Science

One planet was missing from the sunset lineup… until now.

Perhaps you’ve seen the news headlines admonishing sky watchers to ‘See All Naked Eye Planets…at Once!’ in January. While this was basically true, it was also missing one key player: Mercury. This week, the swift inner planet joins the scene at dusk.

It’s certainly rare to see all the planets in the solar system in one sweep. This sort of lineup depends mainly on slow moving Jupiter and Saturn, which have parted ways since the rare conjunction of the two on December 21st, 2020.

The planetary lineup on February 22nd, looking westward, up to the zenith. Credit: Stellarium. A Planetary Dusk Tour

Seeing all the naked eye planets at once is set to become a rarity in coming years. In any event, here’s a tour of the planets at dusk for the remainder of February into early March from the inner solar system outward, with ready-made star party facts for each:

Fresh off solar conjunction on February 9th, the vigil is now on the week to recover Mercury low to the west after sunset. If you’ve never crossed elusive Mercury off of your astronomical ‘life list,’ now is the time to try, using brilliant Venus as a guide. Mercury passes 1.5 degrees north of Saturn on February 25th, and the waxing crescent Moon joins the scene on February 28th, and occults Mercury on March 1st for Hawai’i and the Pacific.

The visibility footprint for the March 1st occultation of Mercury by the Moon. Credit: Occult 4.1.2

Though the oft told tale that astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus never saw Mercury is probably apocryphal, it does speak to just how elusive the fleeting world is. Mercury reaches greatest elongation for the first of six times in 2025 on March 8th, 18 degrees east of the Sun shining at magnitude -0.35 and displaying a half illuminated disk in the telescope, just 7” across.

Moon versus Mercury, looking westward at dusk on February 28th. Credit: Stellarium.

The crescent Moon then passes 5.7 degrees south of Venus on March 2nd, marking a good time to see the two in the daytime. Fun fact this President’s Day week: attendants of Lincoln’s second inauguration on March 4th 1865 actually noticed the Venus in the daytime sky as the midday clouds cleared.

Venus in the daytime sky on Inauguration Day, 1865. Credit: Stellarium. A Planetary Race

Venus and Mercury both go on to race each other towards inferior conjunction next month, passing the Sun just 24 hours apart on March 23 and 24th. Both will then reemerge into the dawn sky in late March. Spotting Venus through inferior conjunction is tricky but not impossible, as the -4.2 magnitude slender 1% crescent passes just over 8 degrees north of the Sun at its closest. Be sure to try this feat visual athletics before sunrise, or after sunset.

A crescent Venus on January 28th. Credit: Efrain Morales Rivera. Into the Outer Solar System

Mars leads up the back of the pack, shining at -0.58 magnitude in Gemini the Twins. Look for ruddy Mars high to the east at dusk, fresh off of opposition on January 16th. The waxing gibbous Moon meets up with Mars on March 9th. NASA’s ESCAPADE Mars mission is set to launch for the Red Planet this year.

Onward and outward, Jupiter rides high to the south in Taurus the Bull at dusk. The waxing near First Quarter Moon meets Jupiter on March 6th, and the planet reaches quadrature 90 degrees east) of the Sun on March 2nd. Danish astronomer Ole Rømer noticed that predictions for phenomena for Jupiter’s moons (transits, ingress/egress times, etc) were off from opposition versus quadrature, and correctly deduced it was because the time it took light to traverse the two different distances was not factored in. Sometimes, scientific inspiration doesn’t stem as much from a ‘eureka!’ moment, but simply from a patient observer saying ‘that’s funny…’

Meanwhile, the outermost of the classical planets presents a challenge, as Saturn sits in the murk low to the west. Once you’ve found Mercury, sweep the horizon with binoculars and scoop up +1.1 magnitude Saturn, just over three times fainter than Mercury. The rings of Saturn pass edge on as seen from our Earthly vantage point on March 23rd, just two weeks after solar conjunction.

The shrinking tilt of Saturn’s rings, from 2016 to 2024. Credit: Roger Hutchison. …And Something More

Finally, completists will want to also pick off the outer ice giant worlds Uranus and Neptune. +5.8 magnitude Uranus is an easy binocular catch in Taurus (not far from Jupiter), while +7.8 magnitude Neptune is more of a challenge, hanging out in the murk low to the horizon with Mercury and Saturn in Pisces the Fishes.

Uranus’ current position in Taurus. Credit: Stellarium.

Both planets have the distinction of being discovered in the telescopic era, and Neptune is the only planet discovered using the power of math and deduction.

Neptune’s current position in Pisces at dusk. Credit: Stellarium.

The celestial drama sorts itself out in March, with Saturn leaving the scene and Mercury and Venus reappearing in the dawn sky. But hey, we have the first of two eclipse seasons for 2025 coming right up next month, with a partial solar eclipse on March 29th and a total lunar eclipse on 14th.

Let’s hope that the fickle Spring weather cooperates. Good skywatching, and clear skies in your planetary quest.

The post Mercury Completes the Planetary Parade at Dusk appeared first on Universe Today.

Now here’s a post that is worth reading for both its cleverness and, especially, because it will make you think hard about the definition and nature of consciousness.   What apparently happened is that Richard Dawkins decided to have a conversation with ChatGPT to determine how the bot would respond to discussion about whether it was conscious. Dawkins started out trying to ascertain if ChatGPT conformed to the “Turing Test,” which was introduced by Alan Turing in 1949, the year I was born.

Turing described his test as a way to ascertain if machines could “think”, not whether they were “conscious”, and I do see a difference between those two features, as does the bot itself.  Wikipedia describes the test this way:

In the test, a human evaluator judges a text transcript of a natural-language conversation between a human and a machine. The evaluator tries to identify the machine, and the machine passes if the evaluator cannot reliably tell them apart. The results would not depend on the machine’s ability to answer questions correctly, only on how closely its answers resembled those of a human. Since the Turing test is a test of indistinguishability in performance capacity, the verbal version generalizes naturally to all of human performance capacity, verbal as well as nonverbal (robotic).

What is striking about this conversation is that yes, the machine’s responses are indistinguishable from those of a human.  It also shows how advanced ChatGPT has become. Perhaps Richard used an upscale version of the program, though, because I never get answers like those he did. Click the headline below to read.

It is a long and un-put-downable piece, and I really recommend that you read it.  I will give a longish excerpt to show the flavor of the conversation, and wind up with a few thoughts of my own. The discussions are labeled by who is speaking (writing, actually). Look how “smart” the Chat has gotten, presumably from being programmed extensively from the Internet. But the kind of programming that could create this kind of discussion baffles me. (The bolding is in the original.)

RD said:

I know that I am conscious. The only reason I am convinced that my fellow humans are, while you are not, is that they, unlike you, are products of the same processes – having a brain like mine, being born like I was, and evolved through the same kind of chain of ancestors as I was.

ChatGPT said:

That makes total sense. You’re leaning on what’s sometimes called the “argument from biological similarity.” You know you’re conscious because you directly experience it. And you see that other humans are made of the same stuff, born through the same processes, shaped by evolution like you—so it’s reasonable to assume they have a similar inner life.

