News Feeds

A conventional computer must be fully assembled before it can run, but an experimental DNA computer solves problems through the very act of putting itself together

With anaesthetics and brain organoids, we are finally testing the idea that quantum effects explain consciousness – and the early results suggest this long-derided idea may have been misconstrued

With anaesthetics and brain organoids, we are finally testing the idea that quantum effects explain consciousness – and the early results suggest this long-derided idea may have been misconstrued

The new Jesus and Mo strip, called “tragic,” came with the caption, “It’s okay, they had muesli for breakfast.”

I’m not sure about this one, save that the boys leave their McDonald’s cups and french-fry package on the bench after they leave. Is that the licensed immoral behavior?

Perhaps readers can explain. . .

Two readers sent me this 44-minute video posted by Tom Gross, showing Emily Hand, a 9-year-old girl kidnapped by Hamas, comforting her father Thomas, an Irishman, as he’s interviewed by Piers Morgan. (Hand’s wife died of cancer, and Thoma’s ex-wife, who served as Emily’s stepmother, was killed by Hamas.) It’s ineffably moving to see young Emily stroke her father’s face, wiping the tears from his eyes as he recounts the family’s ordeal.

You may remember Thomas Hand saying, when he thought his daughter was dead in Gaza, that her death was probably for the best, for her fate would have been worse had she been taken alive:  he imagined what Hamas would do to Emily.(A clip from that interview is at 11:42.) I’m sure he feels differently now! But he did have to explain to Emily, after she returned, that her stepmother was dead.

My friend said this:

You have to watch this—it’s insanely powerful. I’m crying.  He just lays it all out. Makes me want to move to Israel and help. . .

Towards the end, Thomas Hand gets very angry and calls Western university students “idiots”. . . and he mentions Harvard.

Here are Tom Gross’s notes:

Thomas Hand, the Irish-born father of Emily Hand who was released after 50 days in Hamas hell, gave an in-depth interview yesterday evening to Piers Morgan on Britain’s TalkTV. Emily was 8 when she was kidnapped and turned 9 in captivity.

One viewer said: “How she wiped her father’s tears, caressed and cared for him when he started to cry in the interview. Melted my heart.”

Also of note is when Thomas Hand says ignorant critics of Israel in the West “don’t know a thing” and have “no idea what they are talking about”.

Hand is no conservative: he brought up Emily on a kibbutz because he liked its socialist atmosphere. As for Emily’s kidnapping during a sleepover and the attack on the kibbutz, you’ll have to listen to the interview.

Three bits are worth noting: about 30 minutes in, Thomas explains how he told Emily that her stepmother/caretaker was dead. (See especially from 31:15 on.)

At 32:25, the discussion turns to politics, Israel’s response, and how the West has reacted. Thomas gets quite exercised, especially when he gets to the accusation that Israel is an “apartheid state.”

At 43:00, Piers asks Thomas to ask Emily (in Hebrew) how she felt when she saw her father again after her release.

A final word from me: of the roughly 200 people taken hostage by Hamas, from several countries, about 136 remain in Gaza. That there is no world outcry about this; that the UN hasn’t condemned Hamas for this; and that the Court of Justice in the Hague is not putting Hamas on trial for real genocide, including taking civilian hostages, firing rockets into Israel, swearing to keep attacking Israel until all the Jews are dead (as specified in its charter) and many other terroristic war crimes—all of this should bring deep shame to the West

As with many YouTube videos, this one is periodically interrupted with annoying advertisements.  Nothing is immune from being monetized these days.

Today we have photos by Friend of the Site Greg Mayer, who sent these in when the photo well was about to run dry. Greg’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. This is part 1 of 2.

Southern trees: what’s on them?

One of the things you notice in heading south are the changes in the plants and animals you see. One of the most striking things you notice is the abundance of epiphytes– plants growing on plants– which are much commoner in the southern US than in the north. Epiphytes of all sorts, and often large ones– bromeliads, vines, strangler figs, etc.– are a typical characteristic of tropical forests, but there are a fair number in subtropical Florida. The following pictures are from Jacksonville, in northern Florida.

Among the first “southern” things you notice, even while driving, is Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides, in the bromeliad family) dripping off of trees; while driving south I first noticed it in southern Georgia. Unfortunately, there were none where I walked around to take these photos! But there were other air plants– which is what Spanish moss is. Here’s one, another species of Tillandsia, in a lime tree (Citrus sp.).

