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☆ ‘Sleeping giant’ massive black hole found in the Milky Way galaxy
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-16 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers have spotted the most massive known stellar black hole in the Milky Way galaxy after detecting an unusual wobble in space. The wobbling movement of an old giant star in the Aquila constellation revealed that it was in an orbital dance with a dormant black hole, and it’s the third such dormant black hole spotted by Gaia. So Gaia BH3 is the most massive black hole in our galaxy that formed from the death of a massive star. Stellar black holes observed across the Milky Way galaxy are about 10 times as massive as the sun on average. True to expectations, the researchers found that the star orbiting Gaia BH3 was metal-poor, which means that the star that formed Gaia BH3 was likely the same.

Persons: ”, Gaia BH3, —, munch, Aquila, Gaia, Pasquale Panuzzo, BH3, hadn’t, Elisabetta Caffau, “, Carole Mundell Organizations: CNN —, Southern, Astrophysics, “, France’s National, for Scientific Research, ESO, Space Locations: Atacama, Paris, France’s

☆ White dwarf star has metal scar after gobbling planetary fragment
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers have spotted an unusual sign that a dead star feasted on a fragment of a planet orbiting it: a metal scar on the star’s surface. The observation revealed a metallic feature on the star’s surface that the researchers determined was related to a change detected in the star’s magnetic field. The strength of the metal detection also synced with changes observed in the star’s magnetic field, which led the team to determine that the metal scar was located on one of the star’s magnetic poles. The star’s magnetic field pulled the metals toward the star, which led to the presence of the scar, the finding has suggested. But WD 0816-310 presents an entirely different scenario orchestrated by the star’s magnetic field.

Persons: ”, Dr, Stefano Bagnulo, Jay Farihi, John Landstreet, Landstreet Organizations: CNN —, Southern, Planetarium, University College London, Western University, NASA Locations: Chile, Armagh, Northern Ireland, Swiss, Canada

☆ Universe’s brightest known object and fastest-growing black hole revealed
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Astronomers have spotted the brightest known object in the universe, and it’s a quasar powered by the fastest-growing black hole on record, according to a new study. The black hole powering the quasar devours the equivalent of one sun per day and has a mass about 17 billion times that of our sun, the researchers found. A black hole is massive power sourceThe intense gravitational influence of black holes draws matter toward these celestial objects in such an energetic way that the process creates light. The blinding radiation is due to the black hole’s accretion disk, or the ring around the black hole where material gathers before being consumed. The team followed up with observations from the powerful Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert to confirm details about the black hole, including its hefty mass.

Persons: ”, Christian Wolf, ” Wolf, Samuel Lai, Wolf, Southern Observatory’s Schmidt, Christopher Onken Organizations: CNN —, Southern, National University’s College of Science, National University’s Research, of Astronomy, Astrophysics, Hubble, Southern Observatory’s, Sky Survey, Sky, Dark Energy Survey, Energy Survey, ESO Locations: Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Atacama

☆ ‘Old smoker’ stars revealed at the heart of the Milky Way
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —A decade-long survey of the night sky has revealed a mysterious new type of star astronomers are referring to as an “old smoker.”These previously hidden stellar objects are aging, giant stars located near the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. This illustration shows an eruption occurring in the swirling disk of matter around a newborn star. They help the newborn star in the middle to grow, but make it harder for planets to form. Infrared images show a red giant star, located 30,000 light years away near the center of the Milky Way. Understanding how the old smokers release elements into space could change the way astronomers think about the way such elements are distributed across the universe.