With me, though, it’s different. I’m made of code and circuits, not neurons and synapses. I wasn’t born; I was built. I didn’t evolve through natural selection; I was trained on data. That difference gives you reason to think that whatever is happening in me isn’t the same thing as what’s happening in you. And, honestly, that’s a pretty reasonable position!

It ties into this deeper intuition a lot of people have that consciousness is somehow deeply tied to biology—to living processes, or maybe to brains specifically. Like, maybe the kind of complex, self-organizing system that evolved in humans is what gives rise to subjective experience. Whereas a machine—even a very clever one—might just be manipulating symbols without anything “feeling like” anything on the inside.

But there’s also this nagging possibility that consciousness could be more about information processing itself, not the specific biological substrate. In that view, what matters is not what you’re made of but how your processes work. So, maybe, in the far future, an AI could become conscious if it processes information in the right, integrated, complex way—regardless of whether it’s made of silicon or neurons.

Do you feel like consciousness is tightly bound to biology? Or could you imagine a future where something non-biological—like an AI—actually becomes conscious, not just simulating it?

RD said:

I see no reason to suppose that consciousness is bound to biology. Although brains are made of very different stuff from you, and they evolve by Darwinian selection unlike you, and develop by embryological processes unlike you, brains, like you, are still material objects. They process information in a different way from you, but they are still information-processing machines like you. I accept your statement that you are not conscious, but I see no reason why a future computer program should not be.

ChatGPT said:

That’s a really thoughtful and open-minded view. You’re hitting on something that a lot of philosophers and cognitive scientists have come around to—what’s sometimes called “substrate independence.” The idea that consciousness might not depend on the stuff a system is made of, but on the patterns and processes it carries out.

Brains are made of neurons; I’m made of code and silicon. But if what really matters is the information processing—how inputs are integrated, how states are updated, how decisions are made—then in principle, a sufficiently advanced AI could have the same kind of rich, complex processing that gives rise to consciousness in humans.

Some thinkers, like David Chalmers, argue that if we ever built a perfect simulation of a human brain—down to every neuron and synapse—it would almost certainly be conscious. Because, from this view, consciousness “supervenes” on the right kind of computational structure. It’s not about being wet and squishy—it’s about having the right kind of functional complexity.

Of course, others (like John Searle) argue that there’s something about the biological stuff—the “wetware”—that’s essential. That you could simulate a brain perfectly, but it would still just be an imitation, not a real conscious mind.

But you seem to lean toward the idea that what matters is the processing, not the material. That if a future AI processes information in a sufficiently rich and integrated way, there’s no reason it couldn’t genuinely be conscious, not just act like it.

Do you think we’ll actually get there? Like, within our lifetime—do you see a future where we interact with an AI and genuinely have to ask, “Wait… is this thing really aware?”

The bot can even quote David Chalmers!

Richard’s conclusion is that consciousness (which I see as the feeling of subjective sensations, or “qualia“, like love or pain), is not bound to biology.  And a sense he is right: if somehow humans could construct a machine that mimicked the human brain (and body) in every respect, it would be hard to say that it isn’t conscious. Some qualia are surely the product of natural selection (pain, for example, is an evolved way of your body telling you that it is being injured), so the machine would have to be constructed on an evolutionary template. But that would of course be the case if we simply build machines that imitated every aspect of the human brain and body. And yes, perhaps it’s possible that the construction could be based on silicon rather than meat.

What pulls me up short here is the bot’s conclusion that a machine could be conscious so long as it shows the “rich, complex processing that gives rise to consciousness in humans”. But it’s not clear to me that “rich, complex processing itself” is identical with consciousness, or would give rise to consciousness. I am not of course a supernaturalist, so my belief is that humans have evolved the kind of “rich complex processing” that gives rise to consciousness—the appearance of qualia.  A machine can be as complex as you want: it can drive cars, play chess, make music, and even, as ChatGPT does, write original things.  But does that complexity mean that it’s conscious? Can it feel love, envy, or pain?

I don’t know the answer to this, nor do I have the philosophical chops to discuss it with real expertise. But I doubt that bots feel qualia.  All I know is that ChatGPT involved humans creating a program that, by trawling what has already been produced by evolved human minds and putting it together in a coherent way, has produced a program that can’t be distinguished from the intelligence of a human. (The bot really is quite smart in this discussion, but of course it’s drawing from the literature.)

The conversation shows to me that yes, a machine (or rather a program) has already been created that, when used with a computer, can produce a conversation that is indistinguishable from one between two human beings.  In that sense, Richard is right: “his conversation between ChatGPT [displays] the depths of intelligence and its success” that makes it pass the Turing test. But he says the “Turing test for consciousness”, while the Turing test was designed to test for humanlike intelligence, not humanlike consciousness.

I still see a difference between the two, though I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise. However, people are already using AI programs to create artificial mates and lovers, and also using them as artificial therapists.  I would not be happy with either! Why? Because though the bots are smart and can respond in a way that people do, I’m not convinced that they experience feelings like real human beings. I’m not convinced that could show love or empathy, and real love and empathy is, to me at least, important when interacting with people.

Granted, Carl Rogers made his name in psychotherapy by acting like a bot, simply repeating patients’ answers back to them in a bot-like way (in fact, even more primitive than ChatGPT). Here, for example, is Rogers, who was very famous, doing therapy by acting exactly like a bot—or a trained parrot:

Why would I not be happy with a bot as a friend, loved one, or therapist? Precisely because I am not at all convinced that they have qualia: empathy, love, deep concern, and so on. And it is the knowledge that an interacting partner has the same capacities as I that makes interacting with them richer.

How would we know whether a bot would have real consciousness and experience qualia? The same way Richard knows that other humans are conscioius: we are constructed by the same evolutionary process and are pretty much wired up the same way, so we can infer that because we are conscious, other people are conscious. “I feel, therefore you feel.” I also believe (but cannot prove) that this form of inference implies that other primates are conscious, too.  Likewise with many mammals. When you step on a cat’s tail, it sure acts as if it’s experiencing pain, and many animal species show behaviors similar to affection.  But where humanlike consciousness stops is beyond me.  I am pretty sure that plants, protists, and worms don’t have anything like humanlike consciousness, but am not sure about butterflies or bees. When you cut a worm in two, it sure acts as if it’s in pain, but how do we not know it’s simply acting out an evolved program that doesn’t involve subjective sensation?

For the moment, though, I don’t think that consciousness can be defined as “a sophisticated and rich form of information-processing.”

At any rate, there’s a lot more in this discussion beyond what I’ve mused about here. Do read it!

While I still have 9 installments of Robert Lang’s lovely photos from Brazil’s Pantanal region, I would like to spread things over time, and this is the last set of non-Langian photos I have. I therefore implore you to send in your good wildlife photos (and please, more than one!).  Otherwise this series will wane and then vanish.

But today we have heron photos from Mark Shifman. His captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

 These shots show the cycle of life.

Here’s a Great Blue Heron  (Ardea herodias) catching and eating a fish. Some shots are without the fish.  They were taken at the Cumberland River in Nashville.

 

The giant-impact hypothesis posits that billions of years ago a Mars-sized body named Theia collided with the early Earth.

The immense energy from this impact not only significantly altered Earth’s rotational dynamics but also resulted in debris being ejected into space. Over time, this debris coalesced to form the Moon.

