The auroral displays in the northern and southern hemisphere, also known as the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) or the Southern Lights (aurora australis), occur when charged particles from the Sun strike Earth’s atmosphere. The intense auroral activity of May 10–11, 2024, was the brightest and most widespread auroral display on Earth since 2003. (Credit: Judy B. Houle)The most iconic, longest-lived space telescope of all, NASA’s Hubble, is experiencing orbital decay as the solar cycle peaks. Here’s why. Here, in the spring of 2024, Earth’s inhabitants are getting quite a show: the ..read more

The brightest X-ray ridges in this image, appearing in white, seem to trace a path away from the galactic center and perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy. Researchers think these features are the walls of a tunnel, shaped like a cylinder, which helps funnel hot gas as it moves upwards along the chimney and away from the Galactic Center. X-ray data is shown in blue, alongside radio data in orange/red. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Chicago/S.C. Mackey et al.; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk)The galactic center is home to the most powerful engine in the Mi ..read more

The SIBELIUS project, which simulates galaxies and structures beyond the local Universe, is part of the Virgo Consortium that attempts to use cosmological simulations to reproduce features of galaxies, groups, and clusters that are seen all across the Universe. By using a mix of theory, observations, and simulations, astrophysicists can better understand the nature of dark matter in our cosmos. (Credit: Virgo Consortium/SIBELIUS project)Starts With A Bang Podcast #105 — Dark Matter and Galaxies We normally think of dark matter as the “glue” that holds galaxies and larger structures togeth ..read more

The X-ray (pink) and overall matter (blue) maps of various colliding galaxy clusters show a clear separation between normal matter and gravitational effects, some of the strongest evidence for dark matter. The X-rays come in two varieties, soft (lower-energy) and hard (higher-energy), where galaxy collisions can create temperatures ranging from several hundreds of thousands of degrees up to ~100 million K. Meanwhile, the fact that the gravitational effects (in blue) are displaced from the location of the mass from the normal matter (pink) shows that dark matter must be present. Without dark ma ..read more

Just as raisins within a leavening ball of dough will appear to recede from one another as the dough expands, so too will galaxies within the Universe expand away from one another as the fabric of space itself expands. In this analogy, the expanding Universe is described by space that “stretches,” but that analogy doesn’t work for every aspect of our expanding Universe. (Credit: Ben Gibson/Big Think; Adobe Stock)The evidence that the Universe is expanding is overwhelming. But how? By stretching the existing space, or by creating new space itself? It’s been almost 100 years since huma ..read more

The Universe itself, through a variety of nuclear processes involving stars and stellar remnants, as well as other means, can naturally copiously produce nearly 100 elements of the periodic table. Neutron star mergers are known to produce the heaviest elements, such as gold, in great abundances, but the neutron star merger rate is too low, at present, to explain the observed abundances of gold and other similar elements today. (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser)In 2017, we detected gold being forged in a neutron star-neutron star merger. Now, in 2024, the amounts created simply don’t add&nb ..read more

The edge of the “mane” of the Horsehead Nebula, highlighted here by new JWST NIRCam imagery, provides us with our deepest-ever look at this iconic astronomical sight. What we found inside is richer than anyone expected. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Karl Misselt (University of Arizona), Alain Abergel (IAS, CNRS))The most iconic “dark nebula” of all lights up under JWST’s infrared gaze. Here’s what’s newly discovered inside. The Horsehead Nebula is an iconic astronomical sight. A dark molecular cloud of neutral gas sits in front of an active star-forming region: IC 434, creating the iconic sigh ..read more

Perhaps the most commonplace and familiar use of a hologram is found on credit cards, such as the Visa “dove” hologram shown here. Holograms appear three-dimensional, but only require a two-dimensional surface to encode that information. (Credit: Dominic Alves/flickr)Holograms preserve all of an object’s 3D information, but on a 2D surface. Could the holographic Universe idea lead us to higher dimensions? Have you ever wondered whether there’s more to reality than what we can see, perceive, detect, or otherwise observe? One of the most intriguing but speculative ideas of 20th and 21st century ..read more

Although there are no observed white holes within our Universe, the theoretical description of one has many facets in common with what we identify as the hot Big Bang. There could be a connection between white holes and what happens on the other side of black holes, with implications for the origins of our own Universe. (Credit: daboost / Adobe Stock)In General Relativity, white holes are just as mathematically plausible as black holes. Black holes are real; what about white holes? In our Universe, the laws of physics tell us all the possibilities for what’s allowed to conceivably ex ..read more

The human mind is one of the great mysteries of modern science, as we cannot sufficiently explain how the brain in general, or consciousness in particular, works. However, it’s a reasonable “null hypothesis” to presume that electricity, i.e., the flow of electrons, is the primary driver behind our perceptions that we are conscious. Although quantum effects may play a role, it’s an unnecessary complication to presume that consciousness is anything other than the flow of electricity. (Credit: agsandrew/Adobe Stock)At a fundamental level, only a few particles and forces govern all of reality. How ..read more