Tillandsia sp., Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

Air plants have no roots, consisting instead of twisted leaves clinging to other plants and surfaces; they get water and nutrients from the air and the rain. They are not parasitical in the usual sense– they don’t “feed” upon their host– but they are what are known as “support parasites”: their host holds them up, and gets them exposed to sunlight. Some support parasites can be inimical to the host, weighing it down and intercepting sunlight and rain; a friend here in Florida told me that a lot of Spanish moss will kill a tree.

Though the lime tree had no Spanish moss, it was not doing well, and epiphytes (mostly lichens) were abundant on the moribund parts of the tree; compare the left side, with leaves, vs. the nearly barren right side.

Lime tree, Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

A live oak (Quercus sp., I think) with lots of epiphytes was also not doing well. Notice the few bunches of live leaves higher in the tree; the ground below it was covered with broken-off, epiphyte-encrusted, branches. [Edit by GCM: The clumps of live leaves in the tree below are probably mistletoe, an epiphytic parasite, not leaves of the oak. Also the oak is probably not a live oak. See the comments for further details. My thanks to readers Dennis Howard Schneider,  j a higginbotham, bruce morgan, and debi!]

Live oak (Quercus sp., ?), Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

The most common epiphytes here are lichens. I won’t even venture an opinion on what species occur here, but there were differences in growth form indicating to me that several species were present. Here’s a wispy kind I found on branches.

Wispy lichen, Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

Nearby on the same branches could be found a lichen with a more “structured” form, with “chimneys”.

Lichen, Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

Lichens also grew on trunks; this is the same live oak as shown above.

Lichens on trunk, Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

A common sight in Florida is a palm whose trunk is covered with ferns. The ferns on this one are modestly dense– I’ve seen much denser. I think the tree is one of the twelve native palms of Florida– perhaps cabbage palm. (IDs from readers on this or other plants would be appreciated!)

Epiphytic ferns on palm trunk, Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

On this palm, moss is growing on the trunk, and we can see some epiphytic vines dangling.

Epiphytic moss on palm trunk, Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

Finally, neither trees nor epiphytes, and, in fact, not even plants, a couple of fungi on the lawn.

Mushrooms, Jacksonville, FL, January 9, 2024.

Fermented food such as artisan cheeses or kimchi made with unpasteurised milk or starter cultures that haven't been properly screened can contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria

A new study finds that hospital measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 worked, and we probably should keep them.

The post Hospital Measures Prevented COVID Transmission first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Black holes can be difficult to study, so researchers have made a powerful quantum vortex in a tank of superfluid helium that acts as a simulation of a black hole

Researchers estimate that 17,000 baby elephant seals have died from avian flu in Argentina and it is likely that the virus is spreading among marine mammals

Solar power is a booming industry right now as we all strive to run our lives with minimum carbon footprint. Solar is a relatively easy way to get clean electricity but of course we are limited to the hours then Sun is above the horizon. Solar panels in space have been muted before but the costs and technology to transmit power to Earth is prohibitive. An alternative approach has been explored by a team of engineers who have been looking at the possibility of deploying giant reflectors into space.

They are a familiar site on houses these days, panels of crystalline-silicon that convert light into electricity. Solar panels have to be positioned carefully to maximise incoming sunlight and thus maximise electricity generation. If a way could be found to increase the amount of time a solar panel was in sunlight then of course they would be more useful to us. In 1993, a 20metre Russian space mirror known as Znamya-2 was unfurled to demonstrate that sunlight could be reflected down to Earth. 

The concept to use reflectors in space to prolong the time that solar panels are illuminated is a far simpler and cheaper solution to some sort of solar power station in space. Arguably one of the key times in the day when power is needed is at night so being able to extend the hours of sunlight seems like a great concept. It’s not a new idea though as Hermann Oberth suggested it back in 1929 when he visualised giant reflectors in space, reflecting light down to areas that need it. 

A paper recently published explores the reality of the concept and shows how the vision of Oberth may now be achievable. It should be noted that the idea is designed to target sunlight onto solar farms rather than individual homes. The technology is now available and materials suitable to be able to create, launch and deploy large solar reflectors into space. Once deployed, an orbiting reflector could be angled to direct sunlight onto a solar farm as it passes over, extending the ‘day’ and increasing electricity generation.