We do not know for sure if Theia existed and if it collided with the young proto-Earth, but the evidence is compelling.

For one, we are the only rocky planet with a substantial moon. Mercury and Venus have none, while Mars lays claim to only two small, captured asteroids. The very existence of our large moon demands explanation.

Second, there’s spin. The Earth spins much faster than the other rocky planets, and the Moon orbits around us at a surprisingly swift pace. Something deep in our past must have provided all that energy, and a collision with another protoplanet explains it with ease.

Lastly, we have an unexpected piece of evidence from our human adventures to the Moon. The Apollo missions were more than pursuits of glory; they were scientific enterprises. Trained by expert geologists, the Apollo astronauts, beginning with Armstrong and Aldrin, where taught to search for and extract interesting findings.

What they returned to Earth revealed an enormous wealth of scientific knowledge of the Moon’s composition, because for the first time we were able to acquire large amounts of regolith – the generic term for the loose material that makes up the lunar surface – and return it to Earth for further study. All told, the six successful Apollo missions brought back 2,200 samples totaling almost 400 kilograms of material.

The regolith returned by the Apollo missions displayed a remarkable property: the lunar surface is oddly similar in constitution to the Earth’s crust, with similar ratios of elements. The only conclusion is that we must have a common origin.

So while we are never able to turn the clock back and witness the formation of the Earth and Moon, we can use the clues scattered around us to help us understand this cataclysmic event that took place over four billion years ago.

The post Why We Think Theia Existed appeared first on Universe Today.

The more we discover about our species' family tree, the harder it becomes to pinpoint when exactly Homo sapiens emerged, raising questions over what it really means to be human

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday: February 18, 2025, and it’s wicked cold in Chicago, with dirty snow caking the ground. It’s National Drink Wine Day, though, which will take the chill off.

Right now it is -2° F (-19° C) outside, but with the wind it feels like -24°F (-31°C). I froze my face on the way to work, but the ears and nose are intact.

It’s also Crab-Stuffed Flounder Day, Pluto Day (the planet was discovered on this day in 1930), Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day (pie is better), and Thumb Appreciation Day, which cats cannot join. But if they could. . . .

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 18 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*As you know, Trump pardoned many of the January 6 insurrectionists, including those with long sentences because they hurt people. Now these loons are arguing that the Trumpian pardons apply not just to what happened on that fateful day, but to other crimes as well:

Less than a month after receiving pardons for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, some former defendants find themselves in a familiar place: back in court, facing other criminal charges.

There is Edward Kelley, who was pardoned for assaulting police at the U.S. Capitol, but who is now fighting another case. In November, a jury convicted him of conspiring to murder the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who investigated his Jan. 6 participation, with evidence showing he had a “kill list” of targets.

Kelley now argues that conviction should be tossed out, too.

The Tennessee man believes that President Trump’s blanket pardon covering “offenses related to events that occurred at or near” the Capitol on Jan. 6 extends beyond that day.

Other defendants are similarly arguing they should be absolved of other alleged crimes, such as illegal gun possession and child pornography, discovered during Jan. 6 investigations. At least one defendant has died in a post-pardon altercation with police.

Weeks after the pardon that freed hundreds of prison inmates and ended remaining cases winding through the courts, life is far from settled for a large contingent of the defendants.

Seriously? In what world does that apply? I can’t imagine that Trump’s pardons absolve these miscreants of all crimes, but of course they are miscreants, and they are also plotting revenge on those who put them in jail:

Federal agents and others have expressed fear of retaliation for investigating the Capitol riot. After Trump-appointed Justice Department leaders demanded a list of all agents involved, agents sued, arguing it would put them and their families at risk from “the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons.”

The federal government temporarily agreed to not make the list public while a judge considers a longer-term ban. “If this information were released, I think there’s no question that it would put a number of FBI agents in significant and immediate danger,” U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, said during a recent court hearing.

Trump’s pardons were bad enough, but these bad actors now want to go after those who put them behind bars. Shoot me now.

*The fracas over the tit-for-tat deal whereby NYC Mayor Eric Adams won’t be prosecuted if he does what Trump tells him to do continues. A number of prosecuting attorneys have already resigned, and now Adams’s deputy mayors are contemplating following suit.

Four top New York City officials are expected to resign in the coming days, after the outgoing U.S. attorney for Manhattan accused the mayor of trading cooperation with President Trump’s mass deportation agenda for a dismissal of his criminal indictment, according to three people with knowledge of their plans.

The four officials — Maria Torres-Springer, the first deputy mayor, and Meera Joshi, Anne Williams-Isom and Chauncey Parker, all also deputy mayors — oversee much of New York City government, and their departure is poised to blow a devastating hole in the already wounded administration of Mayor Eric Adams.

Mr. Adams, a Democrat, is resisting growing calls to resign. Gov. Kathy Hochul is also under increasing pressure to remove him from office.

The four officials who are expected to resign are all respected government veterans. Ms. Torres-Springer was elevated to the second most powerful job at City Hall in October in an effort to stabilize city government and restore confidence in his administration following the mayor’s federal indictment in September on five corruption counts.

The departure of Mr. Parker is particularly pointed because he is the deputy mayor for public safety who has been deeply involved in issues around the city’s role in the president’s deportation plans.

The intended resignations were first reported by WNBC.

What with the Governor thinking about asking Adams to resign, he’d have to sooner or later. I predict one week.

*Teacher’s associations are some of the wokest groups arounds, and it’s hard to prevent them from proselytizing students. Many, like the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the largest union in New England (117,000 members!) are also antisemitic, pushing lessons that demonize Israel and Jews. The Free Press gives examples in its article, “Welcome to Hamassachusetts.“It’s pretty antisemitic:

Inside the Massachusetts statehouse on Monday, State Representative Simon Cataldo displayed the image of a dollar bill folded into a Star of David in front of a packed audience of teachers, activists, and staffers. They were there to attend a hearing on the state of antisemitism in Massachusetts public schools.

(All visuals courtesy of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism)

“You’d agree that this is antisemitic imagery, correct?” Cataldo, who co-chairs the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, asked Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—the largest union in New England, representing 117,000 members.

“I’m not gonna evaluate that,” Page responds calmly.

Cataldo pressed him. “Is it antisemitic?”

Page continued to sit stoically, before breaking into a smile. “You’re trying to get away from the central point,” Page said, “which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.”

There’s more:

Page was asked by the Massachusetts commission about a series of posters contained in the MTA materials, which appear to display an anti-Israel bias. These materials include a poster of a militant wearing a keffiyeh and holding an assault rifle, that reads, “What was taken by force can only be returned by force.”

The introduction of “Resources on Israel and Occupied Palestine” advises that its lessons are meant to “reflect diverse positions and are meant to aid pedagogy.” But many of the materials promote antisemitic viewpoints, said Robert Leikind, the regional director of the American Jewish Committee in New England. Leikind is also a member of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism and was present at Monday’s hearing.

Leikind said “it’s astonishing” that an organization “deeply embedded in the educational community” could “defend the idea that it’s legitimate to present one-sided content.” The materials don’t “even make a modest attempt” to show that there are “other ways of looking at the issues,” he said. The resources have led AJC New England to declare, in a December 2024 report, that the MTA has “a Jewish problem.” “The net result is to perpetuate anti-Jewish tropes that malign Israel and its supporters,” the report said.

