The Earth is constantly bombarded by high-energy charged particles called cosmic rays. We are normally shielded from such attacks by Earth’s magnetic bubble, or magnetosphere. But what happens when this …
A giant explosion occurs in a galaxy close to the Milky Way, dumping the equivalent of about 50 million suns into its surroundings. Astronomers have mapped this galactic pollution event …
LHAASO has discovered a super cosmic ray accelerator in a gamma-ray bubble in the Cygnus region, marking significant progress in understanding cosmic rays with energies above 10 PeV and their …
New research reveals more clues about an extreme event that occurred on Earth 41,000 years ago, when the Earth’s magnetic field temporarily weakened, causing large amounts of cosmic rays to …
Supernova SN 2023ixf provided astronomers with an unusual opportunity when it exploded last year. Unfortunately, it deepens rather than solves the problem of interpreting cosmic rays. It also casts doubt …
The white cracks on the surface of the magnetar represent starquake activity, and the conical spikes extending from the surface represent multiple rapid bursts. The spikes vary in size, reflecting …
Comparison of resolution of CMB data collected by Planck and SPT-3G. Image source: Antarctic Telescope: https://pole.uchicago.edu/public/Home.html Thanks to a dizzying growth in tools for observing and measuring the universe, as …
Image source: CC0 Public Domain Earth’s magnetic field protects us from dangerous radiation from space, but it’s not as permanent as we think. Scientists at the European Geosciences Union conference …
Astrophysicists have discovered why spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are so rare in the supergalactic plane, a dense region of our local universe. The study, led by Durham University …
A survey of more than 25 million galaxies has uncovered strange inconsistencies in the way astronomers measure the clumpiness of the universe, which could threaten the Standard Model of cosmology, …