The reflectors which are proposed to be hexagonal with sides 250 metres long would likely be deployed into orbits at an altitude of about 900km. This would illuminate an area approximately 10km across and extend generation time by around 20 minutes either side of dusk and dawn. 

Concerns that these would destroy the night are likely to be unfounded due to the planned approach to target solar farms away from inhabited areas.  The reflectors would not be visible ot the naked eye unless you happened to be standing near a solar farm at the time it was beign illuminated and astronomical observations protected by angling the reflectors when not in use. 

It is likely to be some years before such a project became reality but it is nice to see engineers and scientists looking at ways to enhance the generatin of clean energy in a way that promotes protection of our planets natural resources but also limits negative impacts on human activity.

Source : Reflectors in space could make solar farms on Earth work for longer every day

The post Reflectors in Space Could Make Solar Power More Effective appeared first on Universe Today.

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Ngày bướu” in Vietnamese): Wednesday, January 17, 2024. This will be a curtailed post, as PCC(E) is travelling.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the January 17 Wikipedia page.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is a wise cat:

Hili: I have a feeling that the world has gone crazy. A: Is it visible from your place as well? 

In Polish:

Hili: Mam wrażenie, że świat zwariował.
Ja: Z twojego miejsca też to widać?

*******************

From Stacy:

 

Just like a book can't be judged by its cover, a material can't always be judged by its surface. But, for an elusive conjectured class of materials, physicists have now shown that the surface previously thought to be 'featureless' holds an unmistakable signature that could lead to the first definitive observation.

Chemists have mapped how proton-coupled electron transfers happen at the surface of an electrode. Their results could help researchers design more efficient fuel cells, batteries, or other energy technologies.

On hot days, Alpine ibex increase their activity at nighttime to avoid the heat – but this might increase the risk of predation by wolves

Men's navigational skills slightly trump women's, but it probably comes down to their upbringing, rather than it being an evolutionary trait

After analyzing the temperature data from 2023, NASA has concluded that it was the hottest year on record. This will surprise almost nobody. If you live in one of the regions stricken by drought, forest fires, or unusually powerful weather, you don’t need NASA to confirm that the planet is warming.

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies produced the analysis that led to this conclusion. They looked at temperature anomalies rather than strictly at temperatures. Temperature anomalies show how much hotter or colder than normal it is at a specific place and time. In this case, normal means the average over a 30-year period between 1951 and 1980 for a time and place.

The analysis, which makes use of extensive satellite data, showed that 2023 was the hottest year on record. In fact, every month from June to December 2023 was the hottest month compared to the same months in previous years. Not only that, but July was the hottest month ever recorded.

This image shows the global temperature anomalies for July 2023. Image Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

How much hotter was 2023? “Global temperatures in 2023 were around 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980),” NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) said.

Anyone who follows news from around the world knows the world is facing more severe weather. In the USA, a mega-drought meant that parts of the Southwest suffered from a water shortage. Reservoirs were reduced to historically low levels.

In Canada, massive, numerous, and stubborn forest fires dominated the summer, with smoke moving south and enshrouding some of America’s largest cities for days. Many of those fires are still burning as zombie fires that will spring back to life after this winter.

The Donnie Creek fire of 2023 in British Columbia, Canada, was the largest-ever fire in that province. It covered over 600,000 hectares. Image Credit: BC Wildfire Service.

In Asia, a record-breaking heat wave struck India, China, Vietnam, and other countries. In India, major cities exceeded 45 Celsius, schools and other places were shutdown, and rolling blackouts, triggered by air conditioner use, made things even worse.

In the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the temperatures reached 49 C in some places. In Europe, the Cerberus Heatwave brought temperatures above 40 C to many countries, including Spain, where temperatures reached 45 C.

Hundreds of millions of us faced extreme temperatures during the summer of 2023. Millions of us watched helplessly as forest fire smoke clouded our skies and damaged our lungs. Farmers struggled, and food prices rose.

But climate change isn’t just about heat, smoke, and fire. It’s also about extreme rainfall, flooding, and hurricanes. Whatever the consequences, it’s not something humanity has seen before.

“The exceptional warming that we’re experiencing is not something we’ve seen before as a species,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS. “It’s driven primarily by our fossil fuel emissions, and we’re seeing the impacts in heat waves, intense rainfall, and coastal flooding.”