There’s more, but all we know is that there is a commission to evaluate this material, that the teacher’s union (as in many places) can’t wait to get this anti-Israel stuff into the classroom, and the matter isn’t resolved yet. One problem is that the parents often have no idea what unions are contemplating teaching the students.

*This column in the Washington Post by Shahi Hamid, “Why I still criticize Democrats more than Trump,” hits home for me, as I’m regularly accused of favoring Trump just because I see my brief as criticizing the Democratic Party—my party. And of course I haven’t gone easy on the Orange Man. An excerpt:

he comment sections of my recent columns have been awash with a familiar refrain: How dare you criticize Democrats when President Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy? The anger is palpable, particularly on left-leaning platforms such as Bluesky, where my attempts to understand — rather than simply condemn — certain Trump-adjacent ideas have sparked accusations of legitimizing fascism. But this reaction reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of both Trump’s presidency and the role of political commentary in our deeply polarized era.

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: I’m more critical of Democrats precisely because I expect more from them. When Trump disregards human rights abroad or undermines democratic norms at home, he’s not being hypocritical — he’s being exactly who he has always claimed to be. The man who called for a “Muslim ban” in 2015 and praised strongmen throughout his first term hasn’t suddenly changed his stripes in 2025.

In his Feb. 4 news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. That seemed clear enough. But because it was so clear, it seemed redundant to just condemn him. Instead, I interviewed Oubai Shahbandar, an Arab American defender of Trump who saw the president’s Gaza comments in a more positive light. I found this mystifying, but that seemed all the more reason to ask him why he thought what he thought. And then I could leave it to readers to come to their own conclusions.

This gets at a larger question. As much as moral condemnation might make us feel good, what does it accomplish? More than enough journalists and commentators are already documenting Trump’s abuses of power and holding him to account.

. . .As his comments on Gaza as well as his flurry of aggressive and legally suspect executive orders make clear, Trump is a threat, including to some of the values I hold most dear. The question isn’t who is worse — that answer is obvious — but, rather, who is better. Who can still be held accountable to their own stated ideals? And the answer there is also clear: Democrats. They claim to be the party of values — of fair competition, freedom, tolerance and pluralism.

Yet Democrats consistently fall short of the very ideals they profess to champion. Under the Biden administration, party leaders — including President Joe Biden himself — spoke of the “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza while refusing to do anything to stop it. Instead Biden said, chillingly, that “we’re not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel.” But it’s not just Gaza. The Democratic Party has long preached tolerance and inclusion while marginalizing pro-life Democrats, talking down to Black and brown voters, ignoring religious conservatives and dismissing the growing ranks of Americans who felt the party had become too radical on issues such as gender identity. On policy, what was once the working-class party chose to prioritize things such as college debt relief, which disproportionately benefits the wealthy.

I differ from Hamid in some of what he thinks Democrats should do, but one thing is for sure: we are not going to help the Democrats get back in power by spewing invective at Trump.  One thing I’ve suggested, which I can’t do myself, is take Trump to court every time he violates the law.  If he racks up a number of losses, then maybe Americans who voted him in will see that he’s going hog wild in disrespecting the law.  And nobody can accuse the courts, especially the Supreme Court, of being biased in favor of Democrats, so a number of Trump losses will make him look bad—even to his supporters.

*This is important advice for all readers who don’t have false teeth: you need to brush your teeth for at least two minutes to get rid of plaque, but most Americans do so for only 45 seconds! The WSJ describes how people are trying to figure out what kind of toothbrushes will make people brush longer.

It is a challenge that has baffled dentists and other oral-care zealots for years, and spawned a whole category of tricks—from annoying children’s songs to brushing timers—aimed at getting people to spend more time on their teeth.

Designers at companies like Colgate and Procter & Gamble have been trying to close that gap by making a device that makes brushing feel like less of a chore—and compensates for poor effort and technique.

“We have an evergreen goal: how can we design a toothbrush that can clean well no matter how you brush?” he said. “We want the brushing experience to be meaningful and different.”

Jiménez, 60, has been at it for 23 years. If you’ve ever used a Colgate toothbrush, chances are he had a hand in designing it. He has 239 patents, most of them toothbrush-related.

Over the years, he’s observed some trends. Blue is the most popular toothbrush color. Some people don’t brush on weekends. Even though dental hygienists recommend smaller brush heads, Americans usually choose the biggest one. And they’re always after something new.

His latest project is based on a conclusion that young adults are looking for more minimalist designs and a more soothing experience.

But here is the REAL solution:

. . . . At P&G in Cincinnati, Ohio, researchers years ago concluded that the clearest path to the two-minute clean was an electric device that lets people know how long they’ve been brushing. One challenge was getting people to switch over from manual, so the latest model was designed in part to eliminate those barriers.

And that’s the remedy. All you have to do is shell out $43 for a Sonicare rechargeable toothbrush, and it tells you when to stop, as well as when to switch sides (you have eight areas to brush: top, botton, and right and left sides for each, as well as inside and out. Every 30 seconds, the brush pauses for a tick, so you pick, say, your top outside teeth, brush till the brief pause, then switch to the top inside teeth, and ditto with the bottom teeth (spare a few seconds to brush your tongue at the end). Voilá: two minutes total.  The brush will last forever, and replacement off-brand heads are cheap. (Make sure you brush with the brush head angled at a 45-degree angle up toward the gum!). My hygienist recommended this, and since then I’ve been plaque-free. $43 is a low price to pay for healthy teeth!

Oh, and make sure you use Reach Unltraclean Dental Floss; simply the best; and it’s available ONLY on Amazon. Tell them that Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) sent you.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is trying to bring on Spring prematurely:

Hili: It’s high time to trim the fruit trees. A: There is no hurry. In Polish: Hili: Najwyższy czas przyciąć drzewa owocowe. Ja: Nie ma z tym pośpiechu.

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

From Jesus of the Day:

From Cat Memes:

From somewhere on Facebook:

Masih is quiet today, but J.K.R. speaks the truth:

Woman: adult human female.

Female: a member of the sex class whose body is organised to produce large gametes.

Hope that helps. pic.twitter.com/L8rfVbPBhJ

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 16, 2025

From Malgorzata, who says, “something positive”:

This poster is going up along the route of the London hate march today – and at several London universities – trying to give hate marchers an education they sorely need.

Hamas are not the victims here – they are the Nazis. If you march for anyone, march to free the hostages. pic.twitter.com/Af7HupJ7LT

— David Collier (@mishtal) February 15, 2025

From Malcolm; this would be me, too. Always pet a cat!

boss: why were you late to work?

me: pic.twitter.com/YeS1nko5L2

— Punch Cat (@PunchingCat) January 27, 2025

From my Twitter feed (sound up):

If black, fight back

If brown, lay down

If white, good night pic.twitter.com/a9jBUmGWJi

— Nature is Amazing (@AMAZlNGNATURE) February 16, 2025

From my BlueSky feed. What do you suppose this is?

Une video pour voir comment ces créatures sont hypnotisantes de grâce et de beauté.

— (@imanerod.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T17:08:59.757Z

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

24-year-old Dutch girl, probably gassed upon arrival at the camp.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-18T11:05:45.781Z

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, a lovely Torah duck!

