NGC346 is a young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Clouds with an estimated 2,500 stars. It’s about 200,000 light years away and this image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a beautiful region of star formation. The bright blue stars are many times more massive than the Sun and will live short lives ending in spectacular supernova explosions. The image helps us to understand the stellar formation process in a galaxy that has fewer metals than our own Galaxy.
Many of our preconceived notions about immigrants likely bear very little resemblance to the facts.
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choicesOne NIH staffer described Bhattacharya’s note as a “thank you and can’t wait to work with you email ... in the middle of the massacre.”
The post Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Makary, and a Cruel April Fool’s Day first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.Astronomers have discovered a remarkable star system just 150 light-years from Earth that's destined for a spectacular cosmic display. The system contains a white dwarf star drawing material from its companion star, with the pair orbiting at just 1/60th of the Earth-Sun distance. With their combined mass reaching 1.56 times that of our Sun, these stars are gradually spiralling toward each other, setting the stage for a spectacular explosion. Fortunately, scientists estimate this cataclysmic event won't occur for roughly 23 billion years, long after our own Sun will have reached the end of its life cycle.
Although astronomers have ruled out a smash-up between Earth and an asteroid known as 2024 YR4 in the year 2032, the building-sized space rock still has a chance of hitting the moon. In fact, the chances — slight as they are — have doubled in the past month.
Despite their name, black holes can sometimes emit radiation. A team of astronomers has recently detected a flicker of X-ray radiation from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy. This flicker was identified using 15 years of data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, revealing two distinct flashes in 2006 and 2013. Interestingly, these flashes coincided with bursts of neutrinos detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, offering exciting new insights into the extreme conditions surrounding the black hole.