Most of what the Earth is going through is due to human-caused climate change. But other things still contribute to the climate, like El Nino and El Nina. Climate scientists consider all these things when trying to understand what’s happening.

This image shows how the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects global temperatures. There are three phases in the South Pacific’s ENSO: El Niño, La Niña, and neutral, or average. El Nino is a weakening of trade winds that blow from east to west in the South Pacific, allowing the sea surface to warm up and rise. La Nina is the opposite: the winds become stronger, and sea temperatures become cooler than normal. La Nina can help offset some of the effects of climate change, but only temporarily. Image Credit: NASA

But we have no control over El Nino. Our carbon emissions are the only thing we have control over. Vegetation and the oceans only absorb about 50% of our emissions, and the rest persists in the atmosphere.

This visualization shows the atmosphere in three dimensions and highlights the accumulation of CO2 during a single calendar year.

It’s not just Earth’s atmosphere that warms. Our oceans absorb most of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, about 90% of it. The oceans are a gigantic heat sink, and they’ll continue to warm as the atmosphere does. That changes the biochemistry and the overall health of the oceans and also accelerates the melting of our major ice sheets.

“Just like global temperatures, ocean temperatures are on the rise,” said Josh Willis, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “They have been rising for the last century or more, and they are not slowing down. If anything, they are speeding up.”

This image shows anomalies in the sea surface temperature. These temperatures reached new record highs in 2023. Image Credit: NASA.

The world will keep warming for the next several decades or more, no matter what changes we make today. But the future is still in play. Scientists still need as much detailed climate data as we can gather, even though we know we’re responsible for the warming world. We can still prepare for the worst of it while developing and implementing solutions.

“We are very interested in the weather and extremes of any particular year because those are the things that impact us,” said GISS Director Schmidt. “But the key difference between this decade and the ones before is that the temperatures keep rising because of our activities, principally the burning of fossil fuels.”

NASA’s results show the future we face. More heatwaves, more devastating forest fires, more pressure on agriculture and food prices, and a bleak future for some of the world’s poorest people.

But it’s not foreordained. There are solutions, and they’re being implemented. Renewable energy use is on the rise, for example, and people around the world are demanding that governments implement more changes. And while arcane scientific arguments about atmospheric chemistry and physics are not that impactful for many people, extreme heat is a much more effective alarm bell. So are the things that extreme heat brings, like flooding, fire, smoke, heat waves, rising sea levels, and higher food prices.

Let’s hope the next generations and the politicians that accompany them don’t keep pressing the snooze button like we have.

The post NASA Confirms that 2023 was the Hottest Year on Record appeared first on Universe Today.

We have all been there, had that one stubborn jar of jam that we just can’t open. Maybe you grab a rubber band or run it under warm water and its an easy fix but just imagine when the jar is a module from a $1.16 billion interplanetary probe! That’s what happened to NASA engineers when they were trying to recover samples from the OSIRIS-REx module  when they discovered the clamps had cold welded shut! 

OSIRIS-REx is a NASA mission to retrieve a sample from asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth. The probe launched in September 2016 in what was a complex and audatious mission. In order to collect the samples the probe ‘kissed’ the surface at just the right trajectory and velocity so not to be destroyed and to return them, OSIRIS-REx completed a flyby manouvre of Earth and dropped them off before continuing on to a new destination. Impressive stuff.

An artist’s illustration of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft approaching asteroid Bennu with its sampling instrument extended. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

The samples were successfully returned to Earth on 24 September 2023 having been deployed high above the Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule then gracefully floated down under a parachute to the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The samples that were contained within will help us to better understand how the planets formed, how life began and to improve our knowledge of asteroids and just how we might be able to defend ourselves from future potential impacts. 

Having successfully completed the sample collection and recovery, it seems that getting the samples out of the capsule was destined to be the more challenging aspect.  When the engineers tried to open the sample head of the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism they quickly learned that two of the 35 fastenings had cold welded themselves shut!

Unfortunately, the team did not have any ready made tools for such a situation so they had to improvise and created their own new tool from a special non-magnetic stainless steel. If this wasn’t hard enough, the team’s challenge was exaserbated because of the lack of space in the container that the samples and the capsule were stored within. This process was a laborious one though as the team had to test and refine the tool and instrument many times to minimise risk of damage and contamination.