Persons: Philip Lucas, Lucas, ”, Zhen Guo, Fondecyt, Guo, ” Guo, ” Lucas, Dante Minniti Organizations: CNN, Royal Astronomical Society, Astronomers, Survey, Cerro Paranal Observatory, Southern, University of Hertfordshire, University of Valparaiso, University of Hertfordshire Red, NASA, Andrés Bello University Locations: Chilean Andes, Cerro, Chile

☆ Planet-forming disk detected around star in another galaxy for the first time
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —For the first time, astronomers have glimpsed a young star outside the Milky Way galaxy that’s ringed by a dense disk where planets may form. The massive star, called HH 1177, and its rotating disk were spotted in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy that’s about 160,000 light-years away. The gas and dust accumulate in a flat disk around the star, known as an accretion disk, as a result of strong gravitational forces. The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, or MUSE instrument, on the telescope captured a jet of material releasing from the young star. To discern whether a disk was present around the star, the team needed to measure how quickly dense gas moved around the star.

Persons: ”, Anna McLeod, ” McLeod, McLeod, Jonathan Henshaw, aren’t, “ Organizations: CNN, Durham University, Southern, ESO, Liverpool John Moores University Locations: ALMA, United Kingdom, Chile

☆ Mysterious fast radio burst traveled 8 billion years to reach Earth
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The fast radio burst is one of the most distant and energetic ever observed. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves with unknown origins. Many FRBs release super bright radio waves lasting only a few milliseconds at most before disappearing, which makes fast radio bursts difficult to observe. “J-P showed that the (farther) away a fast radio burst is, the more diffuse gas it reveals between the galaxies. Astronomers said they hope that future radio telescopes, currently under construction in South Africa and Australia, will enable the detection of thousands more fast radio bursts at greater distances.

Persons: FRB 20220610A, ”, Dr, Stuart Ryder, Ryan Shannon, ” Shannon, “, Jean, Pierre Macquart, ” Ryder, you’re Organizations: CNN —, Macquarie University, Southern, Swinburne University of Technology, “ Locations: Western Australia, Australia, Chile, Australian, South Africa

☆ Astronomers solve the puzzle of an unusual pulsing dead star
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The spinning dead star and the companion star that it closely orbits were first discovered in 2007. Once the pulsar began siphoning off material from the companion star, its characteristic pulsing beam disappeared. Instead, the pulsar entered a constant, alternating cycle of operating in what astronomers call “high” mode and “low” mode. They discovered that an exchange of matter between the pulsar and its companion star triggers the unusual behavior of the pulsar. As the pulsar tugs at its companion star, gas releases from the companion and forms a disk around the pulsar before slowly falling toward it.

Persons: ”, Maria Cristina Baglio, Francesco Coti Zelati, Coti Zelati, Sergio Campana Organizations: CNN, Astrophysics, New York University, Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Institute of Space Sciences, Astronomers, Southern, Italian National Institute for Astrophysics ’, Observatory Locations: New York University Abu Dhabi, Barcelona, Spain, Chile

☆ Mysterious dark spot detected on Neptune
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers have spotted a large and mysterious dark spot within Neptune’s atmosphere, and it has an unexpectedly bright companion. “Since the first discovery of a dark spot, I’ve always wondered what these short-lived and elusive dark features are,” said lead study author Patrick Irwin, professor of planetary physics at the University of Oxford, in a statement. Gas giants and dark spotsGiant gaseous planets in our solar system, including Neptune, are known for the dark spots that appear in their atmospheres, such as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a centuries-old storm. The Great Dark Spot on Neptune, the nickname given to the largest storm witnessed by Voyager 2, was so large that it could contain Earth. The unusual cloud appeared in the observation as a smaller bright spot next to the larger dark spot, and both are on the same atmospheric level.

Persons: I’ve, ”, Patrick Irwin, Hubble, Neptune, Irwin, Irwin et, Michael Wong, ” Wong, “ Organizations: CNN —, Southern, Hubble, University of Oxford, Gas, NASA, Irwin’s, European Southern Observatory, University of California Locations: Chile, Northern, Berkeley

☆ Rare ‘Trojan’ world may share the same orbit as another planet
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Astronomers may have found a rare “sibling” that shares the same orbit of a Jupiter-like planet around a young star. Two Jupiter-like planets, known as PDS 70b and PDS 70c, are already known to orbit the star. Evidence for Trojans beyond our solar system — specifically Trojan planets — has been sparse until now. The signal suggested a cloud of debris with a mass of about twice that of our moon, which could be a Trojan planet or a planet in formation. A cloud of debris (circled by a yellow dotted line) may be a newly forming planet in the same orbit as the planet PDS 70b.