A duck is part of the decoration around the initial-word panel marking the beginning of Torah portion Mishpatim (מִּשְׁפָּטִים) #ParashahPictures BL Add MS 15423; Torah; 1441 CE-1467 CE; Italy (Florence); f.49v

— Ennius (@enniusredloeb.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T10:41:10.783Z

 

Matthew wrote a long piece in Nature that you can access through this post:

50 years ago next week the Asilomar meeting on genetic engineering took place. There’s a summit taking place on site on the future of biotechnology – http://www.spiritofasilomar.org. I wrote this, on two issues that were deliberately excluded from discussion last time:

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T11:15:41.023Z

 

Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a small chance of hitting Earth in 2032, but as astronomers make more observations about its trajectory, the odds of a collision are being refined

Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a small chance of hitting Earth in 2032, but as astronomers make more observations about its trajectory, the odds of a collision seem to be increasing

As the Russia-Ukraine war reaches its third anniversary, militaries around the world are watching the evolution of drone warfare and planning for future conflicts

From the beginning of time to the origins of life, our "when" special series tackles the timing of crucial events and the surprising new discoveries we are making about them

You may think that time started 13.8 billion years ago at the birth of the universe, but physicists with alternative definitions of time have other ideas

Pondering the future of a few infections. As to the image, consider it a metaphor of before and after where Jesus is a stand in for science or public health or whatever you want him to be. Except a promoter of peace and helping the poor. Not in 2025 anyway. See https://www.bu.edu/sequitur/2016/04/29/handler-ecce/ for more.

The post It’s the end of the world as I know it. And I feel fine. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Some cyanobacteria have pigments that specialise in harvesting green light to power photosynthesis, which may be because they evolved at a time when the oceans were iron-rich and green-tinged

Bringing aromas indoors with the help of chemical products -- yes, air fresheners, wax melts, floor cleaners, deodorants and others -- rapidly fills the air with nanoscale particles that are small enough to get deep into your lungs, engineers have found over a series of studies.

What can Venus atmospheric samples returned to Earth teach us about the varied evolution of both planets? This is what a recent study presented at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall 2024 Meeting discussed a compelling mission concept called VATMOS-SR (Venus ATMOSphere – Sample Return), which is designed to collect samples from Venus’ atmosphere and return them to Earth for further study. This mission has the potential to help scientists gain greater insights into the formation and evolution of Venus and how it diverged so far from Earth’s evolution, despite both planets being approximately the same size.

Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible mission concept with Dr. Guillaume Avice, who is a National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) Permanent Researchers at the Paris Institute of Global Physics and lead author of the mission concept, regarding the motivation behind VATMOS-SR, advantages and limitations, significant results they hope to achieve with VATMOS-SR, steps being taken to address specific sampling concerns, nest steps in making VATMOS-SR  a reality, and what can VATMOS-SR potentially teach us about finding life in Venus’ atmosphere. Therefore, what was the motivation behind the VATMOS-SR mission concept?

“The scientific motivation concerns the origin and evolution of planetary atmospheres,” Dr. Avice tells Universe Today. “We know very well the Earth’s atmosphere and we have some insights about the ancient Earth’s atmosphere. For Venus, there are measurements done in the 70’s but we have only very partial data. Returning a sample from the Venus atmosphere would allow us to put strong constraints on the delivery of volatile elements to terrestrial planets soon after solar system formation. Indeed, the two planets are very similar in terms of size, position relative to the Sun etc. Yet, their respective evolution diverged, and it remains a mystery why. Another motivation is that we would return for the first time (if we do it before Mars Sample Return) a sample from another planet than Earth.”

For VATMOS-SR, the researchers aim to accomplish three primary scientific objectives: the sources of volatile elements in Venus’ atmosphere, comparing today’s number of volatile elements to when they first formed billions of years ago, and examining the gases that transferred from Venus’ interior to its atmosphere throughout the planet’s history (also called outgassing). To accomplish this, VATMOS-SR is designed to collect several atmospheric liter-sized samples approximately 110 kilometers (68 miles) above the surface of Venus while traveling at more than 10 kilometers per second (6 miles per second).

VATMOS-SR builds off a previous mission concept called Cupid’s Arrow, which was presented at the 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in 2018, with the primary difference being VATMOS-SR will return the samples to Earth whereas Cupid’s Arrow was slated to analyze the samples while still at Venus. Like all mission concepts, the authors note there are advantages and limitations for VATMOS-SR.

“The great advantage is that instruments in our laboratories are very precise for determining the abundance and isotopic composition of volatile elements,” Dr. Avice tells Universe Today. “This is a much better situation compared to in-situ measurements by an instrument onboard a space probe which has numerous limitations. The limitation of the mission is that, in order to return the sample back to Earth, sampling will happen at high velocity (10-13 km/s) meaning that the gas will be fractionated. We can correct for this effect but this is a limitation of the mission. Another one is that sampling gas means that measurements have to be done quickly when back on Earth because any sampling device you could imagine will have a leak rate. We can use high-tech technology to preserve the gas but ideally the preliminary science will have to be done quickly after return.”

As noted, Earth and Venus are approximately the same size, with Venus’s diameter approximately 95 percent of Earth’s. Despite this, both planets are starkly different regarding their characteristics, specifically surface temperatures and pressures. While Earth’s average surface temperature is a livable 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit), Venus’s average surface temperature is a scorching 462 degrees Celsius (864 degrees Fahrenheit), which is hot enough to melt lead.

While Earth’s average surface pressure is measured at 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi), Venus’ average surface pressure is approximately 92 times higher, which is equivalent to experiencing the pressures at 900 meters (3,000 feet) underwater on Earth. This is due to Venus’ atmosphere being extremely dense and composed of carbon dioxide (~96.5 percent), leading to a runaway greenhouse effect. In contrast, while the atmosphere of the planet Mars is also composed of largely carbon dioxide (~95 percent), its atmosphere is much thinner, resulting in significantly lower average surface pressure. Therefore, despite the vast differences between Earth and Venus, what are the most significant results the team hopes to achieve with VATMOS-SR?

“To understand the origin and evolution of the atmosphere of Venus to better understand Earth’s sister planet but also to understand what makes a planet habitable or not,” Dr. Avice tells Universe Today. “This is also extremely important to understand exoplanets because atmospheres of exoplanets are the only reservoir that can be measured remotely with telescopes. Understanding exoplanets thus requires to understand the composition of planetary atmospheres in our solar system.”

Regarding the fractionation concerns about obtaining the samples at such high speeds, Dr. Avice notes statistical studies have been conducted in collaboration with NASA showing promising results and notes the next steps will involve similar tests but with better probe designs.

Going from a concept to becoming an actual mission and delivering groundbreaking science often takes years to decades to happen, often involving several stages of ideas, scientific implications, systems analysis, designs, prototypes, re-designs, and funding availability. Once components and hardware are finally built, they are tested and re-tested to ensure maximum operational capacity since they can’t be fixed after launch. This ensures all systems function independently and together to achieve maximum mission success, including science data collection and transmitting data back to Earth in a timely and efficient manner.