Success was limited as the team were only able to recover 70 grams of the asteroid sample although this was in excess of the target 60 grams. The science teams are now working with some of the samples and have hermetically sealed the rest for future studies.

Source : NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Team Clears Hurdle to Access Remaining Bennu Sample

The post Engineers Finally Open OSIRIS-REx’s Sample Container appeared first on Universe Today.

Planning large astronomical missions is a long process. In some cases, such as the now functional James Webb Space Telescope, it can literally take decades. Part of that learning process is understanding what the mission will be designed to look for. Coming up with a list of what it should look for is a process, and on larger missions, teams of scientists work together to determine what they think will be best for the mission. In that vein, a team of researchers from UC Berkeley and UC Riverside have released a paper describing a database of exoplanets that could be worth the time of NASA’s new planned habitable planet survey, the Habitable Worlds Observatory HWO.

Astronomy’s decadal surveys are the starting point for many ambitious projects, and the Astro2020 Decadal Survey didn’t disappoint. It called for NASA to develop a 6-meter space telescope capable of high-contrast observations in optical, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths. 

That project became known as the HWO; its primary mission is to observe 25 different exoplanets in their parent star’s habitable zones and look for biosignatures on them. Essentially, it will be humanity’s best alien finder. While not searching biosignatures, it can also do general astronomy, but knowing what planets to look at is critical to its mission.

The first in a series of lectures leading up to the advent of the HWO.
Credit – STScI Research YouTube Channel

To tackle that part of the project, a NASA project known as the Exoplanet Exploration Program developed a list of 164 candidate exoplanets “whose [hypothetical] exo-Earths would be the most accessible” for the HWO. Mainly, that accessibility had to do with the characteristics of the planet’s parent star, but its separation from that star was also considered. 

While those are helpful characteristics to consider, there are plenty more factors that we believe go into whether a planet is habitable or not. These include the frequency of flares and the abundance of certain elements in the star itself. That is precisely the kind of information the new catalog contains.

Specifically, the measurements the authors collected can be broken down into five categories: stellar element abundance, photometric values, flare rates, variability estimates, and X-ray emissions. However, each of those categories has plenty of nuance in it. For example, the researchers collected 1700 stellar measurements of elemental abundance for 14 different elements. However, they could only find X-ray emission data for 41 of the 168 stars in the catalog.

Fraser discusses what exoplanet hunting will look like in the future.

The lack of data isn’t surprising, as they were simply collecting data from other publicly available sources. Some of those sources focused on thousands of stars and weren’t paying close attention to the ones needed from this data set. Data came from various places, including the Gaia, TESS, and WISE.  

Even the database itself was modeled on a similar one, known as ExEP Mission Star List (EMSL), that was originally developed for two other Great Observatories, LUVOIR and HabEx. Each has its own specialization, and while there is some overlap with HWO, the data defining those missions wasn’t complete enough to help define HWO.

As such, there is still work to do in drawing up a project definition and finalizing the scientific and technical goals for HWO. The authors pointed out that this paper was only the first of a series of precursor papers that would help flesh out what this new observatory would be able to do. Luckily, the catalog they have created is freely available, so any interested party can explore the data they’ve collected and potentially contribute to some of the future work defined at the end of the paper. There’s always more science to be done.

Learn More:
Harada et al. – Setting the stage for the search for life with the Habitable Worlds Observatory: Properties of 164 promising planet survey targets
UT – Planning is Underway for NASA’s Next Big Flagship Space Telescope
UT – An Ambitious New Technology Might be Needed to See Other Earths
NASA Science – Habitable Worlds Observatory

Lead Image:
Artist’s illustration of exoplanets

The post Astronomers Identify 164 Promising Targets for the Habitable Worlds Observatory appeared first on Universe Today.

There’s a galaxy out there without apparent stars but largely chock full of dark matter. What’s that you say? A galaxy without stars? Isn’t that an impossibility? Not necessarily, according to the astronomers who found it and are trying to explain why it appears starless. “What we do know is that it’s an incredibly gas-rich galaxy,” said Green Bank Observatory’s Karen O’Neil, an astronomer studying this primordial galactic object. “It’s not demonstrating star formation like we’d expect, probably because its gas is too diffuse.”

