Aliens in the Milky Way? A new quest for alien life uses radio waves from the core of our galaxy. Pulsars generate narrow-frequency pulses, which humans employ in radar. These pulses stand out against space's radio noise, making them an excellent tool to communicate over large distances and an attractive target for extraterrestrial civilization hunters. In a May 30 Astronomical Journal paper, scientists outlined the alien-hunting approach. The program was tested on known pulsars by Cornell University graduate student Akshay Suresh. These frequency ranges are roughly a tenth of an FM radio station's. The approach was used to search Green Bank Telescope data in West Virginia. Alien existence? "Until now, radio SETI has primarily dedicated its efforts to the search fo...

Astronomers found that the strongest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever had a unique jet shape and was pulling an exceptionally high amount of star debris. This may explain the extreme properties of the burst, which was launched when a massive star 2.4 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagitta collapsed to form a black hole, and why its afterglow lasted so long. On October 9, 2023, the brightest GRB ever, GRB 221009A, was seen. A powerful burst of high-energy gamma-rays was followed by a low-fading afterglow spanning multiple wavelengths. "GRB 221009A represents a massive step forward in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts and demonstrates that the most extreme explosions do not obey the standard physics assumed for garden variety bursts," said George Washington Unive...

A new coastal rescue facility has opened in Corpus Christi, Texas, and it is providing safe haven for endangered sea turtles and other forms of marine animals. Sea turtles, manatees, dolphins, birds, and other creatures who are in danger as a result of abnormal weather patterns are brought to the Port of Corpus Christi Center at the Texas State Aquarium, where they are treated for their injuries and then returned to the wild after undergoing rehabilitation. The 26,000-square-foot hospital, which opened in March, is the largest sea turtle rescue center in the United States. It employs a unique CT scanner that is devoted just to wildlife in order to take photographs of the creatures that have been saved. It has already responded to many instances of cold-stunning, which is a sudde...

50 top scientists cautioned Thursday that record-high greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing air pollution have accelerated global warming. "Human-induced warming has been increasing at an unprecedented rate of over 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade," they said in a peer-reviewed policymaker research from 2013 to 2022. Over the same period, average yearly emissions reached an all-time high of 54 billion tonnes of CO2 or comparable gases, or 1,700 tonnes per second. Top scientists warn of record 0.2C per decade warming. At the crucial COP28 climate meeting in Dubai later this year, a "Global Stocktake" at the UN talks will review progress toward the 2015 Paris Agreement's temperature objectives. World leaders will be presented with the fresh statistics. The findings appear...

On the fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy, astronomers have discovered a star with a chemical composition unlike anything they have ever seen. It corresponds to the chemical traces left behind by very massive, very early stars, as predicted by theory. This is the most convincing evidence to date that the first stars were colossal stars. Models indicate that such stars would not have left any other traces, so this is the best evidence that can be hoped for. It is believed that the first generation of stars in the universe included stars hundreds of times more massive than the Sun. A star of this size would have exploded after a brief existence, leaving no remnants for astronomers to investigate. Scientists Use Chemical Signatures to Pinpoint Massive Stars That Have Disappeared Th...

A scientist in the U.K. photographed a sequence of dazzling arcs and halos of light encircling the sun, including a remarkable ring of light that circled the sky. Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, recorded the amazing light show over Belfast's Botanic Gardens on May 28. Fitzsimmons told Live Science the show lasted 30 minutes. Spaceweather.com reported seeing strange lighting beams in various regions of Northern Ireland, northern England, and Scotland. Fitzsimmons said millions of small, precisely positioned ice crystals in the high sky, which commonly accompany thin cirrus clouds, generate the arcs and halos. "If the winds are very uniform up there, the hexagonal-shaped crystals align," he said. "This allows sunlight refractin...

In case you were wondering, yes, the sun does make a noise; however, scientists have now determined what the sun sounds like. Solar physicists at Stanford University have determined the solar surface noise of the sun by recording acoustical pressure waves in the sun with an instrument called the Michelson Doppler Imager. The results of their research indicate that the solar surface noise is quite noisy. According to the American Academy of Audiology, the volume of the noises, which have been described as sounding like "screaming sirens," would increase by 100 decibels by the time they arrived at our location on Earth if they were allowed to travel across space. Scientists have heard the sun. This amounts to tens of thousands of watts of energy created per meter on the sun,...

X-rays have existed since Roentgen's discovery of them in 1895. They have been used for a variety of purposes, such as diagnosing health conditions in a doctor's office and detecting prohibited objects at an airport. X-rays can pass through objects, which absorb varying quantities of radiation depending on their composition. This allows us to create images of objects such as fractured bones. Now, a team of scientists from the University of Ohio and Argonne National Laboratory directed by Professor Saw Wai Hla has conducted new research. They were capable of capturing an X-ray of a single atom. This is significant because it may have a significant impact on materials science and possibly even medicine. The scientists detailed their accomplishments in the scientific journal ...

For ages, the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) has captivated viewers. The physics underlying this celestial ballet of light flowing across the night sky is as interesting as the sight. From ancient mythology to current understanding, we'll investigate the complicated interaction of particles, magnetic fields, and atmospheric factors that create this cosmic symphony of light. Particle-Magnetic Field Dance The Northern Lights are a beautiful display of Earth's atmospheric dynamics thousands of kilometers above us. Our Sun starts their adventure 149.6 million kilometers away. Solar wind—charged particles from the Sun—continues. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections accelerate the solar wind, sending particles toward Earth. Electrons and protons travel up to 1000 km/s towa...