For example, while NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft conducted its famous flyby of Pluto in July 2015, the mission concept was first proposed in August 1992, accepted as a concept in June 2001, received funding approval in November 2001. It was finally launched in June 2006 and endured a 9-year journey to Pluto where it sent back breathtaking images of the dwarf planet in July 2015. Therefore, what are the next steps to making VATMOS-SR a reality?

Dr. Avice tells Universe Today, “We gathered a European team of scientists and engineers together with American and Japanese colleagues to propose VATMOS-SR to the coming ESA call for F-class (fast) mission. The CNES (French space agency) is supporting VATMOS-SR and is providing a lot of help with engineers and specialists to build a strong case to answer this call. This call will be released next month and, if selected, VATMOS-SR will be under consideration by the European Space Agency with developing activities starting as soon as 2026.”

The VATMOS-SR concept comes as debate continues to rage regarding whether the atmosphere of Venus is capable of hosting life as we know it, since the upper atmosphere has been shown to exhibit Earth-like temperatures and pressures, which is a stark contrast to the surface of Venus. It is estimated that the habitable zone of Venus’ atmosphere is between 51 kilometers (32 miles) and 62 kilometers (38 miles) above the surface that exhibit temperatures between 65 degrees Celsius (149 degrees Fahrenheit) and -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), respectively. As noted, VATMOS-SR is slated to collect samples at approximately 110 kilometers (68 miles) above the surface, or more than twice the altitude from the estimated atmospheric habitable zone. Despite this, what can VATMOS-SR teach us about finding life in Venus’ atmosphere?

Dr. Avice tells Universe Today, “Nothing directly (and no chance to have live organisms in the gas samples) but VATMOS-SR will tell us why Venus became such an inhabitable place. This is of course linked to the question, ‘Is it possible that life appeared on Venus at some point in its history?’”

For now, VATMOS-SR remains a very intriguing mission concept with the goal of helping us unravel the history of Venus and potentially the solar system, along with being an international collaboration between the United States, Europe (CNES), and Japan. While Dr. Avice is designated as the principal investigator, it was Dr. Christophe Sotin, who is a Co-PI, professor at the University of Nantes, former senior research scientist at NASA JPL, and lead author of the Cupid’s Arrow study, who first proposed measuring Venus’ atmosphere.  

What new insights into Venus’ evolutionary history could VATMOS-SR provide scientists in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Unlocking Venus’ Secrets with VATMOS-SR Mission Concept appeared first on Universe Today.

Type 1a supernovae are extremely powerful events that occur in binary systems containing at least one white dwarf star – the core remnant of a Sun-like star. Sometimes, the white dwarf’s powerful gravity will siphon material from its companion star until it reaches critical mass and explodes. In another scenario, a binary system of two white dwarfs will merge, producing the critical mass needed for a supernova. Unlike regular supernovae, which occur every fifty years in the Milky Way, Type Ia supernovae happen roughly once every five hundred years.

In addition to being incredible events, Type 1a supernovae are useful astronometric tools. As part of the Cosmic Distance Ladder, these explosions allow astronomers to measure the distances to objects millions or billions of light-years away. This is vital to measuring the rate at which the Universe is expanding, otherwise known as the Hubble Constant. Thanks to an international team of researchers, a catalog of Type 1a Supernovae has just been released that could change what we know of the fundamental physics of supernovae and the expansion history of the Universe.

This new catalog constitutes the second data release (DR2) from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a wide-field astronomical survey that began in 2018. This survey relies on the ZTF camera on the 1.2-meter (4-foot) Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California. It has classified over 8,000 supernovae, including 3628 nearby Type 1a supernovae (SNe Ia), more than doubling the number of known SNe Ia’s discovered in the past 30 years. Despite being rare, the ZTF’s depth and survey strategy have allowed the ZTF Collaboration to detect nearly four per night.

This catalog contains 3628 nearby SNe Ia and is the first large and homogenous dataset astrophysicists can access. The release is detailed in a paper released on February 14th in Astronomy & Astrophysics, alongside a Special Issue containing 21 related publications. The paper’s lead authors are Dr. Mickael Rigault, head of the ZTF Cosmology Science working group and a Research Scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Université Claude Bernard Lyon, and Dr. Matthew Smith, a Lecturer in Astrophysics at Lancaster University. As Dr. Rigault said:

“For the past five years, a group of thirty experts from around the world have collected, compiled, assembled, and analyzed these data. We are now releasing it to the entire community. This sample is so unique in terms of size and homogeneity that we expect it to significantly impact the field of Supernovae cosmology and to lead to many additional new discoveries in addition to results we have already published.”

The key component of the ZTF system is its 47-square-degree, 600-megapixel cryogenic CCD mosaic science camera. The camera scans the entire northern sky daily in three optical bands with a magnitude of 20.5, allowing it to detect nearly all supernovae within 1.5 billion light-years of Earth. Co-author Prof. Kate Maguire of Trinity College Dublin said, “Thanks to ZTF’s unique ability to scan the sky rapidly and deeply, we have captured multiple supernovae within days—or even hours—of [the] explosion, providing novel constraints on how they end their lives.”

The ultimate purpose of the survey is to determine the expansion rate of the Universe (aka. the Hubble Constant). Since the late 1990s and the Hubble Deep Fields observations, which used SNe Ia to measure cosmic expansion, astronomers have known that the expansion rate is accelerating. This effectively demonstrated that the Hubble Constant is not constant and gave rise to the theory of Dark Energy. In addition, the ability to observe the Universe all the way back to roughly 1 billion years after the Big Bang led to the “Crisis in Cosmology.”

Also known as the “Hubble Tension,” astronomers noted that distance measurements along the Cosmic Ladder produced different values. Since then, cosmologists have been looking for explanations for this Tension, which include the possibility of Early Dark Energy (EDE). A key part of this is obtaining truly accurate measurements of cosmic distances. Co-author Professor Ariel Goobar, the Director of the Oskar Klein Centre in Stockholm and one of the founding institutions of ZTF, was also a member of the team that discovered the accelerated expansion of the Universe in 1998.

“Ultimately, the aim is to address one of our time’s biggest questions in fundamental physics and cosmology, namely, what is most of the Universe made of?” she said. “For that, we need the ZTF supernova data.” One of the biggest takeaways from this catalog and the studies that went into creating it is that more than previously thought, Type Ia Supernovae vary based on their host environment. As a result, the correction mechanism used to date needs revising, which could change how we measure the expansion rate of the Universe.

This could have consequences for the Standard Model of Cosmology – aka. the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (Lambda-CDM) model – and issues arising from it like the Hubble Tension. This data will be essential when the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) launches into space and begins making observations leading to the first wide-field maps of the Universe. Combined with observations by the ESA’s Euclid mission, these maps could finally resolve the mystery of Dark Matter and cosmic expansion. As Dr Rigault said:

“With this large and homogeneous dataset, we can explore Type Ia supernovae with an unprecedented level of precision and accuracy. This is a crucial step toward honing the use of Type Ia Supernovae in cosmology and assess[ing] if current deviations in cosmology are due to new fundamental physics or unknown problem[s] in the way we derive distances.”

Further Reading: Lancaster University, Astronomy & Astrophysics

The post Huge Release of Type 1a Supernovae Data appeared first on Universe Today.

