Tag

Astrophysics

All articles tagged with #astrophysics

science4 hours ago•3 min saved

Gravitational Lensing May Turn GW231123 into an Ordinary Black-Hole Merger

A new study suggests GW231123's 'impossible' mass may be due to gravitational lensing, which would mask a final black hole of about 140 solar masses as about 225 solar masses. If true, the event would fit existing black-hole formation models and avoid the pair-instability mass gap, but the lensing explanation is not yet proven and remains a caveat rather than a confirmed cause. Gravitational-wave lensing could become a valuable tool for future discoveries.

via Gizmodo|

#astrophysics #black-holes #gravitational-lensing

science8 hours ago•135 min saved

Cosmic radio bursts as maps to hidden matter in the universe

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) — brief, intense radio waves from magnetars — are being used as new probes of the universe’s matter distribution. Analysis of about 100 FRBs suggests that gas ejected by galactic feedback smooths cosmic clumpiness, helping distinguish the roles of dark matter, dark energy, and neutrinos in structure formation. Researchers say this is just the beginning, with future FRB catalogs from the Deep Synoptic Array planned for 2029 expected to vastly boost cosmology studies.

via Space|

#astrophysics #cosmology #dark-matter

science5 days ago•134 min saved

New measurements sharpen how exploding stars forge the universe’s building blocks

Two papers in Physical Review Letters reveal that massive-star explosions forge and spread elements, with titanium-44 production about 35% higher than previously thought and the nickel-copper cycle playing only a small role in Type I X-ray bursts, enabling more accurate models of how stars create and distribute the universe’s building blocks.

via Space|

#astrophysics #nickel-copper-cycle #nucleosynthesis

science8 days ago•161 min saved

Underground detector hints at first direct dark-matter signal

Scientists analyzing data from the LUX-ZEPLIN dark-matter detector report a single unusual event that could be a WIMP–matter interaction, potentially signaling a first direct glimpse of dark matter. If real, it would suggest WIMPs with a mass about 200 times that of a proton and imply interaction patterns not predicted by simplest models. However, the result is not statistically significant yet (roughly a 0.5% chance of background), so more data is needed. The finding was presented at TeV Particle Astrophysics 2026 and submitted to Physical Review Letters.

via Space|

#astrophysics #dark-matter #lux-zeplin

science10 days ago•166 min saved

Trillions of Cosmic Particles Zip Through You Every Second

Earth is constantly bathed in cosmic particles. About 100 trillion neutrinos pass through each of us every second, mostly from the Sun, and nearly all go through without interacting. Cosmic-ray showers also create muons—tens to hundreds pass through a person each second (roughly one or two through a hand). Neutrino interactions are extremely rare; detectors like the IceCube Neutrino Observatory infer their numbers from tiny Cherenkov flashes. Cosmic radiation adds about 0.4 millisieverts per year to our exposure, within a natural ~2.4 mSv/year background. In short, we’re continuously bathed in invisible particles, but they pose negligible health risk and connect us to the cosmos.

via Live Science|

#astrophysics #cosmic-rays #icecube

space18 days ago•7 min saved

Sunlight’s long interior voyage: ~170,000 years to diffuse through the Sun, then eight minutes to Earth

Light from the Sun reaches Earth in about eight minutes, but the energy that becomes sunlight spends roughly 170,000 years diffusing through the Sun’s dense interior via countless absorptions and re-emissions. The 500,000-year figure is not supported by peer‑reviewed sources. After escaping the photosphere, photons traverse space to Earth in about eight minutes.

via Earth.com|

#astrophysics #photon-diffusion #radiation

space1 month ago•10 min saved

Rare helium nova in our galaxy reveals unusual stellar fireworks

Astronomers have confirmed the galaxy’s first helium nova, V445 Puppis, a binary system where a white dwarf siphons material from a helium-star companion; after a dust-enshrouded outburst around 2000, the now-visible ejecta include oxygen-rich “bullets” racing through space at up to 20 million mph. Studying this rare explosion helps illuminate how such novae occur and could shed light on the origins of Type Ia supernovae, which are used as standard candles to gauge cosmic distances.

via The Independent|

#astronomers #astrophysics #helium-nova

space2 months ago•104 min saved

Cosmic ghost neutrinos whisper from ancient supernovae

Researchers analyzing 14 years of data from the Super-Kamiokande detector report a likely signal of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background—the universe’s background of neutrinos from all past core-collapse supernovas—marking a potential first detection of these cosmic 'ghost' particles; if confirmed, it would illuminate how dying stars enrich their environments and form compact remnants, with plans to combine data with Hyper-Kamiokande to boost sensitivity.

