Mysteriously Slow Pulses From Giant Old Stars May Finally Have an Explanation

The extremely slow, steady pulsations of light from many red giant stars may finally have an explanation.

According to a new analysis, these mysterious fluctuations in brightness are not caused by internal processes after all, but by binary companions obscured in clouds of dust siphoned off the dying giants...

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⁣Apollo astronaut Michael Collins dies aged 90

Collins, known as the ‘forgotten astronaut’, kept command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

A statement released by Collins’s family on Wednesday, including a tweet, said: “We regret to share that out beloved father and grandfather passed away today, after a valiant battle with cancer. He spent his final days peacefully.”

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A day after his passing, a petition is asking NASA to change the name of the coming "Lunar Gateway" to the "Collins Lunar Gateway"

The Lunar Gateway will be a space station in orbit around the Moon that will provide staging for all future lunar astronauts in the Artemis Program. Before they descend to the surface of the Moon, they will all pass through the Gateway.

Michael Collins was one of the three astronauts aboard Apollo 11, the mission that landed the first men on the Moon. However, Michael Collins did not descend to the surface. He remained alone in orbit for the entirety of his fellow astronauts' trip to the surface. He orbited the Moon for nearly 21 and a half hours by himself.

It is, for this reason, why we believe the Lunar Gateway should be renamed after him. He watched as his fellow astronauts descended onto the surface, just as many astronauts will do from the Gateway in the future.

>> Sign the petition <<

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Scientists Discover Psychedelic-Like Drug That Doesn't Cause Hallucinations

Scientists have discovered a psychedelic-like drug that can produce rapid, long-lasting antidepressant effects in mice without the effect of hallucinations.

The molecule, called AAZ-A-154, acts on the same serotonin receptors in the brain as antipsychotic drugs (like clozapine) and psychedelics (like LSD), promoting neuronal growth and producing beneficial behaviors in rodents for weeks after a single dose.

Researchers say the treatment is comparable to the fast-acting nature of ketamine, which has recently emerged as a promising drug for conditions like depression, substance abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Sea Level Rise From Antarctic Melt Could Be 30% Higher Than We Thought

As global temperatures continue to rise due to anthropogenic climate breakdown, water currently locked in the form of Antarctic ice will melt into the oceans, raising sea levels to a point that will have a significant impact on coastal communities, even in the next few decades.

Over the next 1,000 years, our best predictions have put this rise at 3.2 meters (10.5 feet), but new research suggests that even this worrying figure might be a little too optimistic. According to a revised prediction, the rise over the next millennium could be a meter higher still, resulting in up to 30 percent additional increase.

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Are antimatter stars firing bullets of antihelium at Earth?

Fourteen possible antimatter stars (“antistars”) have been flagged up by astronomers searching for the origin of puzzling amounts of antihelium nuclei detected coming from deep space by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) on the International Space Station.

Antihelium-4 was created for the first time in 2011, in particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. At the time, scientists stated that if antihelium-4 were detected coming from space, then it would definitely have to come from the fusion process inside an antistar.

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Lightning Has Powerful Air Cleaning Properties, Surprising Analysis Reveals

Lightning could be a much more important atmospheric cleanser than previously thought, according to a new analysis of historical measurements gathered from a storm-chasing airplane back in 2012 – data which were originally thought to be inaccurate.

While some of the air-scrubbing qualities of lightning bolts are already well understood – in particular the creation of nitric oxide and hydroxide that can flush out various greenhouse gases from the sky – there's a lot more going on here, according to the new research.

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Venus Flyby Reveals Low-Frequency Radio Signal Detected in The Planet's Atmosphere

During a close flyby of the planet Venus in July 2020, NASA's Parker Solar Probe detected something odd.

As it dipped just 833 kilometers above the Venusian surface, the probe's instruments recorded a low-frequency radio signal - a telltale sign that Parker had skimmed through the ionosphere, a layer of the planet's upper atmosphere.

This was the first time an instrument had been able to record direct in situ measurements of Venus' upper atmosphere in nearly three decades, and the data recorded gives us a new understanding of how Venus changes in response to cyclic changes in the Sun.

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