Earth & Space
Scientists claim they have developed a physical model for a warp drive – a device that would allow spacecraft to travel at faster-than-light speeds. #warpdrive
Among the methods astronomers have found to measure the expansion rate of the local universe, the Hubble constant, surface brightness fluctuations are potentially one of the most precise. New measure of the Hubble constant highlights the discrepancy between estimates of our cosmic fate #TheUniverse #HubbleConstant
A new theoretical study has proposed a novel mechanism for the creation of supermassive black holes from dark matter. The international team find that rather than the conventional formation scenarios involving ‘normal’ matter, supermassive black holes could instead form directly from dark matter in high density regions in the centres of galaxies. The result has key implications for cosmology in the early Universe.
NASA’s Perseverance rover is en route to Mar and expected to arrive on Thursday on the surface of the Red Planet, where it will land near the dried-out lakebed Jezero Crater. #lifeonmars #Mars
A team of researchers believes that they have found a natural explanation for dark matter and a number of other scientific oddities that have so far defied explanation, but their work hinges on the existence of a new theoretical subatomic particle as well as an entirely new “warped fifth dimension” of the universe. #5D #fifthdimension #darkmatter
Researchers have found a “sextuply eclipsing sextuple star system,” according to the New York Times. #SolarSystem #solar
Blue jets are types of lightning that shoot upwards from thunderclouds into the stratosphere. State-of-the-art equipment on the International Space Station (ISS) has captured a brilliant view of a thunderstorm from above, including a clear view of a strange type of lightning known as a blue jet. #BlueJet
Around one of the galaxy’s oldest stars, an orange dwarf named TOI-561 just 280 light-years away, astronomers have found three orbiting exoplanets – one of which is a rocky world 1.5 times the size of Earth, whipping around the star on a breakneck 10.5-hour orbit. #SuperEarth #exoplanet
Gravitational waves would be weak and hard to find, but they’re all predicted to make up a resonant ‘hum’ that permeates our Universe, referred to as the gravitational wave background. And we may have just caught the first hint of it. #universehum
Temperatures on planet Earth have plummeted in line with the great conjunction, the ongoing magnetic reversal/excursion, and the ever-intensifying Grand Solar Minimum — the time to prepare is now: grow your own. #grandsolarminimum
Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have recently carried out a search for invisible axion dark matter using a multiple-cell cavity haloscope that they designed. Their results compared favorably to those of previous haloscope-based axion dark matter searches, highlighting the potential of the instrument they created for both dark matter searches and other physics research. #darkmatter
NASA is warning that 2021 begins with a mammoth asteroid that is currently hurtling toward Earth. #asteroid
Jupiter and Saturn will be closest – only 0.1 degrees apart – on the day of the solstice, December 21, 2020. They’re already amazing! Info, charts, photos here.
Scientists may have detected radio emissions from a planet orbiting a star beyond our sun for the first time. #aliencontact
The only #totalsolareclipse of 2020 is coming up this Monday (Dec. 14) is beginning in less than 1 hour at 8:33am EST. You can watch via livestream here.
