Space

Paper

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/3418628

The James Webb Space Telescope and other galactic surveys have confirmed there's a stellar "fountain of youth" birthing new stars near the Milky Way's central black hole, where they shouldn't be able to exist.

Near the galaxy's supermassive black hole, strong radiation and gravitational forces create extremely inhospitable conditions for new star formation.

However, for decades now, astronomers have seen young stars near the galactic center, defying all their predictions. A particular cluster of young stars, known as IRS13, was discovered over 20 years ago. By combining data from many different telescopes, astronomers confirmed the stars in IRS13 are only about 100,000 years old, cosmic newborns compared to Earth's sun (4.6 billion years old), let alone the Milky Way itself (13.6 billion years old).

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/989297

Scientists have observed for the first time the faint ripples caused by the motion of black holes that are gently stretching and squeezing everything in the universe.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/697648

Exposure to microgravity causes changes to the human immune system:

"Here we show that the expression of many genes related to immune functions rapidly decreases when astronauts reach space, while the opposite happens when they return to Earth after six months aboard the ISS," said Dr. Odette Laneuville, an associate professor at the Department of Biology of the University of Ottawa, leading author of a new study in Frontiers in Immunology.

doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1171103

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/659341

This article summarizes findings showing that the Spitzer telescope has observed the spectral signature of tryptophan in an extrasolar system.

This isn't the first instance of amino acids found extra-terrestrially (previously found on asteroids), but is the first found outside our solar system. Tryptophan has a very strong and very clear spectral signature (it is ubiquitously used in life sciences for example).

doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1535