O’Neil and a team of colleagues found this odd, seemingly starless object called J0613+52, while they were doing a sky survey. Their target was a set of so-called “Low Surface Brightness” galaxies (LSBG) They used the Green Bank Telescope, the Arecibo Telescope (before its untimely end), and the Nançay Radio Telescope to look at 350 of these dim, diffuse objects. The idea was to survey them and determine their gas content and dynamic masses.

J0613+52 wasn’t one of the team’s original targets. Instead, they stumbled across it while trying to figure out why some of the data from Green Bank and Nançay didn’t match, according to O’Neil. “The GBT was accidentally pointed to the wrong coordinates and found this object,” she explained, noting that this galaxy was new and unknown. There are no galaxies within 112 parsecs, making it a pretty isolated target. Interestingly, based on their observations, the team found that J0613+52 has about the same characteristics of mass and gas content as a normal spiral. Yet, it has no stars. That poses a mystery they’d like to solve.

What’s a Low Surface Brightness Galaxy?

The type of galaxy represented by J0613+52 is an odd one when you compare it to the more familiar types such as the star-filled spirals and ellipticals. For one thing, it’s a dwarf galaxy with an irregular shape. Without any obvious stars, it’s quite dim. The most unusual thing about objects like this one is that dark matter appears to dominate their compositions. If J0613+52 is like others, it could have up to 95 percent dark matter constraining the neutral gaseous hydrogen that we can detect.

So, why no stars in J0613+52? O’Neil describes it as an “unevolved” dwarf. That’s because the neutral hydrogen gas component is too diffuse, and too spread out. LSBG generally have less gravity and that makes it tough to form stars on their own. So, they evolve very gradually. If they do start to convert gas to stars, it takes a long time for that to happen. Some astronomers suggest that LSBG are late-forming objects in cosmic time. That might explain the presence of this one in relatively “modern” times.

In addition, J0613+52 lies too far from any neighboring galaxies to interact with them gravitationally. That means they can’t trigger star formation through any possible mergers or collisions. “J0613+52 appears to be both undisturbed and underdeveloped,” she said. “This could be our first discovery of a nearby galaxy made up of primordial gas.” That means its gas content is largely unchanged over time.

J0613+52 and Dark Matter

J0613+52 is fascinating on its own, but it also has something to say about dark matter. We can’t see this unknown “stuff” but we can measure its gravitational effects. It seems to dominate in regions where these dwarf LSBG form and that gives astronomers insight into how this stuff is distributed in the Universe.

Dark matter content may also explain why galaxies like J0613+52 don’t easily interact with others. Dark matter “halos” act like gatekeepers to keep them apart. That lack of “contact” may kept it from forming giant stars as a result of collisions. Those kinds of stars are among the first to form. They ultimately die in supernova explosions and seed their environments with the heavy elements needed for ongoing star and planet formation. J0613+52 and others don’t have those heavy elements, which is another clue that stars aren’t forming inside them.

Any Other Ones Like this Dark Matter Galaxy?

It’s not the first time someone has stumbled across a “dark” galaxy like this one. There are certainly other candidates. Astronomers found what a dark galaxy called VIRGOH1 21 in 2005 in the Virgo Cluster. One consensus is that it’s made largely of dark matter. That describes J0613+52 as well. VIRGOH1 21 was found using radio telescopes, too, looking for the vibrations of hydrogen gas molecules. Since its discovery, however, some astronomers have suggested that this dark galaxy could be part of a tidal tail of gas and debris generated by a long-ago galactic collision. That uncertainty is why further observations of J0613+52 will be crucial.

A radio view tracing out gas in the so-called “dark matter galaxy” VIRGOH121. Made from data collected by the Arecibo Radio Telescope.

In her presentation at AAS, O’Neil pointed out that it will take high-sensitivity instruments to explore J0613+52 and understand its characteristics. There is a new one about to be installed at Green Bank, called ALPACA (Advanced L-Band Phased Array Camera for Astronomy). Once it’s up and running, ALPACA will extend the field of view of the telescope, allowing astronomers to probe further into J0613+52 and other low surface brightness galaxies like it.

For More Information

Astronomers Accidentally Discover Dark Primordial Galaxy
Low Surface Brightness Galaxies

Green Bank Observatory: Technology in the Next Decade

The post A Primordial Dark Matter Galaxy Found Without Stars appeared first on Universe Today.