Category: space
Scientists find proof that an asteroid hit the North Sea more than 43 million years ago
A decades-long scientific debate over the origins of the Silverpit Crater in the southern North Sea has been resolved. New evidence confirms that it was caused by an asteroid or comet impact about 43–46 million years ago.
A team led by Dr. Uisdean Nicholson from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh used seismic imaging, microscopic analysis of rock cuttings and numerical models to provide the strongest evidence yet that Silverpit is one of Earth’s rare impact craters. Their findings are published in Nature Communications.
The Silverpit Crater sits 700 meters below the seabed in the North Sea, about 80 miles off the coast of Yorkshire.
Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds, simulations reveal
The collision and merger of two neutron stars—the incredibly dense remnants of collapsed stars—are some of the most energetic events in the universe, producing a variety of signals that can be observed on Earth.
New simulations of neutron star mergers by a team from Penn State and the University of Tennessee Knoxville reveal that the mixing and changing of tiny particles called neutrinos that can travel astronomical distances undisturbed impacts how the merger unfolds, as well as the resulting emissions. The findings have implications for longstanding questions about the origins of metals and rare earth elements as well as understanding physics in extreme environments, the researchers said.
The paper, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, is the first to simulate the transformation of neutrino “flavors” in neutron star mergers. Neutrinos are fundamental particles that interact weakly with other matter, and come in three flavors, named for the other particles they associate with: electron, muon and tau. Under specific conditions, including the inside of a neutron star, neutrinos can theoretically change flavors, which can change the types of particles with which they interact.
Milky Way Map
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Timeline of the Universe
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Controlling electron interference in time with chirped laser pulses
In quantum mechanics, particles such as electrons act like waves and can even interfere with themselves—a striking and counterintuitive feature that defies our classical view of reality. We know this kind of interference happens in space, where different paths can overlap and combine, but what if we could take it further? What if we could control quantum interference in time, where electrons created at different moments interfere?
In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, a team of researchers developed a novel technique—chirped laser-assisted dynamic interference—to manipulate temporal quantum interference during photoionization.
By using extreme-ultraviolet pulses with time-varying central frequency, in combination with intense infrared laser fields, they guided electron motion with unprecedented precision.
TRAPPIST-1e observations narrow down possibilities for atmosphere and surface water on elusive exoplanet
University of Bristol astrophysicists are helping shed new light on an Earth-sized exoplanet 40 light years away where liquid water in the form of a global ocean or icy expanse might exist on its surface. That would only be possible if an atmosphere is present—a big mystery that the scientists are attempting to unravel and now even closer to solving using the largest telescope in space.
Deploying NASA’s JWST, the researchers have reached these discoveries as part of a major international project which is probing the atmosphere and surface of TRAPPIST-1e, also more simply known as planet e in the system, orbiting within the habitable zone of red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1.
Exoplanets are highly varied planets which orbit stars outside the solar system. Planet e is of particular interest because the presence of liquid water—not too hot or cold—is theoretically viable, but only if the planet has an atmosphere.
“Substrate-dependent mathematics hypothesis” by Olaf Witkowski
This is a ~50-minute talk titled “Substrate-dependent mathematics hypothesis” by Olaf Witkowski (https://olafwitkowski.com/), presented for our Platonic Space symposium (https://thoughtforms.life/symposium-on-the-platonic-space/).
