“[A] team of European researchers decided to model an event that should be
relatively uncommon: the two black holes didn’t start out in a mutual orbit but
happened to pass close enough to gravitationally latch onto each other. … The
models that produced a chirp that best matched the GW190521
signal saw a single pass that drew the black holes closer, followed by a single
rapid curve into the collision.”
posted 11/28/2022 8:00pm ∞
“[T]he earliest image indicates that it was roughly 100,000 Kelvin, which
suggests we were looking at it just six hours after it exploded. The latest
lensed image shows that the debris had already cooled to 10,000 K over the
eight days between the two different images.”
posted 11/24/2022 8:00pm ∞
“Cosmic strings appear to be a generic prediction of our (admittedly fuzzy)
understanding of the early Universe. We may not know exactly what went down all
those billions of years ago, but we’re fairly certain that it involved phase
transitions and that those phase transitions should support the existence of
topological defects like cosmic strings.”
posted 10/16/2022 8:00pm ∞
“This latest detection is a neutrino that began its journey in a faraway, as
yet-unnamed-galaxy in the constellation Delphinus, born from the death throes of
a shredded star.”
posted 3/28/2021 9:08pm ∞
“Matching the density of the two planets produces a model that has a bit over
10 percent of the planet’s mass composed of water. This, however, means
that about half the planet’s volume is water. … Due to the planet’s mass, the
pressure of the atmosphere would be immense and could create a layer of
supercritical water between the atmosphere and the ocean.”
posted 12/20/2022 8:00pm ∞