Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are a long-sought ‘missing link’ in black hole evolution. Only a few other IMBH candidates have been found to date. Most known black holes are either extremely massive, like the supermassive black holes that lie at the cores of large galaxies, or relatively lightweight, with a mass less than 100 times that of the Sun. Black holes are one of the most extreme environments humans are aware of, and so they are a testing ground for the laws of physics and our understanding of how the Universe works. If IMBHs exist, how common are they? Does a supermassive black hole grow from an IMBH? How do IMBHs themselves form? Are dense star clusters their favoured home?
Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.
Totally! My favorite astronomical “wow” with my daughter was when she was 12. She wanted to learn about photography, so I set up a tripod at dusk to teach her about aperture, shutter speed, and motion blur. We also compared shots with a remote shutter so she could see how the slightest camera shake during a long exposure would result in a blurry shot.
We were about to go inside once the stars came out, but instead I thought it would be fun to show her how they looked with a two second exposure. “Wait, why do they look like little commas? Are they moving?” I didn’t say a word. I just looked at her, and then it hit…
😳”No! We’re moving!”🤯
Facts aren’t nearly as interesting without the connection of self-discovery.
She came really close to another mind-blowing fact: if you’re talking about linear motion, there’s no difference at all between “they’re moving” and “we’re moving”. Too bad the apparent motion of the stars is caused by rotation, otherwise it would have been a great lesson to introduce basic relativity concepts.
She understood the curved lines as illustrating the rotation of the Earth. We didn’t get into motion away from the universal center.
She’s much older now. Tyson’s version of Cosmos came out in her teens, so we watched all of those and then went back for the OG Sagan episodes. She’s my favorite nerd.
The abstract does a poor job of explaining one of the primary motivations of this research: if Alcubierre drives can exist, and can be built, then it seems likely a sufficiently advanced alien species would have built them. We could therefore find them by detecting the drive failures associated with the hypothetical tech, something which is likely easier than actually building the drives ourselves.
Won’t it be funny if it turns out WE’RE the most advanced alien species? Like, we’re out here wasting time with SETI and this failed warp drive things, when we should be concentrating on UNIVERSEDOMINATION!!!
This is an actual proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox. We’re still relatively early on a universal scale. It’s possible we’re just… first. Or so early that hardly anybody else is out there yet. Could be that a billion years later, advanced life is all over the place.
In your formulation, we would also be the explanation for another species’ dark forest hypothesis…
Then a star large enough to fuse heavier elements needs to live its full life then die of a supernova to create elements heavier than iron
Lastly those remnants need to form a new solar system with a planet somewhat rich in these heavier elements to support life, as well as the time needed to have life spring up in the first place
In terms of how long all of these take, we’re pretty young cosmically
The idea is to assume mediocrity, rather than starting with the assumption that a phenomenon is special, privileged, exceptional, or even superior.[2][3]
Neatly showing off how our moon is exceptionally dull. Here we are, the only dot in the sunbeam that’s not black or white, and our sole natural satellite is this flat dark powder-gray.
And it’s tide-locked! We don’t even get to see all of it. Imagine if Mars had its twin enormous boulders, and they always looked like cardboard cut-outs. Thank goodness for all this water and life and crap, or we’d be a C-tier heavenly body.
astronomy
Najstarsze
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