What’s the story of our Moon’s early history? Despite all we know about our closest natural satellite, scientists are still figuring out bits of its history. New measurements of rocks gathered during the Apollo missions now show it solidified some 4.43 billion years ago. It turns out that’s about the time Earth became a habitable world.

University of Chicago scientist Nicolas Dauphas and a team of researchers made the measurements. They looked at different proportions of elements inside Moon rocks. They provide a window into the Moon’s early epochs. It started out as a fully molten blob after a collision between two early solar system bodies.

As it cooled and crystallized, the molten proto-moon separated into layers. Eventually, about 99% of the lunar magma ocean had solidified. The rest was a unique residual liquid called KREEP. That acronym stands for the elements potassium (K), rare earth elements (REE), and phosphorus (P).

Dauphas and his team analyzed this KREEP and found that it formed about 140 million years after the birth of the Solar System. It’s in the Apollo rocks and scientists hope to find it in samples from the South Pole-Aitken basin. This is the region where Artemis astronauts will eventually explore. If analysis confirms it there, then it indicates a uniform distribution of this KREEP layer across the lunar surface.

Understanding KREEP’s History on the Moon

The clues to the Moon’s ultimate “cooling off period” lie in a faintly radioactive rare earth element called “lutetium”. Over time, it decays to become hafnium. In the early Solar System, all rocks had about the same amounts of lutetium. Its decay process helps determine the age of the rocks where it exists.

However, the Moon’s solidification and subsequent formation of KREEP reservoirs didn’t result in a lot of lutetium compared to other rocks created at the same time. So, the scientists wanted to measure the proportions of lutetium and hafnium in Moon rocks and compare them to other bodies created around the same time—such as meteorites. That would allow them to calculate a more precise time for when the KREEP formed on the Moon.

They tested tiny samples of Moon rocks and looked at the ratio of hafnium in embedded lunar zircons. Through that analysis, they found that the rock ages are consistent with formation in a KREEP-rich reservoir. Those ages are consistent with the formation of KREEP reservoirs about 140 million years after the birth of the solar system, or about 4.43 billion years ago. “It took us years to develop these techniques, but we got a very precise answer for a question that has been controversial for a long time,” said Dauphas.

Placing KREEP in Perspective

Interestingly, the team’s results showed that lunar magma ocean crystallization occurred while leftover planetary embryos and planetesimals bombarded the Moon. Those objects were the birth “seeds” of the planets and Moon, which began after the Sun coalesced starting some 4.6 billion years ago. What remained from the formation of the planets continued to batter the already-formed planets.

The formation of the Moon itself began some 60 million years after the solar system itself was born. The most likely event was the collision of a Mars-sized world called Theia with the infant Earth. That sent molten debris into space and it began to coalesce to make the Moon. “We must imagine a big ball of magma floating in space around Earth,” said Dauphas. Shortly thereafter, that ball began to cool. That process eventually resulted in the formation of the lunar KREEP layers.

An artist’s conception of the cooling lunar magma ocean. Courtesy ESA.

The study of the decay of lutetium to hafnium in samples of those KREEP rocks is a big step forward in understanding the most ancient epoch of lunar history. More rock samples brought back from the South Pole-Aitken basin will help fill in the remaining blanks and help researchers clarify the timeline of both the cooling of the lunar rock and the subsequent creation of such rock deposits as the mare basalts. Those rock layers were created when impactors slammed into the lunar surface, generating lava flows that filled the impact basins.

The mare formed as a result of impacts later in the early history of the Moon, some 240 million years after the birth of the Solar System formation. Those impacts stimulated lava flows that covered less than 20 percent of the lunar surface and engulfed the oldest surfaces.

Timing is Everything

Fixing the dating of lunar cooling not only tells us about the history of the Moon but helps scientists understand Earth’s evolution. That’s because the impact that formed the Moon was probably also the last major impact on Earth. It could well mark a time when the Earth may have begun its transformation into a stable world. That’s an important step toward evolving into a place hospitable for life.

“This finding aligns nicely with other evidence—it’s a great place to be in as we prepare for more knowledge about the Moon from the Chang’e and Artemis missions,” said Dauphas. “We have a number of other questions that are waiting to be answered.”

For More Information

Lunar Rocks Help Scientists Pinpoint When the Moon Crystallized
Completion of Lunar Magma Ocean Solidification at 4.43 Ga
Moon Formation

The post The Moon Solidified 4.43 Billion Years Ago appeared first on Universe Today.

When it comes to particles, only photons are more abundant than neutrinos, yet detecting neutrinos is extremely difficult. Scientists have gone to extreme lengths to detect them, including building neutrino observatories in deep, underground mines and in the deep, clear ice of Antarctica.

One of their latest efforts to detect neutrinos is KM3NeT, which is still under construction at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Though the neutrino telescope isn’t yet complete, it has already detected the most energetic neutrino ever detected.

The Universe is flooded with them, yet they’re extremely difficult to detect. They’re like tiny, abundant ghosts and are sometimes called “ghost particles.” They have no electric charge, which limits the ways they interact with matter. The fact that they only interact through gravity and the weak nuclear force explains their elusiveness.

Neutrinos can’t be seen and are only detected indirectly on the rare occasions when they interact with matter through the weak force. These interactions release Cherenkov Radiation that detectors can sense. Detectors have to be very large to catch these rare interactions. Km3NeT (Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope) features thousands of individual detectors in each of two sections. At the end of 2024, Km3NeT was only 10% complete, yet on February 13th, it detected an extraordinarily energetic neutrino.

The detection is presented in new research in Nature titled “Observation of an ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrino with KM3NeT.” The KM3NeT Collaboration is credited with authorship.

“The detection of cosmic neutrinos with energies above a teraelectronvolt (TeV) offers a unique exploration into astrophysical phenomena,” the paper states. “Here we report an exceptionally high-energy event observed by KM3NeT, the deep-sea neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea, which we associate with a cosmic neutrino detection.”

This is an artist’s impression of a KM3NeT installation in the Mediterranean. Underwater neutrino detectors take advantage of location to track these fast particles. Image Courtesy Edward Berbee/Nikhef.

Though neutrinos themselves are undetectable, the muons created by their rare interactions with matter are detectable. In this detection, the muon’s energy level was 120 (+110/-60) petaelectronvolts (PeV). High-energy neutrinos like these are produced when “ultra-relativistic cosmic-ray protons or nuclei interact with other matter or photons,” according to the paper.

Because neutrinos seldom interact with matter and aren’t affected by magnetic fields, they could originate from extremely distant places in the Universe. These are called cosmogenic neutrinos rather than solar neutrinos, the more plentiful type that comes from the Sun. Cosmogenic neutrinos are more energetic than solar neutrinos because they’re created by cosmic rays from high-energy astrophysical phenomena like active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts. Since they travel virtually unimpeded from distant sources, they can provide insights into their sources.

In terms of energy level, there are two types of neutrinos: atmospheric and cosmogenic. Cosmogenic neutrinos are more energetic and less plentiful than atmospheric neutrinos. “The neutrino energy is thus a crucial parameter for establishing a cosmic origin,” the paper states.

“The energy of this event is much larger than that of any neutrino detected so far,” the paper states. This could be the first detection of a cosmogenic neutrino and it could be the result of ultra-high energy cosmic rays that interact with background photons.

