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astronomy

Can You Suck Energy OUT of a Black Hole?

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black hole - pixabay

A rotating black hole is such an extreme force of nature that it drags surrounding time and space around with it. So it is only natural to ask whether black holes could be used as some sort of energy source. In 1969, mathematical physicist Roger Penrose proposed a method to do just this, now known as the “Penrose Process.” The method could be used by sophisticated civilizations (aliens or future humans) to harvest energy by making “black hole bombs.” Some of the physics required to do so, however, had never been experimentally verified — until now. Our study confirming the … Read more

ANOUNCEMENT/GIVEAWAY: The Harbinger – Mary Eicher

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The Harbinger - Mary Eicher

Mary Eicher has a new FF paranormal book out, Artemis book one: “The Harbinger.” In a picturesque California town, the deafening sound of bells brings dozens of people to their knees. Three days later a horrific accident claims their lives. Among the dead is the twin brother of Artemis Andronikos, a beautiful attorney, who abandons the ill-fated vacation and returns home to grieve. Her mourning is interrupted by Lucy Breem a reporter who suspects a connection between the strange bell sound and subsequent deaths. Disturbed by the possibility that the phenomenon had presaged her brother’s death, Artemis agrees to join … Read more

SpaceX’s 12,000 Starlink Satellites to Get Glare-Reducing ‘Sunshades’

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SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites

SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites will soon sport an accessory to tamp down their surprising brightness. That brightness worries many astronomers, who say that the huge Starlink constellation could seriously disrupt a variety of scientific observations. And Starlink will indeed be huge, if all goes according to SpaceX’s plan: The company has approval to launch 12,000 craft to low Earth orbit (LEO) and has applied for permission to loft 30,000 more. (For perspective, humanity has launched just 9,400 objects to orbit since the dawn of the space age in 1957). SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said that the company … Read more

SPACE: When Betelgeuse Goes Supernova…

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Betelgeuse supernova

The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life, and researchers are preparing for what it will look like when the star dies in a fiery explosion called a supernova. Located in the constellation Orion, the star is about 1,000 times the size of the sun. Betelgeuse’s brightness has been dipping to the lowest point in the past 100 years, and some scientists have suggested that the star is getting close to running out of fuel and going supernova. In a new study, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have modeled the stellar explosions that … Read more

SPACE: We May Have a MiniMoon!

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minimoon - pixabay

Tumbling through Earth’s increasingly crowded orbit are about 5,000 satellites, half a million pieces of human-made debris and only one confirmed natural object: the moon. Now, astronomers working out of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory think they may have discovered a second natural satellite — or at least a temporary one. Meet 2020 CD3, Earth’s newest possible “minimoon.” A minimoon, also known as a temporarily captured object, is a space rock that gets caught in Earth’s orbit for several months or years before shooting off into the distant solar system again (or burning up in our planet’s atmosphere). Related: … Read more

SPACE: There Are Vampire Stars???

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A “vampire” dwarf star is sucking the life force from its partner star, and their entanglement produced a rare superoutburst. NASA detailed this previously unknown dwarf nova, a brief eruption from dwarf stars, in a statement on Jan. 24. The system brightened by a factor of 1,600 over less than a day, space agency officials said in the statement, and this uncommon sighting was made by a mission targeting an entirely different cosmic population. This rare finding was made by “accident,” according to the research team that found the super-outburst. The Kepler Space Telescope is now retired, but when it … Read more

SPACE: Are Stars Throwing Comets At Us?

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comets - pixabay

Stars and comets make unlikely dance partners. Their gravitational partnership is one that astronomers have long suspected but have never seen — until now. For the first time, a Polish group has identified two nearby stars that seem to have plucked up their icy partners, swinging them into orbits around our sun. The astronomers found the stellar duo after studying the movements of over 600 stars that came within 13 light-years of the sun. The new findings validate a theory born more than a half-century ago, and in doing so have also shown just how rare these stellar dances can … Read more

SPACE: Neptune’s Moons Locked in a Strange Dance

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Neptune - pixabay

Astronomers have discovered an unusual pattern around Neptune. The gas giant’s innermost moons are doing everything in their power to steer clear from one another in a weird, zigzagging pattern that astronomers are calling a “dance of avoidance.” Thalassa and Naiad’s orbital paths sit no farther apart than Chicago and Miami, about 1,150 miles (1,850 kilometers). But their zigzagging path around each other as they orbit Neptune ensures that the moons themselves never get that close. Naiad moves faster than Thalassa, circling Neptune in 7 hours versus its twin’s orbital time of 7.5 hours. Every time Naiad passes the slower … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers May Have Found Something Traveling Faster Than Light (Sort Of)

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FTL travel - NASA

In a distant corner of the universe, something is traveling faster than light.  No, the laws of physics aren’t being violated: It’s still true that nothing can travel faster than light in the vacuum of empty space. But when light travels through matter, like interstellar gas or a soup of charged particles, it slow downs, meaning other matter might overtake it. And that may explain the weird symmetry in pulses of some of the most energetic light in the universe, called gamma-ray bursts.  These cryptic bursts — bright flashes of gamma-ray light that come from faraway galaxies — form when … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Find More Mysterious Dimming Stars

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sun - pixabay

A mysterious star whose repeated bouts of darkening might be due to “alien megastructures,” according to some researchers’ conjectures, may now have more than a dozen counterparts that display similarly mystifying behavior, a new study finds. Further research into all of these stars might help solve the puzzle of their bewildering flickering, the study’s author said. In 2015, scientists noticed unusual fluctuations in the light from a star named KIC 8462852. This otherwise-normal F-type star, which is slightly larger and hotter than Earth’s sun, sits about 1,480 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus. When the researchers analyzed data from … Read more