via Space|

#astrophysics #diffuse-supernova-neutrino-background #neutrinos

space2 months ago•7 min saved

Silent Messengers: Neutrinos Illuminate Hidden Galactic Explosions

Avi Loeb explains that neutrinos from Galactic supernovae penetrate interstellar dust and reveal explosions that optical observations often miss. The 1987 SN 1987A produced 24 neutrinos detected by Kamiokande-II, IMB, and Baksan, enabling estimates of the explosion’s energy and the newborn neutron star’s properties. Today’s and forthcoming detectors—Super-Kamiokande, JUNO, IceCube, Hyper-Kamiokande, and DUNE—could observe thousands to tens of thousands of events from a Milky Way supernova, allowing measurements of neutrino masses and oscillations as well as the neutron star’s mass, radius, and binding energy. Webb’s 2022 observations of a neutron-star signature in SN 1987A underscore the potential of neutrino astronomy for probing fundamental physics and stellar remnants.

via Avi Loeb – Medium|

#astrophysics #detectors #neutrinos

science2 months ago•185 min saved

Rubin Observatory kicks off a decade-long cosmic survey

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has begun the decade‑long Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), using the world’s largest digital camera to capture nightly, color‑rich images of the southern sky and stitch them into a living map of celestial evolution. The project aims to inventory the solar system and Milky Way, investigate dark matter and dark energy, and enable billions of objects with trillions of measurements to be released publicly, generating about 7 million alerts per night for notable events such as asteroids and supernovae. Preliminary imagery began in 2025, and the survey will repeatedly re-image the same sky patches to track changes over time.

via CNN|

#astronomy #astrophysics #dark-matter

science-space2 months ago•3 min saved

Earth May Outlast the Sun’s Death, New Study Finds

A new study in Astronomy and Astrophysics suggests Earth could survive the Sun’s 5-billion-year demise, depending on whether tidal forces pull Earth inward or the Sun’s mass loss pushes Earth outward. Observations of the nearby dying star L2 Puppis inform these models, but the outcome remains uncertain and requires better data. Even if Earth endures, the Sun’s increasing heat will make the planet uninhabitable long before the final collapse, and humanity would not survive the event.

via New York Post|

#astronomy #astrophysics #earth

science2 months ago•10 min saved

Chasing Ghost Particles: The Global Quest to Catch Neutrinos

Physicists have built some of the world’s most ambitious detectors—buried underground, underwater, and under Antarctic ice—to catch neutrinos, elusive particles that rarely interact with matter. From Pauli’s proposal and the first detection in the 1950s to solar-neutrino puzzles and modern observatories like Kamiokande, Super-Kamiokande, SNO, IceCube, KM3NeT, JUNO, DUNE, and Hyper-K, the field has shown neutrinos come in flavors that oscillate due to mass, guiding experimental design and enabling study of stars, the cosmos, and fundamental physics.

via Quanta Magazine|

#astrophysics #neutrino-detectors #neutrino-oscillations

science2 months ago•96 min saved

Milky Way gamma-ray glow still leaves dark matter in contention

Using machine learning on more than a million simulated gamma-ray observations, researchers test whether the Galactic Center Excess—the Milky Way’s central gamma-ray glow—could come from self-annihilating dark matter or from many faint pulsars. They find pulsars would have to be far more numerous and dim than previously thought, making them hard to distinguish from a dark-matter signal, so dark matter remains a plausible but unproven explanation; the bright, crowded galactic center makes definitive conclusions difficult.

via Space|

#astrophysics #dark-matter #galactic-center

space2 months ago•7 min saved

Third Dark-Matter-Free Galaxy Emerges

Researchers identify NGC 1052-DF9 as the third galaxy whose motions can be explained without dark matter, suggesting it formed through a violent “bullet dwarf collision” that separates ordinary matter from dark matter and offers new clues about the nature of dark matter.

via ScienceAlert|

#astrophysics #bullet-dwarf-collision #dark-matter

technology2 months ago•1 min saved

Touch the Cosmos Without Leaving the Ground: Smithsonian's New VR Experience

A new 5,000-square-foot VR attraction in Washington, D.C., created by Fever with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, lets visitors explore the cosmos from the ground—standing in for the Sun’s surface, crossing the event horizon of a black hole, and viewing the Pillars of Creation—using data-driven visuals and scientist input to convey the vastness of space.

via WTOP|

#astrophysics #cosmos #immersive-experience