest at a six-degree head-down tilt angle, experience changes to physiology, including immune suppression, increased inflammation, and reduced muscle mass and bone density. However, a less-studied aspect of physiology concerning the effects of microgravity is sleep and biological rhythms.

Lead author Dr María-Ángeles Bonmatí-Carrión, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Surrey (currently at CIBERFES (Carlos III Health Institute), Un...

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AI and Physics Combine to Reveal the 3D Structure of a Flare Erupting around a Black Hole

Scientists believe the environment immediately surrounding a black hole is tumultuous, featuring hot magnetized gas that spirals in a disk at tremendous speeds and temperatures. Astronomical observations show that within such a disk, mysterious flares occur up to several times a day, temporarily brightening and then fading away.

Now a team led by Caltech scientists has used telescope data and an artificial intelligence (AI) computer-vision technique to recover the first three-dimensional video showing what such flares could look like around SagittariusA* (Sgr A*) the supermassive black hole at the heart of our own Milky Way galaxy.

The 3D flare structure features two bright, compact features located about 75 million kilometers (or half the distance between Earth and the sun) fro...

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Mars Rover continues progress along Upper Gediz Vallis Ridge

Sols 4159-4160: A fully loaded first sol
This image was taken by Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4158 (2024-04-17 07:52:27 UTC). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Curiosity continues to make progress along the margin of upper Gediz Vallis ridge, investigating the broken bedrock in our workspace and acquiring images of the ridge deposit as the rover drives south.

Today’s 2-sol plan focused on a DRT, contact science, and drive on the first sol, followed by untargeted remote sensing on the second sol. The team had to make some decisions at the start of planning about whether to drive on the first or second sol of this plan, and how that would affect the upcoming weekend activities.

As it turned out, the team was able to fit all of the desired contact science and remote sensing activities...

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Peptides on interstellar ice: Study finds presence of water molecules is not a major obstacle for formation

Peptides on interstellar ice: Study finds presence of water molecules not a major obstacle for formation
Dr. Serge Krasnokutski, Laboratory Astrophysics and Cluster Physics group at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, investigates the formation of biomolecules under space conditions with a vacuum chamber. Credit: Jens Meyer / University of Jena

A research team led by Dr. Serge Krasnokutski from the Astrophysics Laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy at the University of Jena had already demonstrated that simple peptides can form on cosmic dust particles. However, it was previously assumed that this would not be possible if molecular ice, which covers the dust particle, contains water—which is usually the case.

Now the team, in collaboration with the University of Poitiers, France, has discovered that the presence of water molecu...

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