Science

There’s Something Really Suspicious About the Way This Star Died

There’s Something Really Suspicious About the Way This Star Died

Stellar death is a complex and mysterious process — but in the case of a supernova known as 2023zkd, things were more gruesome than any astronomer had ever seen before. As its name suggests, this supernova — the fabulous astronomical term for the explosive death of a star — was first spotted back in 2023, when Southern California’s Zwicky Transient …

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Earendel: The Most Distant Star Ever Seen Might Not Be What We Thought

Earendel: The Most Distant Star Ever Seen Might Not Be What We Thought

Back in 2022, the Hubble space telescope appeared to have found the most distant star ever discovered. Named Earendel – morning or rising star in old English – a new paper suggests it might not be what we thought. Earendel was spotted by Hubble due to a fortunate case of gravitational lensing, where light from a distant source has its …

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The Northern Lights Are Expected Over 15 U.S. States Tonight—Here’s Where to Look

The Northern Lights Are Expected Over 15 U.S. States Tonight—Here’s Where to Look

Tonight into tomorrow, the night sky may put on a colorful show for skywatchers in several lucky states. On Aug. 18 and Aug. 19, a fast-moving stream of solar wind could spark a geomagnetic storm, potentially lighting up the sky with Northern Lights across 15 U.S. states, according to forecasters from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) and the U.K. Met Office. “There …

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2025 One Hertz Challenge: Timekeeping At One Becquerel

2025 One Hertz Challenge: Timekeeping At One Becquerel

The Becquerel (Bq) is an SI unit of radioactivity: one becquerel is equivalent to one radioactive decay per second. That absolutely does not make it equivalent to one hertz — the random nature of radioactive decay means you’ll never get one pulse every second — but it does make it interesting. [mihai.cuciuc] certainly thought so, when he endeavored to create …

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A Super-Energetic Neutrino That Reached Earth in 2023 Has Been Confirmed to Be Real. But Where Did It Come From?

A Super-Energetic Neutrino That Reached Earth in 2023 Has Been Confirmed to Be Real. But Where Did It Come From?

In February 2023, a cosmic particle detector housed deep in the Mediterranean Sea recorded the arrival of a neutrino with approximately 20 to 30 times more energy than any other neutrino documented previously. Labelled KM3-230213A, the particle had a calculated energy of 220 petaelectronvolts (PeV), far greater than the 10 PeV of the previously most energetic neutrino. The finding generated …

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California’s Next ‘Big One’ Might Not Follow the Script

California’s Next ‘Big One’ Might Not Follow the Script

On March 28, a devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake rocked Myanmar, splitting the Sagaing Fault at speeds of over 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) per second. You know which other fault resembles the Sagaing one? The San Andreas Fault in California, where seismologists have been expecting “the big one” for years. In a study published on August 11 in the journal PNAS, …

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