UNC-Chapel Hill researcher holding a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle. Credit: Ken Lohmann, UNC-Chapel Hill I can’t imagine what it would be like to sense a magnetic field. But a new study has presented the first evidence that loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) use magnetic fields as a compass to determine direction and also use it to … Read more
By observing tiny ripples in spacetime called “gravitational waves” that propagate away from colliding black holes, scientists could reveal hidden asymmetries in the universe. The team behind new research on the topic suggests that measuring whether gravitational waves from black hole mergers are right- or left-handed can tell us if the Cosmological Principle — an … Read more
We’ve only gotten one close-up view of Uranus and its moons, and it happened decades ago. In 1986, Voyager 2 performed a flyby of Uranus from about 81,500 km (50,600 mi) of the planet’s cloud tops. It was 130,000 km (80,000 mi) away from Uranus’ moon, Ariel, when it captured the leading image. It showed … Read more
For sure, it was a far-reaching recommendation: The planet Uranus and its moons should be NASA’s highest-priority new flagship mission for startup in the decade 2023-2032. The proposed mission, known as Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP), would conduct a multiyear orbital tour to yield knowledge of ice giants in general and the Uranus system in … Read more
The most detailed map of the universe ever created using gravitational waves could reveal hidden black holes, merging supermassive black holes and even the large-scale structure of the cosmos. The study, conducted by a team led by astronomers from Swinburne University of Technology, also presented the largest-ever galactic-scale detector of gravitational waves, which are basically … Read more