News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
What we thought were three confirmed exoplanets have just been knocked off their perch – and a fourth one is under serious doubt. According to a new analysis using revised characteristics, the objects Kepler-854b, Kepler-840b, and Kepler-699b seem to be too big to be exoplanets after all. That means they must be stars. The fourth … Read more
The smallest known main-sequence star in the Milky Way galaxy is a real pixie of a thing. It’s called EBLM J0555-57Ab, a red dwarf 600 light-years away. With a mean radius of around 59,000 kilometers, it’s just a smidge bigger than Saturn. That makes it the tiniest known star to support hydrogen fusion in its core, … Read more
What happens when two of the largest objects in the universe collide? Simple, says a new study: They create one of the largest shock waves in the universe. Located about 730 million light-years from Earth, Abell 3667 is a galaxy cluster in chaos. Actually composed of two clusters (or groups) of galaxies colliding into one another, Abell 3667 … Read more
It’s been nearly 80 years since two nuclear bombs were detonated over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing at least 129,000 people, and causing devastating, long-term health effects. To date, those are the only instances of nuclear weapons being used for warfare, but the reality is there are roughly 12,700 warheads remaining in … Read more
We humans are versatile and accomplished navigators, but insects might have navigation skills that are even better. For them, it’s literally a matter of life and death – and that’s why we decided to freeze some ants and beetles (don’t worry, they still survived) to learn more about how they remember their way home after … Read more
A dance of death is taking place at the heart of a galaxy in the distant Universe. Some 10 billion light-years away, two supermassive black holes are locked in an orbit so tight that they will collide with each other and form one much larger black hole in the relatively short time of just 10,000 … Read more
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its surrounding area are showing increased radiation levels after heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in the region, Ukrainian officials said Friday (Feb. 25) Online data from the Chernobyl exclusion zone’s automated radiation-monitoring system shows that gamma radiation has increased 20 times above usual levels at multiple observation points, which … Read more
A recently discovered repeating fast radio burst (FRB) named FRB 20200120E is deepening the mystery of these already deeply mysterious space signals. Astronomers have tracked its location to a galaxy 11.7 million light-years away, which makes it the closest known extragalactic fast radio burst, 40 times closer than the next-closest extragalactic signal. But it … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope finished the first major stage in its long process of aligning the observatory’s 18-segmented primary mirror. A single star that the observatory looked at was deliberately rendered 18 times into a hexagonal shape. Eventually, those 18 images will perfectly align into a single, sharp focus, but the interim result portrays … Read more
Astronomers have discovered the largest radio galaxy ever, stretching at least 16 million light-years through space, new research shows. The galaxy — named Alcyoneus after the son of Ouranos, the Greek primordial god of the sky — was discovered about 3 billion light-years from Earth by a “stroke of luck,” according to a statement from … Read more