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The Event Horizon Telescope is back to work this week on tour of exotic cosmic objects

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The planet-scale array of observatories most famous for creating the first-ever image of a black hole is heading back to work. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is gearing up for its 2022 campaign, which includes seven days of remote observations. The telescope network will focus on dramatic objects around the universe including black holes, galaxies … Read more

Giant Bubbles Expanding From The Milky Way Could Be Explained by a Single Event

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Two sets of giant bubbles that extend thousands of light-years above and below the plane of the Milky Way could have been produced by the same event, in spite of their significant difference in size.   They’re called the Fermi bubbles and the eROSITA bubbles, and astronomers believe they were the result of activity by … Read more

Supercomputers Simulated a Black Hole And Found Something We’ve Never Seen Before

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While black holes might always be black, they do occasionally emit some intense bursts of light from just outside their event horizon. Previously, what exactly caused these flares had been a mystery to science.    That mystery was solved recently by a team of researchers that used a series of supercomputers to model the details of black holes‘ magnetic … Read more

13,000 Years Ago, a Firestorm Covered 10% of Earth’s Surface, Triggering an Ice Age

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At a point some 12,800 years ago, a tenth of Earth’s surface suddenly became covered in roaring fires. The firestorm rivalled the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, and it was likely caused by fragments of a comet that would have measured around 100 kilometers (62 miles) across.   As dust clouds smothered Earth, they … Read more

Signs of an Unknown Solar ‘Tsunami’ Have Been Discovered Deep Inside Earth’s Ice

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Deep beneath the ice in Greenland and Antarctica, researchers have found signs of an enormous solar ‘tsunami‘ that once crashed against Earth’s atmosphere more than 9,000 years ago.   This ancient superstorm was triggered by a wave of hot plasma and magnetism from the Sun, and it is significantly larger than anything we have recorded … Read more

Tonga volcano: Massive eruption was a once-in-a-millennium event

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The underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption has already triggered a tsunami, a sonic boom and thousands of lightning bolts, and could now lead to acid rain Earth 17 January 2022 By Alice Klein Satellite photo of the eruption CIRA/NOAA/Handout via REUTERS The massive explosion of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga on Saturday was its … Read more

Earth’s Tilted Magnetic Field 41,000 Years Ago Pushed The Auroras to Unexpected Places

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If you want to be dazzled by a spectacular northern lights display, your best bet is to skywatch near the North Pole. But that wasn’t the case 41,000 years ago, when a disruption of Earth’s magnetic field sent auroras wandering toward the equator.   During this geomagnetic disturbance, known as the Laschamp event or the Laschamp excursion, … Read more