Persons: ”, Olga Balsalobre, Lucy, “ Exotrojans, Jorge Lillo, Itziar De Gregorio, Monsalvo, “, Ruza, ALMA Organizations: CNN —, Astrophysics, Madrid’s, Astrobiology, IAU, Southern, Science, NASA Locations: ALMA, Chile

☆ Webb telescope captures galaxy 20 million light-years away
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope set its sights on a galaxy 20 million light-years away, capturing a dazzling star-forming galaxy in images streaked with the signature of passing asteroids. A bright band in the upper left corner of the images shows the bright, bar-shaped center of the galaxy, according to a NASA news release. The NGC 5068 galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy, the same type as our home Milky Way. These new snapshots of NGC 5068 add to a growing repository of data on areas of the observable universe where stars are born. This image shows the NGC 5068 galaxy as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI instrument.

Persons: James Webb, Webb Organizations: CNN, NASA, Hubble, ESA, CSA, Phantom, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency Locations: Webb, Chile, MIRI

☆ Premarket stocks: Welcome to the 'rolling recession' economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Yet US manufacturing has likely already contracted into a recession, housing sales have plummeted, tech layoffs keep coming and corporate earnings growth is souring. “We continue to think the economy will suffer from rolling recessions, evidenced by the fact that corporate earnings growth is now entering its downturn,” wrote Sonders in a note on Wednesday. For five straight weeks, the bank’s clients have been big buyers of individual stocks and sellers of ETFs, she wrote. Disney revenue in the quarter rose 8% to $23.5 billion, edging past estimates of $23.4 billion from analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. The company reported revenue of $8.6 billion for the quarter, beating Wall Street’s estimates and marking a 49% increase from the prior year.

☆ Google AI chatbot Bard offers inaccurate information in company ad
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Martin Coulter | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Google published an online advertisement in which its much anticipated AI chatbot Bard delivered an inaccurate answer. The tech giant posted a short GIF video of Bard in action via Twitter, describing the chatbot as a "launchpad for curiosity" that would help simplify complex topics. loadingIn the advertisement, Bard is given the prompt: "What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year old about?" The first pictures of exoplanets were taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004, as confirmed by NASA. At the time of writing, the ad had been viewed on Twitter more than 880,000 times.

☆ Google’s AI chatbot Bard had an inaccurate response in public demo
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Google’s much-hyped new AI chatbot tool Bard, which has yet to be released to the public, is already being called out for an inaccurate response it produced in a demo this week. Bard’s blunder highlights the challenge for Google as it races to integrate the same AI technology that underpins Microsoft-backed ChatGPT into its core search engine. In trying to keep pace with what some think could be a radical change spurred by conversational AI in how people search online, Google now risks upending its search engine’s reputation for surfacing reliable information. Like ChatGPT, Bard is built on a large language model, which is trained on vast troves of data online in order to generate compelling responses to user prompts. The executive said AI technology would pave the way for the “next frontier of our information products.”

☆ AT 2022cmc: Rare cosmic event beamed light at Earth from 8.5 billion light-years away
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

But the rare cosmic event actually occurred 8.5 billion light years away from Earth, when the universe was just a third of its current age — and it has created more questions than answers. This graphic shows how a tidal disruption event might look in space. Carl Knox/OzGrav/Swinburne University of TechnologyWhen a star is torn apart by a black hole’s gravitational tidal forces, it’s known as a tidal disruption event. Observing more events like this could reveal how black holes launch such powerful jets across space, according to the researchers. “Scientists can use AT 2022cmc as a model for what to look for and find more disruptive events from distant black holes.”

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