Astronomers have found the oldest planet yet discovered. It's thought to be habitable and is very close to us. The newly discovered planet has been named Kapteyn b. It's 13 light-years away and, according to scientists, 11.5 billion years old. This makes it 2.5 times older than our Earth and only 2 billion years older than the universe itself. […]
Yes, it's a great title to start with. People take pictures and caption them with things like "enjoying ice cream with friends," "enjoying a vacation with friends," and "enjoying carts and curts." So, I figured, "Why not write an essay like this?" It was a good one, and it was. The idea first came to me two days ago. I found a strange question somewhere and shared it on my Facebook profile […]
When it comes to artificial intelligence or robots, the first thing that comes to mind is Skynet. Or for the general public who haven't seen the Terminator movie and then gotten around to it, Terminator simply comes to mind. It was a great movie from my childhood. The second film, Judgment Day, is especially considered a masterpiece. I can't remember how many times I've watched it. Contrary to what many people know, I've read a lot of books besides Terminator […]
This colourful new image, taken with the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile, shows the star cluster NGC 3590. Its stars shine against a striking landscape of dark dust patches and glowing clouds of rich gas. This small stellar cluster offers astronomers clues about how these stars form and evolve — and also provides insights into the pinwheel-like structure of our own galaxy.
Magnetars are the strange, superdense remnants of supernova explosions. They are the most powerful magnets known in the Universe—millions of times stronger than the strongest magnet on Earth. A team of European astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) thinks they have found a companion star to a magnetar for the first time. The discovery may help explain how magnetars form—a 35-year-old puzzle—and why they […]
In fact, it's always bothered me, too. I wish I could write software and simulate a tiny corner of the universe. But with today's technology, the universe has been simulated from a very short time after the Big Bang until today. Specifically, in a way that's consistent with the properties of our universe. Simulations so far have always failed. They couldn't be done on large scales. […]
