Large Structure in Space

The universe is more connected than you might think: In recent years, scientists have used new tools and techniques to map the “cosmic web,” which is made up of intertwined strands of gas structures known as filaments that link galaxies. Now, a team of researchers have identified a new “large-scale structure” in the universe that they call the “Cosmic Vine.”

The researchers hail from numerous universities and institutions across Denmark, Chile, the U.K., and the Netherlands. They published a preprint of their work to the arXiv server on November 8. According to the study, the Cosmic Vine was spotted after poring over data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), humanity’s most powerful tool for peering into the far reaches of space and time.  READ MORE...

Snake Like Galaxy

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have imaged a snake-like galaxy. Scientists named the galaxy NGC 1087, and it is swirling through space almost 80,000 light-years from our planet.


ALMA’s image of this snake-like galaxy is breathtaking
The snake-like galaxy spans over 86,800 light-years across. It can be found within the constellation Cetus. This particular part of the sky is home to several other water-themed constellations, too, such as Pisces and Aquarius. It isn’t the largest galaxy we have discovered but, it’s still impressive.

They created the main image by combining multiple images from ALMA and the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on the ESO’s VLT. This allowed the ESO to create an image that showcases the full galaxy, along with the cold clouds of star-spawning gas that surrounds it. Additionally, the areas tinted with blue represent older stars that are more mature.

Scientists captured the shots as part of a conjunctive project called the Physics at High Angular Resolutions in Nearby Galaxies Survey, or PHANGS. The team assigned scientists to help deliver a catalog of high-resolution observations of nearby galaxies while using telescopes that target a wide range of different wavelengths. This snake-like galaxy is just one that the team has seen.

And ALMA is perfect for capturing images of galaxies like this because of how high up it is. The observatory is located at an altitude of 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) in Chile. As such, it has an excellent vantage point for the 66 radio telescopes the observatory is equipped with.  READ MORE...

A spiral galaxy is curled up like a sleeping serpent in a striking new image from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).ALMA's high altitude of 16,500 feet (5,000 meters) and extremely dry climate in Chile's Atacama Desert provide an excellent vantage point for the observatory's 66 radio telescopes to penetrateSwirling silently 80 million light-years from Earth like a sleeping, coiled snake, NGC 1087 is an intermediate spiral galaxy that spans 86,800 light-years in the constellation Cetus. This area of the sky is named after a sea monster from Greek mythology and is home to other water-themed constellations, like AquariuSeen as a composite image composed of shots taken at different wavelengths, ALMA's observations capture the galaxy's lava-like reddish hue, which represents cold clouds of star-spawning molecularThe blue-tinted regions indicate areas of older, more mature stars, all imaged by the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on ESO's Very Large Telescope, located at the expansive ALMA observatory site, ESO representatives said in a statement(op

Waiting For A Star To Explode

Supernova 1987A appears as a bright spot near the centre of this image of the Tarantula nebula, taken by the ESO Schmidt Telescope.Credit: ESO

Masayuki Nakahata has been waiting 35 years for a nearby star to explode.

He was just starting out in science the last time it happened, in February 1987, when a dot of light suddenly appeared in the southern sky. This is the closest supernova seen during modern times; and the event, known as SN 1987A, gained worldwide media attention and led to dramatic advances in astrophysics.

Nakahata was a graduate student at the time, working on what was then one of the world’s foremost neutrino catchers, the Kamiokande-II detector at the Kamioka Underground Observatory near Hida, Japan. He and a fellow student, Keiko Hirata, spotted evidence of neutrinos pouring out of the supernova — the first time anyone had seen these fundamental particles originating from anywhere outside the Solar System.

Now, Nakahata, a physicist at the University of Tokyo, is ready for when a supernova goes off. He is head of the world’s largest neutrino experiment of its kind, Super-Kamiokande, where upgrades to its supernova alert system were completed late last year. The improvements will enable the observatory’s computers to recognize when it is detecting neutrinos from a supernova, almost in real time, and to send out an automated alert to conventional telescopes worldwide.

Astronomers will be waiting. “It’s gonna give everybody the willies,” says Alec Habig, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Early warning from Super-Kamiokande and other neutrino observatories will trigger robotic telescopes — in many cases responding with no human intervention — to swivel in the direction of the dying star to catch the first light from the supernova, which will come after the neutrino storm.

But when the light arrives, it could be too much of a good thing, says Patrice Bouchet, an astrophysicist at the University of Paris-Saclay who made crucial observations of SN 1987A, from the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The brightest events, which would shine brighter than a full Moon and be visible during the day, would overwhelm the ultra-sensitive but delicate sensors in the telescopes used by professional astronomers.

Life Expectancy

New research this week puts the enormous loss of life caused by the covid-19 pandemic into greater context. The study of 29 countries across Europe and North and South America found that nearly all experienced a reduction in life expectancy last year, while some countries had the largest drops seen since World War II.

Life expectancy at birth is a commonly used metric of a country’s overall health. It estimates how long the average person born in a particular year (2020, for example) would be expected to survive, given current trends in mortality among different age groups. 

Over time, life expectancy has trended upward in many countries, thanks to more people living longer into their senior years. But when annual deaths increase significantly for whatever reason, especially when these deaths involve younger people, life expectancy can go down. 

In the U.S., for example, life expectancy had inched lower in recent years due largely to drug overdoses.

Researchers in the UK and Denmark tried to quantify the impact of the pandemic last year on the life expectancy of 29 countries, using mortality figures from 2015 to 2020. These countries included the U.S., Chile, and most of Europe. The results were published Monday in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Overall, life expectancy dropped from 2019 to 2020 in 27 out of 29 countries, and 22 countries experienced a drop larger than half a year. 

Many countries saw a loss that effectively wiped out five years of progress, with women in 15 countries and men in 10 countries having a life expectancy lower than what was recorded in 2015.

Some, including the U.S., also experienced a year-to-year drop not seen since other great calamities like the end of the Soviet Union or World War II.  READ MORE...