Tag: stars

Sea star’s ability to clone itself may empower this mystery globetrotter — ScienceDaily

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For decades, biologists have captured tiny sea star larvae in their nets that did not match the adults of any known species. A Smithsonian team recently discovered what these larvae grow up to be and how a special superpower may help them move around the world. Their results are published online in the Biological Bulletin.

“Thirty years ago, people noticed that these asteroid starfish larvae could clone themselves, and they wondered what the adult form was,” said staff scientist Rachel Collin at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). “They assumed that because the larvae were in the Caribbean the adults must also be from the Caribbean.”

Scientists monitor larvae because the larvae can be more sensitive to physical conditions than the adults and larval dispersal has a large influence on the distribution of adult fishes and invertebrates. Collin’s team uses a technique called DNA barcoding to identify plankton. They

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Modelling extreme magnetic fields and temperature variation on distant stars

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IMAGE

IMAGE: The maps show the heat distribution. The bue regions are cooler – and the yellow regions are hotter.

It describes data taken from the following magentars: 4U 0142+61, 1E 1547.0-5408, XTE…
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Credit: University of Leeds

New research is helping to explain one of the big questions that has perplexed astrophysicists for the past 30 years – what causes the changing brightness of distant stars called magnetars.

Magnetars were formed from stellar explosions or supernovae and they have extremely strong magnetic fields, estimated to be around 100 million, million times greater than the magnetic field found on earth.

The magnetic field generates intense heat and x-rays. It is so strong it also affects the physical properties of matter, most notably the way that heat is conducted through the crust of the star and across its surface, creating the variations in brightness across the star which has puzzled

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Rare Peacock Stars Could Potentially Detonate Deadly Gamma Rays In The Milky Way [Video]

Rare Peacock Stars Could Potentially Detonate Deadly Gamma Rays In The Milky Way [Video]

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KEY POINTS

  • Gamma-ray bursts are one of the most energetic occurrences in the universe
  • Apep’s two stars are 10 to 15 times more massive and 100,000 times brighter than the Sun
  • The two stars also orbit each other about every 125 years

Apep, one of the Wolf-Rayets binary star systems dubbed as the “exotic peacocks of the stellar world” discovered in 2018, was found to have the capacity to detonate long gamma ray bursts that are potentially deadly. If it detonates, the explosion could be something never seen in the Milky Way before, according to scientists.

“As well as exhibiting all the usual extreme behavior of Wolf-Rayets, Apep’s main star looks to be rapidly rotating. This means it could have all the ingredients to detonate a long gamma-ray burst when it goes supernova,” Peter Tuthill, study lead and professor from the University of Sydney, said in a press release. 

In

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LeBron James’ voting organization kicks off new campaign with soccer stars

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More Than A Vote, a voting rights organization spearheaded by athletes including NBA superstar LeBron James, released a video Monday featuring Major League Soccer (MLS) players encouraging Americans to make a plan to vote and to cast their vote early. Early voting is underway in multiple states across the country.
 
The video was produced in collaboration with Black Players for Change (BPC), a coalition of more than 170 professional soccer players, coaches and staff aimed at combating racial inequality. To assist Americans in making a plan to vote early, the organization encourages Americans to visit their website where users can type in their address and they will be redirected to a page that will provide them with different options on how to cast their vote in their community.

In addition to urging Americans to make their plans to vote early, the video asks citizens to become poll workers and

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In Stars of Science First, Jury Decides No Elimination

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Dr. Khalid Al-Ali, Stars of Science jury member, noted that the show’s contestants ran into unprecedented circumstances with the outbreak of COVID-19, causing disproportionate difficulties in materials procurement and shipping delays.

“Exceptional times necessitate exceptional action. We, the jury members of Stars of Science, place fairness firmly on top of the show’s platform of opportunity. We work hard to give the contestants a level playing field in order for the best to truly excel,” said Dr. Al-Ali.

