Category Astronomy/Space

Binary black holes recently discovered by the Ligo-Virgo collaboration could be primordial entities that formed just after the Big Bang. Primordial black hole binaries were discussed extensively in the 1990s. However, interest in them waned when observations implied that their number was limited

New scenario from Japan offers clues about the early universe. Binary black holes recently discovered by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration could be primordial entities that formed just after the Big Bang. If further data support this observation, it could mark the first confirmed finding of a primordial black hole, guiding theories about the beginnings of the universe.

In February, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration announced the first successful detection of gravitational waves...

The vibration absorbing lattice in a vision of the future. It could be used one day in rockets. Credit: 3Dsculptor / Shutterstock / Jung-Chew Tse

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a lattice structure capable of absorbing a wide range of vibrations while also being useful as a load-bearing component – eg, in propellers, rotors and rockets. It can absorb vibrations in the audible range, which are the most undesirable in engineering applications. Vibrations from the propellers or rotors in propeller aircraft and helicopters can make the flight bumpy and loud, and also lead to increased fatigue damage of the aircraft and its components. A new 3D lattice structure developed by ETH scientists could now expand the possibilities of vibration absorption.

Led by Chiara Daraio, Professor of Me...

With the help of supercomputer SKIF Cyberia, the scientists simulated the nuclear explosion of an asteroid 200 meters in diameter in such a way that its irradiated fragments do not fall to the Earth.

Dept of Celestial Mechanics and Astrometry NII PMM of Tomsk state university (Russia) and colleagues from St. Petersburg State University, Keldysh Research Center, and Research Institute Sirius are developing measures to protect the Earth from potentially dangerous celestial bodies. With the help of supercomputer SKIF Cyberia, the scientists simulated the nuclear explosion of an asteroid 200 meters in diameter in such a way that its irradiated fragments do not fall to the Earth.

“The way we propose to eliminate the threat from space is reasonable to use in case of the impossibility of the soft...

The blue dots in this field of galaxies, known as the COSMOS field, show galaxies that contain supermassive black holes emitting high-energy X-rays. They were detected by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Array, or NuSTAR, which spotted 32 such black holes in this field and has observed hundreds across the whole sky so far. The other colored dots are galaxies that host black holes emitting lower-energy X-rays, and were spotted by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Chandra data show X-rays with energies between 0.5 to 7 kiloelectron volts, while NuSTAR data show X-rays between 8 to 24 kiloelectron volts. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Supermassive black holes do not give off any of their own light but many black holes pull in, or accrete, surrounding material, and emit powerful bursts of X-rays...