Amazing Facts Archives - Page 43 of 79

Largest-ever discovery of ‘missing link’ black holes revealed by dark energy camera (video)

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

Largest-ever discovery of ‘missing link’ black holes revealed by dark energy camera (video)

Astronomers have uncovered a treasure trove of feeding black holes at the heart of dwarf galaxies — small, faint galaxies containing thousands to several billions of stars but very little gas. The discovery, made with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), contains several "missing link" intermediate-mass black holes. This is both the largest sample of dwarf galaxies with active black holes ever seen and the largest haul of elusive intermediate-mass black holes ever collected. The data could help scientists better understand the dynamics between the evolution of dwarf galaxies and the growth of black holes while building an evolutionary model of the universe's earliest black holes.However, there is still a mystery associated with this sample: The team behind this discovery was su...

New carbon capture method turns up the heat

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

New carbon capture method turns up the heat

A centuries-old technique for making cement may be the key to large-scale carbon capture, according to US chemists. The first step in making cement involves converting limestone to calcium oxide, inside a kiln heated to 1400 degrees Celsius. Calcium oxide is then mixed with sand to produce a vital ingredient for cement. Inspired by this technique, Stanford University researchers used a conventional kiln to transform common minerals into reactive materials with the ability to pull carbon from the atmosphere – and sequester it permanently. “The Earth has an inexhaustible supply of minerals that are capable of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, but they just don’t react fast enough on their own to counteract human greenhouse gas emissions,” says Matthew Kanan, a professor of chemistr...

Is human hibernation for long-duration space travel possible?

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

Is human hibernation for long-duration space travel possible?

Despite what Star Trek and Star Wars may have taught you, the amount of time required to travel between stars is vast. Consider Voyager 1. The spacecraft is traveling at 38,000 mph (61,155 km/h). If Voyager 1 were pointed towards our nearest star, Proxima Centauri (which it isn’t), it would take 73,000 years to reach its destination. What this means on a practical level is that any human spaceflight between the stars, even at speeds far beyond that of the Voyagers, would take, at the very least, tens to hundreds of years. One long-postulated answer to the problem of the time required for interstellar travel is human hibernation, sometimes referred to as “suspended animation.” If humans could slow their metabolic rate drastically, they could potentially “sleep” for long periods of t...

Extreme cold is impacting more than 1,000 miles of US

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

Extreme cold is impacting more than 1,000 miles of US

Extreme cold is hitting the U.S. Here’s a person bundled up against the cold. Image via Demeter Attila/ Pexels. Dangerous cold in mid-US on Wednesday As of late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, Extreme Cold Warnings stretched over 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of the continental United States, from North Dakota, down through south Central Texas. Record cold temperatures and dangerously low wind chills are expected across this region today. While the specific criteria for Extreme Cold Warnings vary from region to region, the National Weather Service says that an Extreme Cold Warning is issued when temperatures or wind chill values (what it feels like with the wind factored in) are forecast to be dangerously cold. Parts of North Dakota are waking up on Wednesday to temperatures 30 to 40 ...

The stars Shaula and Lesath herald the coming spring

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

The stars Shaula and Lesath herald the coming spring

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, Shaula and Lesath will come over your southeastern horizon before dawn sometime this month. They’re a hopeful sign that spring is coming. How do you recognize the coming of spring? Maybe you spot a first returning robin. Or tune into news about a groundhog looking for its shadow. For stargazers, one sign of spring is the early-morning sighting of a pretty pair of stars in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. Those stars, known as Shaula and Lesath, are part of the Stinger of the Scorpion. They are located at the end of the Scorpion’s curved Tail. The 2025 EarthSky lunar calendar makes a great gift. Get yours today! Shaula and Lesath in Pawnee lore The Pawnee – once the largest group of people living on the U.S. Central Plains – viewed the sky as a...

7 planets are aligned in the night sky right now. But what’s that mean for science?

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

7 planets are aligned in the night sky right now. But what’s that mean for science?

For the last month and change, you might've seen the headlines about the planetary alignment, or a planetary parade, going on in our solar system. And that's true. In January 2025, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were all visible in the night sky. And in February, 2025, Mercury will join the fun, with all seven of our planetary neighbors visible from Earth.So what does such a planetary alignment mean for science? Well, truthfully, not much. A planetary alignment occurs "when the planets 'line up' on the same side of the sun, generally speaking," Gerard van Belle, Lowell Observatory's director of science, tells Space.com. "When this happens, we can see multiple planets in the night sky." And that's about it! In other words, this planetary parade is simply an excellent reaso...

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

How to train your fish

Study author, Maëlan Tomasek, with a “volunteer” in the experiment conducted in the Mediterranean Sea. Credit: Maëlan Tomasek European researchers have made the startling claim that fish can recognise individual divers. In a peer reviewed paper published today in Biology Letters, the research team from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) in Germany conducted a series of experiments while wearing a range of diving gear, finding that “fish in the wild can discriminate among humans based on external visual cues.” They said for years, scientific divers at a research station in the Mediterranean Sea had a problem: at some point in every field season, local fish would follow them and steal food intended as experimental rewards. “Intriguingly these wild fish appeared ...

What Would Actual Scientific Study of UAPs Look Like?

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

What Would Actual Scientific Study of UAPs Look Like?

For those who missed the memo, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are now called UAPs (Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena). The term UFO became so closely tied to alien spacecraft and fantastical abduction stories that people dismissed the idea, making any serious discussion difficult. The term UAP is a broader term that encompasses more unexplained objects or events without the alien spaceship idea truncating any useful or honest discussion. While the name change is helpful, it’s just the beginning. We need a way to study UAPs scientifically, and new research shows us how. Though the idea of alien spacecraft visiting us isn’t always taken very seriously, the effort to document UAP and understand them goes back decades. In current times, governments around the world hav...

‘Captain America: Brave New World’ introduces adamantium into the MCU, but did it come from space in the comics?

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

‘Captain America: Brave New World’ introduces adamantium into the MCU, but did it come from space in the comics?

The fourth Captain America movie, Captain America: Brave New World, is finally out and has been met with middling critical reviews. Despite that, fans are already dissecting every new character and plot development that's transpired as they eagerly await The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Thunderbolts. Most intriguing is the introduction of adamantium in this movie, which is fascinating because of how it differs from the comic book lore.Adamantium is part of the comic book-y, 'fun first' science found in the long-running universe. From vibranium to recurring alien threats, the vast Marvel Cinematic Universe takes many elements from Marvel's take on outer space. That said, the metal that covers Wolverine's skeleton had an entirely different origin in the comic books and the X-Men movies.La...

Is Pluto a planet or not? Who cares! Our love for the King of the Kuiper Belt is stronger than ever 95 years later

19Feb

By Muhammad MirzaNo Comments

Amazing Facts

Is Pluto a planet or not? Who cares! Our love for the King of the Kuiper Belt is stronger than ever 95 years later

Clyde Tombaugh didn't set out to discover Pluto when he sent his sketches of the night sky to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1929. More than anything, he just wanted to get off the farm in Kansas where he spent his days working the earth.At just 23 years old, Tombaugh sent his drawings, unsolicited, to several institutions and observatories around the United States, hoping someone — anyone — would give him some feedback on what he'd produced.The response from Lowell Observatory, then, must have been a shock when it hit his mailbox. It was more than a critique of his drawings from professional astronomers. Instead, it was a job offer (from the head of the Observatory, no less), and one that within two years would put Tombaugh in an elite and narrow pantheon of stargazers who co...