During the proof of concept episode, several contestants laid out a roadmap for the next stages of the competition. However, COVID-19 hampered some contestants’ progress, as they did not have the necessary resources to start proving the concept of their innovation. Jamal Shaktour was among the most affected, as crucial supplies from abroad did not arrive in time for the jury’s review.

“These exceptional times pushed all of us to adapt

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AI Created a Detailed 3D Map of Stars, Galaxies, and Quasars

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Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawai’i

Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawai’i
Image: University of Hawai’i

A team of astronomers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) has produced the most comprehensive astronomical imaging catalog of stars, galaxies, and quasars ever created with help from an artificially intelligent neural network.

The group of astronomers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) released a catalog containing 3 billion celestial objects in 2016, including stars, galaxies, and quasars (the active cores of supermassive black holes). Needless to say, the parsing of this extensive database—packed with 2 petabytes of data—was a task unfit for puny humans, and even grad students. A major goal coming out of the 2016 catalog release was to better characterize these distant specks of light, and to also map the arrangement of galaxies in all three dimensions. The Pan-STARRS team can now check these items off their

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Qatar Foundation’s Stars Of Science Selects Season 12’s Top Eight Innovators

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DOHA, Qatar, Oct. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Eight innovators have distinguished themselves during the auditions for Qatar Foundation’s Stars of Science moving on to compete to become this season’s Top Arab Innovator.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click: https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8787151-stars-of-science-top-eight-innovators/

“Selecting this crop of contestants was not easy, as they had to prove that both their ideas and their pitching skills stood apart from the best that Arab youth has to offer,” said Professor Abdelhamid El-Zoheiry, Stars of Science jury member. “This season’s contestants come from a wide variety of disciplines, showcasing an incredibly diverse pool of ideas.”

Mohammad Almogahwi, a Kuwaiti periodontist, joined with his Automated Hands-Free Toothbrush, which includes a U-shaped mouthpiece designed for effective teeth brushing, especially for people with special needs. Sarah Aboerjaib, a fellow Kuwaiti engineer, earned her place with the Fractured Bone Optical Scanner; a handheld device that uses near-infrared rays

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Why Some Stars Never Form Planets

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The planetary paradigm has shifted so quickly and so radically in the last quarter century that is easy to forget that only a few decades ago, one would be hard-pressed to find any professional astronomer who would stake their careers on the idea that most stars harbor planets. But although the overwhelming majority of stars may harbor some form of planet, not all stars are capable of forming planets.

During the first two decades of looking for planets that circle

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Pair of massive baby stars swaddled in salty water vapor

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Pair of massive baby stars swaddled in salty water vapor
ALMA composite image of a binary massive protostar IRAS 16547-4247. Different colors show the different distributions of dust particles (yellow), methyl cyanide (CH3CN, red), salt (NaCl, green), and hot water vapor (H2O, blue). Bottom insets are the close-up views of each components. Dust and methyl cyanide are distributed widely around the binary, whereas salt and water vapor are concentrated in the disk around each protostar. In the wide-field image, the jets from one of the protostars, seen as several dots in the above image, are shown in light blue. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Tanaka et al.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers spotted a pair of massive baby stars growing in salty cosmic soup. Each star is shrouded by a gaseous disk which includes molecules of sodium chloride, commonly known as table salt, and heated water vapor. Analyzing the radio emissions from the salt and water, the team found

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Meet the 5 marketing stars in Oracle’s bid to be a major cloud player

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  • Oracle’s TikTok deal is seen as a PR and marketing coup for the enterprise firm, which could help raise its profile in the cloud where it faces stronger rivals Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. 
  • Marketing is key element of Oracle’s cloud offensive as the tech giant seeks to change the narrative that it missed what has become the most important trend in the enterprise market.
  • Meet the 5 marketing superstars who are spearheading Oracle’s bid to portray the company as an emerging cloud giant.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

As Oracle grapples with the view that it’s an inconsequential player in the cloud, the tech behemoth has been pushing to tell a different story. 

Big customer announcements have recently helped raise Oracle’s profile in cloud computing, including winning over Zoom, the popular video conferencing company, and video app TikTok, which will be a marquee client if the companies’ much-discussed,

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