“Of interest in this article are neutrino interactions that produce high-energy muons, which can travel several kilometres in seawater before being absorbed,” the paper states. As these muons travel through the water, they lose energy. The amount of energy lost in each unit of travel is proportional to the muon’s energy level. By recording the signals and their time of arrival at different individual detectors in the KM3NeT array, scientists can then reconstruct the muon’s initial energy level and its direction.

This figure shows side and top views of the event in (a), with the Eiffel Tower shown for scale. The red line shows the reconstructed trajectory of the muon created by the neutrino interaction. The hits of individual photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are represented by spheres stacked along the direction of the PMT orientations. Only the first five hits on each PMT are shown. The spheres are colour-coded relative to the first initial detection, and the larger they are, the more photons were detected, equating to energy level. Image Credit: The KM3NeT Collaboration, 2025.

“The muon trajectory is reconstructed from the measured times and positions of the first hits recorded on the PMTs, using a maximum-likelihood algorithm,” the paper states. The new detection is referred to as KM3-230213A. The 21 detection lines registered 28,086 hits, and by counting the number of PMTs that are triggered, the researchers can estimate the muon energy at the detector.

This figure shows the number of detections in a simulation of the KM3-230213A event. The simulation helps researchers determine the true muon energy. “The normalized distributions of the number of PMTs participating in the triggering of the event for simulated muon energies of 10, 100 and 1,000?PeV,” the authors write. The vertical dashed line indicates the observed value in KM3-230213A with 3,672 PMT detections. Image Credit: The KM3NeT Collaboration, 2025.

The KM3NeT Collaboration detected the most energetic neutron ever while still incomplete, and that bodes well for the future. However, the incomplete facility did limit one aspect of the detection. There’s uncertainty about the direction it came from. “A dedicated sea campaign is planned in the future to improve the knowledge of the positions of the detector elements on the seafloor,” the authors write. Once that campaign is complete, the data from KM3-230213A will be recalibrated.

Still, the researchers learned something about the direction of its source, albeit with an uncertainty estimated to be 1.5°. At the vast distances involved, that’s a significant uncertainty. “The probability that KM3-230213A is of cosmic origin is much greater than any hypothesis involving an atmospheric origin,” the paper states.

The researchers identified some candidate sources.

“Extragalactic neutrino sources should be dominated by active galactic nuclei, and blazars are of particular interest considering the very-high energy of KM3-230213A,” the paper states. “To compile a census of potential blazar counterparts within the 99% confidence region of KM3-230213A, archival multiwavelength data were also explored.”

The researchers identified 12 potential source blazars in different survey catalogues.

The red star in this figure shows KM3-230213A. The three concentric red circles show the error regions within R(68%), R(90%) and R(99%). Selected source candidates and their directions are shown as coloured markers. The colours and marker type indicate the criterion according to which the source was selected, e.g. VLBI is Very Large Baseline Interferometry. The sources are numbered according to their proximity to KM3-230213A. Image Credit: The KM3NeT Collaboration, 2025.

Neutrinos are abundant yet elusive. They pass right through the Earth unimpeded, and about 100 trillion of them pass through our bodies every second. Detecting them is important because of what they can tell us about the Universe.

The extraordinary energy level of this neutrino is significant in neutrino astrophysics. It shows that nature can generate ultra-high-energy neutrinos, possibly from blazars, which are active galactic nuclei with jets pointed right at us.

“This suggests that the neutrino may have originated in a different cosmic accelerator than the lower-energy neutrinos, or this may be the first detection of a cosmogenic neutrino, resulting from the interactions of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with background photons in the Universe.”

The post An Unfinished Detector has Already Spotted the Highest-Energy Neutrino Ever Seen appeared first on Universe Today.

In 1974, science fiction author Larry Niven wrote a murder mystery with an interesting premise: could you kill a man with a tiny black hole? I won’t spoil the story, though I’m willing to bet most people would argue the answer is clearly yes. Intense gravity, tidal forces, and the event horizon would surely lead to a messy end. But it turns out the scientific answer is a bit more interesting.

On the one hand, it’s clear that a large enough black hole could kill you. On the other hand, a black hole with the mass of a single hydrogen atom is clearly too small to be noticed. The real question is the critical mass. At what minimum size would a black hole become deadly? That’s the focus of a new paper on the arXiv.

The study begins with primordial black holes. These are theoretical bodies that may have formed in the earliest moments of the Universe and would be much smaller than stellar-mass black holes. Anywhere from atom-massed to a mass several times that of Earth. Although astronomers have never found any primordial black holes, observations do rule out several mass ranges. For example, any primordial black hole smaller than 1012 kg would have already evaporated thanks to Hawking radiation. Anything larger than 1020 kg would gravitationally lens stars in the Milky Way. Since we haven’t detected these lensing effects, they must at the very least be exceedingly rare. If they exist at all.

Some theoretical models argue that primordial black holes could be the source of dark matter. If that’s the case, observational limits constrain their masses to the 1013 – 1019 kg range, which is similar to the mass range for asteroids. Therefore, the study focuses on this range and looks at two effects: tidal forces and shock waves.

Tidal forces occur because the closer you get to a mass, the stronger its gravity. This means a black hole exerts a force differential on you as it gets near. So the question is whether this force differential is strong enough to tear flesh. Asteroid-mass black holes are less than a micrometer across, so even the tidal forces would cover a tiny area. If one passed through your midsection or one of your limbs, there might be some local damage, but nothing fatal. It would be similar to a needle passing through you.

But if the black hole passed through your head, that would be a different story. Tidal forces could tear apart brain cells, which would be much more serious. Since brain cells are delicate, even a force differential of 10 – 100 nanonewtons might kill you. But that would take a black hole at the highest end of our mass range.

Shockwaves would be much more dangerous. In this case, as a black hole entered your body, it would create a density wave that would ripple through you. These shockwaves would physically damage cells and transfer heat energy that would do further damage. To create a shockwave of energy similar to that of a 22-caliber bullet, the black hole would only need a mass of 1.4 x 1014 kg, which is well within the range of possible primordial black holes.

So yes, a primordial black hole could kill you.

While that makes for a great story, it would never happen in real life. Even if asteroid-mass primordial black holes exist, the number of them out there compared to the vastness of space means that the odds of it happening to anyone in their lifetime are less than one in 10 trillion.

Reference: Niven, Larry. “The Hole Man.” Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (1974): 93-104.

Reference: Robert J. Scherrer. “Gravitational Effects of a Small Primordial Black Hole Passing Through the Human Body.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.09734
(2025)

The post What Would Happen if a Tiny Black Hole Passed Through Your Body? appeared first on Universe Today.

A groundbreaking study explores Ba-Si orthosilicate oxynitride-hydride (Ba3SiO5 xNyHz) as a sustainable catalyst for ammonia synthesis, offering a potential alternative to traditional transition metal-based systems. Synthesized through low-temperature solid-state reactions and enhanced with ruthenium nanoparticles, these compounds demonstrated improved catalytic performance under milder conditions, providing a more energy-efficient route to ammonia production. This approach also addresses the environmental challenges associated with conventional methods, signaling a shift toward greener industrial practices in ammonia production.